Free Meeting Minutes Template

Brief

Please note that the use of the free version for commercial/ corporate purposes violates our terms of use. This version of the tool is only intended for personal purposes. For corporate use of this tool, kindly refer to our commercial version.

Meeting minutes are a powerful tool to record major information and outcomes that are derived from a meeting. When done well, it can help teams and organizations reach increased operational efficiency and success while leveraging clear feedback and cooperation. To support an organization’s effort, GPetrium has built a Meeting Minutes solution in excel and word. The Meeting Minutes Word template is a one-page document while the Meeting Minutes in excel facilitates meeting minutes creation and provides a solution to keep track of action items that arise from the meeting.

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What is the GPetrium’s Meeting Minutes Template?

GPetrium’s Meeting Minutes Template is a free excel tool that facilitates the creation of meeting minutes and maintenance of key actions that have come out of the meeting. The tool consists of 3 key areas, the ‘Meeting Minutes’, ‘Action Items’ and ‘Config’. GPetrium has also released a premium version of the tool which features enhancements and new functionalities to drive further operational success including an attendance tracker and an enhanced Meeting Minutes sheet.

‘Meeting Minutes’ sheet

The report is segmented into 6 parts: Attendees, Supporting Material, Previous Action Items, Agenda, New Action Items and Notes & Commentaries.

Attendees – Consists of 10 spaces to fill the names of attendees that are present in the meeting. It contains a drop-down functionality with a list of attendees that have been added to the ‘Config’ sheet. Manual entries remain an option.
Supporting Material – Resources used in a meeting to support its operations. In this segment, users should add the name of the material coupled with the compiler’s name.
Previous Action Items – Prior meetings may have had action items that are expected to be accomplished in the future. This gives space for personnel to see the status of these action items. Coupled with the ‘Action Items’ sheet, it serves as a powerful tool to drive transparency and operational efficiency.
Agenda – The agenda provides the outline of what the meeting is about.
New Action Items – This segment helps to determine, based on the feedback that comes from the meeting, new action items.

Notes & Commentaries – gives the minute takers an opportunity to add extra points of what has been said so far, or to raise things that are important, but could not be added to the other parts.

How to Print

For an easy print shortcut, press CTRL+P. Otherwise, go to File > Print. Once in the print pane, follow these settings: “print active sheet, collated, landscape orientation, letter, normal margins, and no scaling (as stipulated in the picture below).

‘Action Items’ sheet

The Action Item sheet provides space for the organization to keep track of historical items that have been agreed upon in each meeting. The database and dashboard capabilities help organizations dig into what matters, raising transparency and operational efficiency. Once you get acquainted with the columns and the structure of the data, start personalizing your tool by removing all pre-populated data from the database sheet and start filling in your data. If you have questions regarding the definition of a column, please refer to the following:

Table
1. Meeting – Write the name of the meeting. This will help you track multiple meetings and action items in one place!
2. Date – Provide the date in which the meeting occurred.
3. Item – Insert the action item’s name that have come out of the meeting.
4. Status – A drop-down list with to do, pending, in progress and completed.
Slicers: Slicers are used to dig into the dashboard to drive further insight and decision making.
Monthly Activity Completion – Shows the progress of completion in relation to the date in which the task was added to the table.
Completion Status – Demonstrates the overall completion status of the items on the table.

‘Config’ sheet

This section helps to configure the drop-down list for [Names], [Excused] and [Status]. If you would like to decrease or increase the number of options in the config tab, you will need to change the Data Validation for that column, please refer to the Q&A for more information on how to modify such columns.

Ideas and Best Practices

Always use the slicers in the ‘Action Item’ sheet to filter down to the relevant material, otherwise it can be challenging to keep track of your data. Remember to un-filter if you need to see the bigger picture.
Be concise with your data, the tool is set-up to limit the number of characters available. Use the notes and commentaries to add context.
Remember to update the date, location and time on the report to conform with company’s expectations.
Avoid meeting quotations since context matters and it is easy to misquote someone.
Exercise transparency by clarifying what can and can’t be added to the meeting minutes.
Change the header of the ‘Meeting Minutes’ sheet to reflect your organization’s personal needs. For example, not every meeting involves action items.

Q&A

Q: I have updated the dataset, unfortunately the Dashboard did not update. What do I do?

A: To maximize cybersecurity, the team did not use VBA/ macros for the solution. Therefore, in order to update the dashboard, you will need to go to ‘Data->Refresh All’.

Q: I tried to add a new drop-down item to the [Title] Config tab, unfortunately, it does not appear on the Sales Data.

A: The drop-down system is based on the ‘Data Validation’ excel feature, it restricts the entries based on a subset of cells that have been chosen. To recalibrate, you will need to choose all cells in that respective column then on the access toolbar go to ‘Data->Data Validation->Settings’ and change the Source to cover all the items you expect to have on the drop-down.