Waypoint #4: Karma Compass in Slack, plus committees

Waypoints is our weekly note on what we shipped in Karma Compass, so you can follow along as it grows.

Say your treasurer chairs the finance committee and keeps Slack open all day. She owes the board a revised budget.

This week her reminder about it can reach her there. It arrives in her Slack DM with a button that says "I have finished this". Her next meeting invitation shows up there too, with Yes, No and Maybe. And the finance committee now has its own meetings in Karma Compass, with its own members, chair and quorum, and a way to send its report to the full board.

Can I use Karma Compass in Slack?

Yes, with Compass Pro. Once your organization adds Karma Compass to its Slack workspace, each member connects their own Slack account and can:

• Ask a question in a direct message to the app. They see "Looking through your board records…", then the answer, drawn from your board's records and limited to what their own role allows.
• Mention @Karma Compass in a channel. The answer is posted so only the person who asked can see it.
• Get action reminders, meeting invitations, packet-ready and vote-open notices in their DM, as well as by email.
• Answer a meeting invitation with Yes, No or Maybe, right in Slack.
• Press "I have finished this" on an action reminder. It asks the board to confirm the item as finished.
• Send a file in the DM. Compass asks whether to "File it in Records" or "Import as minutes" before it does anything with it.
• Use the "Add to Compass" shortcut on any Slack message. Ask Compass proposes what it would create and waits for a yes.

When Ask Compass prepares a change, it comes back as a card with Confirm, Not now and Review in Compass. Confirm acts as that member, and the record shows it came from Slack. "Continue in Compass" opens the same conversation in Compass if they'd rather finish there.

Votes are still cast in Compass. Executive-session material never goes to Slack.

How do I add Karma Compass to Slack?

An administrator, executive director, chair, secretary or board assistant opens Integrations > Slack and chooses "Add to Slack". Anyone else sees "Ask your chair or an administrator to add Compass to your Slack workspace."

Next to the button, Compass tells you what to expect: "Slack keeps the answers people get there under your workspace's retention rules. Executive session material never goes to Slack." The text of a member's Slack message is erased from Compass once Ask Compass has read it.

Each person then connects with "Sign in with Slack". Members whose Compass email matches a Slack account get a DM inviting them to connect. The email only tells Compass whom to invite. Nobody is connected until they sign in themselves. If someone messages the app before connecting, Compass holds the request for 15 minutes and answers once they do.

"Remove from Slack" ends everyone's connection and deletes nothing in Compass. Any member can disconnect their own account at any time, on any plan.

Slack is part of Compass Pro and Enterprise. Asking questions also uses Ask Compass, which is Compass Pro, and automatic action reminders come from playbooks, also Compass Pro.

Can committees hold their meetings in Karma Compass?

Yes, on every plan. Open Members and switch to the Committees view. Each committee has its own people, its chair, who votes and its quorum. The board's chair, executive director, secretary, board assistant or an organization administrator creates a committee. You can also create one in the moment, from "Add to" while adding a person or "Meeting of" while scheduling a meeting.

A committee member can be a director or someone who sits only on that committee. Putting someone on a committee doesn't invite them or give them a board seat. A person who sits only on a committee signs in to that committee and sees only its Meetings and Action items.

Committee meetings go through the same four steps as board meetings: Prepare agenda, Meet, Minutes and Summary. Invitations, replies, attendance, quorum and action items all use the committee's own people, and the emails say "committee" where a board meeting's say "board". Executive directors and organization administrators with a board seat can oversee every committee's meetings without joining the committee.

Committee meetings count toward the same yearly meeting allowance as board meetings.

How does a committee's report reach the board?

Once the committee adopts its minutes, the committee chair or an organization administrator uses "Report to the board" on the Summary step. Compass turns the adopted minutes into a report PDF with who attended, what was decided, the votes and the action items. It files that PDF in Records under "Reports & reference", marked as coming from the committee.

On the board's next meeting, the agenda shows a "From committees" panel. "Add to agenda" puts the report in as an item with the PDF attached for the packet. Nothing goes on the board's agenda without that click.

Who can send the agenda or adopt minutes now?

We also removed the separate approval step. The chair, executive director, secretary and board assistant now hold the same authority, and so does an organization administrator. Any of them can send the agenda, open a vote and certify the result, add people to the board, adopt minutes and manage email sending in one step. Managing follow-ups and playbooks is part of that too, with Compass Pro. Someone who can't act sees who can.

Voting hasn't changed: the chair and secretary vote, the executive director and board assistant don't. Ask Compass, in Slack or in Compass, and other connected apps still prepare these steps and send you to the page to take them yourself.

A board can now have more than one assistant. The Members page has a "Who runs this board" panel with "Add an assistant", on every plan. We also renamed the AI helper to Ask Compass, so "board assistant" always means a person.

What happens when an action item owner replies with a file?

Every action item now has its own page with Updates and Deliverables. When an owner replies to a follow-up or reminder email, their words, name and the time go under Updates. Attachments are saved on the item and in Records, even from an auditor or volunteer who has no Compass account, and the sender gets a receipt.

If the reply says "done" or names a new date ("I'll have it by Nov 6"), Compass suggests "Mark complete" or "Change due date". A manager confirms or dismisses it. A file on its own never closes an item.

Posting an update and adding files in Compass are on every plan. The follow-up and reminder emails people reply to are part of Compass Pro.

Also this week

• When you first write a new agenda, Compass adds "Approve the minutes of <last meeting>, <date>" and attaches those minutes as a PDF for the packet. A committee's agenda uses the committee's own minutes, and executive-session minutes are never attached.
• The Minutes step has "Download draft PDF", marked "Draft, not adopted.", and "Download official PDF" once the minutes are adopted.
• Action items from the minutes now start as soon as a meeting manager saves the reviewed draft, before adoption. A manager can remove one, which cancels it and stops its reminders.
• With Compass Pro, a playbook written to "create an action item" now creates it, says so before you turn it on, and lists "What it changed" with Undo after each run.
• The packet page has one "Open the packet" button and puts "Ask about this packet" at the center.
• Need a hand? compass.karmahq.org/support has our email and a "Chat with us" button.

FAQ

Does Karma Compass work in Slack? Yes. Karma Compass has a Slack app for organizations on Compass Pro or Enterprise. Members can ask questions in a DM, get reminders and meeting invitations, answer RSVPs and confirm changes from Slack, each with their own permissions.

Can board members RSVP to a meeting from Slack? Yes. A member who has connected Slack gets the meeting invitation from Karma Compass in their DM and can answer Yes, No or Maybe there. The invitation still goes by email too.

Is board material safe to use in Slack? Karma Compass never sends executive-session material to Slack, and in a channel only the person who asked sees the answer. Slack keeps answers under your workspace's retention rules, and Compass erases the text of a member's Slack message once Ask Compass has read it.

Can you vote in Slack? No. Votes are cast in Karma Compass. Slack can tell a member that a vote is open.

Does Karma Compass support committee meetings? Yes, on every plan. Each committee in Karma Compass has its own members, chair, voting rights and quorum, and its meetings follow the same steps as board meetings. Committee meetings count toward the yearly meeting allowance.

How do committee reports get to the board in Karma Compass? After a committee adopts its minutes, the committee chair or an organization administrator sends them to the board as a report. Karma Compass files the PDF in Records and offers it on the board's next agenda under "From committees".

Can people who only sit on a committee use Karma Compass? Yes. Someone who sits only on a committee signs in to Karma Compass and sees only that committee's Meetings and Action items.

Try it

Karma Compass has a free plan, and committees are included in it. Slack needs Compass Pro. Start at compass.karmahq.org. If you missed last week, Waypoint #3 covers running your board's work from Claude or ChatGPT.