Legistar Approval Tracking Training and Office Member Updates – January 27, 2025
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Legistar Approval Tracking Training and Office Member Updates – January 27, 2025
This was a training and optimization session for Napa city staff led by Granicus consultant Carolyn. Participants included Tiffany, Sam, Natalia, and others. The meeting covered updates to council member records in Legistar, deep dives into the approval tracking system (ATS), permissions, email templates, and a new feature for displaying agenda dates in the approval queue.
Discussion Items
- Office Member Record Updates: The group adjusted start and end dates for council members due to recent re-elections and role changes. Bernie Narvaez's vice mayor term ended December 18, 2024, and he became a regular council member on December 19, 2024. Mary Luros became vice mayor on December 18. Liz’s departure was noted. The importance of non-overlapping dates was stressed to avoid double-counting in roll call. The body header for agendas was updated for interim periods.
- Approval Tracking System (ATS) Permissions:
- Drafters can: add approvers to a sequence, reorder approvers, save personal sequences, and pause/restart the sequence. They cannot remove approvers or change due dates. They also cannot cancel a sequence or extend due dates (these are reserved for administrators).
- Approvers can: pause/restart a sequence, delegate to another person, and approve/disapprove. They cannot edit the sequence itself. Delegation is allowed with a note.
- The group confirmed that the “disapprove” button wipes the pending sequence but preserves the document; it should only be used for fundamental flaws. For minor corrections, pausing and asking the drafter to fix is preferred.
- Due date windows are set per role (e.g., city attorney given 30 days to avoid auto-escalation to an unavailable alternate; department heads given 7 days). Escalation is automatic but can also be triggered manually by administrators.
- Email Templates: The system has 21 built-in templates; most are enabled. The subject line for individual review requests includes “ACTION NEEDED” in all caps. Notes left by approvers are not automatically included in emails; a request was made to add that variable (pending programmer confirmation).
- New Feature – Agenda Dates in Approval Queue: The new setting displays the agenda date before each file on the home screen approval list, and files are grouped by agenda date to help prioritize. This feature has been turned on.
- Early Approvers: Not needed because Napa’s approval sequences are strictly linear (department head → attorney → finance → clerk → city manager).
- Future Training: The next session will focus on minutes (scheduled for two hours) and an administrative session.
Key Outcomes
- Council member records were updated with correct non-overlapping dates for Bernie, Mary, and Liz.
- Permissions for drafters and approvers were clarified and left as configured; drafters cannot cancel or extend due dates.
- The “show agenda dates” feature is now active.
- No changes to email templates at this time, but the possibility of adding note content to emails will be investigated.
- The group agreed to proceed with the current ATS setup; no immediate adjustments to sequences or due dates were made.
- Future training on minutes and administration was scheduled.
Meeting Transcript
Just there was a lot of everyone being too loud and behind you, and it was just overpowering what Carolyn was saying. So I just I asked Natalia to mute if she wasn't talking. Makes it harder to be. But tell you are you in an open office? We thought the new design would make things and it has not. Rude. Well, tell them to quit it. I know. I don't know. Tell them you're on an important call with a very important person. Is it Emily and Gretchen? No, Gretchen's work from home. She's no, just M. Okay. Yeah, I think Gretchen was gonna work from home all day. Yeah, she went to Santa Rosa because she was in yesterday. Gotcha Roger that. Okay. So we'll be all right. All right. Well, welcome back, my friends. We are here to uh have our third call together. Uh and we're getting together today to talk about approval tracking. But before I jump into that, are there any questions or concerns that have come up since the last time we we talked? Um Tiffany, I know I had to fix um my um mistake that I made as I'm working on splitting up the housing authority, but has have there been any other issues since I switched that back. No, not for housing was fine, and I don't and I can't remember when are we talking about like the admin or did we do admin already? No, admins last. Okay, because I have there's one we had a change over, right? Like you well, well, somebody's going to be leaving, plus people got reappeared in January. Yeah, no, well, now because we re-everyone got re-three members got re-elected. So I I went in and I extended their end date. Perfect. Um, but the mayor, even though he was absent, when I was in live manager in our meeting Tuesday, he didn't pull up on my roll call. And I don't know. He's there, and it shows end date of 20 when 28. 28, but when I so then I was like, oh my gosh, but then when I go into my minutes and I did roll call through the the minutes, he was there. So I'm not sure what happened, or if it was a one off or what in the he wasn't in the live, he wasn't in the live meeting, but he was like if I was in Legislature. There was only the four members, not the five. So I was like, oh, maybe I messed something up. And then I went in and looked, and it looks like he should have been there, but then he and he does show up in minutes now. So I don't know if it just I don't know. So I mean, I think I'm fine, but maybe I'll look at the next meeting. But we do have that 1217. Yeah. But I I did go in and um I was able to do add him to the roll call. Yeah. When did you uh extend their dates? Like a couple days ago. Well, I mean, like well before the meeting, I thought I pretty I don't remember, but I didn't did you export it again after you changed their dates or not? Do you remember?
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