Inviting and Onboarding Participants
How participants receive their invitation, confirm their identity, and reach the ballot
Assembley Editorial
Getting participants from "you have a meeting" to "I have cast my vote" is the part of an assembly that touches the most people, so it pays to understand the flow. This article walks through how invitations and onboarding work, and how to keep the experience smooth.
How a participant gets in
For a remote or hybrid assembly, the path is short by design:
- Invitation. When the assembly goes live, each eligible voter is sent a personal invitation, typically a unique link to access their ballot.
- The meeting code. While the assembly is live, the participant enters the meeting code the chair shows. The link alone is not enough. See How People Join an Assembly.
- Access the ballot. Once verified, the participant reaches the ballot and can vote on each open agenda item.
Because the invitation is personal and the meeting code is only shown during the meeting, each ballot is tied to the member it was sent to, which is what makes the result defensible later.
This is how an invited assembly works. In a self-registration assembly nobody is invited: people register themselves at the meeting, confirm a one-time code sent to their email, and vote once you accept them.
Who receives an invitation
Invitations go to the assembly's eligible voters: the set you define when you create the assembly. You can restrict an assembly to a single voter group, so the same register can serve different meetings. The eligible set is fixed when the assembly goes live, so last-minute register edits don't change who was invited for that meeting. See Sending Invitations and Managing Eligibility.
Preparing for a smooth onboarding
A few habits prevent day-of friction:
- Check email addresses before you go live. Invitations are delivered by email, so an accurate address for each voter matters. Clean your register first (see Editing and Removing Voters).
- Tell participants what to expect. A short note in advance ("you'll receive a personal link by email, and the chair will give a meeting code") reduces support questions.
- Know the meeting code. Members enter it during the live session as a second step; make sure whoever chairs the meeting can share it.
In-person and hybrid participants
Not everyone joins from a laptop at home. For in-person or hybrid meetings, participants in the room can be brought into the same digital record, so the attendance and votes are captured consistently whether someone is present or remote. See Remote vs In-Person Participation.
Where to go next
Once your participants can get in, the rest is the meeting itself: read Creating Your First Assembly and Running a Live Assembly. For the foundations, see Getting Started with Assembley.
This page is general information, not legal advice. Rules change and your articles of association may differ, so check the current rules or ask an adviser before you rely on it.
Related articles
- Advance votingAdvance voting lets voters vote on chosen items before the meeting, from the personal link in their notice. An advance vote is final once cast.
- Elections with candidatesAn election is an agenda item where voters choose between candidates rather than vote for or against a proposal. You set the candidates, the number of seats and the voting method.
- Secret ballotsA secret ballot records that a member voted, but not how. You turn it on for each agenda item, in the item's settings, before voting opens on that item.