On August 28, 2026, City of Fayetteville staff met with Granicus consultant Sam for a virtual working session focused on Legistar pre-meeting processes, approval tracking, administration settings, email notifications, and out-of-office/alternate approver workflows. No agenda or minutes were available for this meeting; the summary is based on the transcript of the session. Discussion Items - Sam reviewed the administration settings related to approval tracking, noting that the Legistar Administration Guide is an almost 60-page reference covering each setting with screenshots and descriptions. - The group discussed user-level settings, including email preferences, daily summaries for approvers in multiple sequences, active status, and the "approver" checkbox, which only controls whether a person appears in approval sequence drop-downs and does not change security group access. - Staff asked about removing Rochelle Small Tony from approval tracking after deactivation failed because the system reported she was still in an approval sequence, even though the approval sequence report did not show her. Sam said this would be sent to Granicus engineering for cleanup. - Staff noted that Jerry Dietson still appears in settings despite having left about 10 years ago, indicating a need for general people-record cleanup. - Sam demonstrated local user preferences, such as default controlling body, default department, default file type, default meeting body, color settings, password resets, and out-of-office settings with alternate approver delegation. - Sam and staff discussed using the out-of-office feature and alternate approvers more intentionally. Staff expressed interest, noting that training members would be a consideration. - The group reviewed inactive email templates, including item disapproved, alternate approver not responding, alternate approver out of office, canceled sequence, reminders, approval sequence complete, paused/restarted sequence, attachment changed, file changed, delegated to you, and disapproved review sequence. - Staff requested that the disapproved review sequence notification go to the initiating party rather than the approver, and Sam adjusted the template/recipient settings accordingly. - Staff did not want the overdue individual review request email because they already send direct reminders to overdue approvers. - Sam explained the "from" email address setting and changed it so approval-related emails appear to come from the staff member's email address rather than the Granicus do-not-reply address. - A staff member asked whether Legistar out-of-office status could be set through an API, ideally syncing from their Exchange environment to automatically update Legistar and route items to backup approvers. Sam checked the API documentation, did not see that function, offered to submit a feature request, and said API access could be enabled with authentication tokens and IP restrictions if desired. - Staff declined to enable the API at this time, preferring not to turn on unused features. Key Outcomes - Agreed to enable or keep enabled several approval email notifications, including disapproval notices, reminders, canceled sequence notifications, approval sequence complete notifications, delegated-item notifications, attachment-change notifications, and file-change notifications. - Changed the default from-email behavior so approval notifications appear to originate from the staff member's email address. - Sam will send a follow-up email with a session summary, the administration guide, the people list, the email template report, and the meeting recording. - Sam will submit an engineering ticket to resolve Rochelle Small Tony's hidden approval sequence association so she can be deactivated. - Sam will submit a feature request for API-based out-of-office/away status integration. - The next session will be a deep dive into meeting minutes workflows.
