How to use a sharepoint blog to capture meeting minutes

Hello,

Categories are included in the Blog template. You can add, edit and remove categories. It's just a list.

The categories list is used in a lookup column for the blog entries. It is set to accept multiple values.

As far as the link above is concerned, I don't think there's any configuration involved, other than creating the categories that you want to use.

Then just start by creating a new blog post. The rich text field is used just like a word processor, with formatted tables etc. to present the contents. The meeting minutes, the task table, the attendance table in that blog are just rich text in a blog post.

I think what the author was driving at is that it's easy to use Ctrl-F to find a specific word in a page with blog posts. Easier than having to open several documents one after the other.

Thanks

So how would you handle this scenario:

Project: Deploy new software product for an enterprise
Workstreams: Database, Integration, Testing,Infrastructure,App Team

In a meeting the representatives from all these various workstreams are present. The PM asks leads from everyone of these work streams to provide input and what they say is recorded. I need the blog to be the tool used to do this recording. I dont like word documents or the sharepoint meeting workspace.

I want either a sharepoint list or the blog.

So, should the categories be the workstreams? And keep adding to these categories every meeting?
This will create a chronological status record? I dont exactly need separate section for decisions or action items but that would help.

How would you set it up if you were trying to do what i described above?

Ok. Thanks!

So for every meeting I have to re-create the rich text table?

http://www.bitsofsharepoint.com/ExamplePoint/mmbloga/Lists/Photos/mmattendees.JPG

How does that make anything easier?
Do you think the table was created by using standard rich text options / custom HTML coding

It would help if that rich text meeting mins table (looks like a word doc) would appear every time I clicked on new post. The prospect of having to re-create that table each time I want to take mins seems very impractical. So I am guessing I am missing somehting.

http://www.bitsofsharepoint.com/ExamplePoint/mmbloga/default.aspx

It might actually just have been copied and pasted from Word!! Or created once in SharePoint, then copied from the previous blog post to the next, and edited.

The blog makes things easier in this way:
- all blog posts have categories assigned and you can click to filter all blog posts by a single category, so you can quickly see all meeting minutes (blog posts) for a single category. If your categories are the workstreams, then you can quickly see all meetings where a specific workstream has been discussed. If you always discuss all workstreams in all meetings, then it does not help much.

- all blog posts are shown in full text on the screen. This enables you to do a text search with the browser to find a particular text quickly. If the minutes were in Word file attachments, you'd either have to have SharePoint search set up or you'd have to open each document to see if the text you're looking for is in a particular file.

You could set up a blog post template with empty tables and structure as blog post #1. Then, before posting a new blog post, open blog post #1, copy the contents, paste into the new blog post and fill in the tables.

Ok Great! The copy from word suggestion is the easiest.

The only issue is the default sharepoint box where you type in is somewhat tiny and you have to scroll a lot to type and see the various data elements in the documents (pasted from Word). Once published its pretty clear.

I guess that's not something we can change. Any suggestions?

Can we disable the need for approvals when something is published?
Can we alert users when a new post/comment has been made?

You could manipulate the CSS that determines the rich text box size.

This link has some good explanations on how: http://nickgrattan.wordpress.com/2008/12/01/increasing-size-of-rich-text-editing-control/

Can you comment on this plz and then I will close this discussion::

Can we disable the need for approvals when something is published?
Can we alert users when a new post/comment has been made?

Users can set up alerts on the Post library, just like on any other library.

The approvals can be disabled in the list settings for the Post library in the Versioning page.

For lists the Alerts option is found under Actions>alert me

I dont see that menu for blogs. Where can I find the alert me option?

Found it ...Thanks!

Thanks a ton!