Managing Your Speaker List Live

This guide walks you through running a live speaker list from the meeting page, including walk-ins, statuses, the speaker timer, reordering, and the projector display.

Where the live list lives

Open the meeting from your dashboard and you land on /meetings/[id]. The Signups section shows every speaker for this meeting, ordered by the sort position you've set.

Next to the heading you'll see a small dot and a Live label. Green and pulsing means realtime is connected; amber means it's still negotiating. Keep this tab open during the meeting so updates flow in without a refresh.

Realtime: signups appear as they happen

When a resident submits the public form at the meeting's signup URL, their row appears in your Signups table within a second or two. No refresh, no polling, no manual import.

The same channel pushes status changes and reorders to every staffer with the page open, so two clerks working the meeting see the same list at the same time.

Adding a walk-in

Click the + Add Walk-In button at the top right of the Signups section. A modal opens with the walk-in form.

Captured fields:

• Full Name (required)
• Email Address (optional — used only if you later email this speaker)
• Topic (optional)
• Agenda Item (optional, only shown if your meeting has agenda items) — defaults to General Comment
• Organization (optional)
• Accommodation needed — opens Type and Notes fields when checked
• Internal Notes (optional, staff-only)

If your meeting has agenda items configured, the Agenda Item selector lists each one as "Item N — Title". Items that don't allow public comment are still selectable for walk-ins and tagged "(staff only)". Staff walk-ins bypass any public speaker caps you set per agenda item.

The soft-dedup confirm

If you try to add a walk-in whose Full Name matches a speaker already signed up for this meeting in the last hour, the form pauses and shows a warning panel: "[Name] is already signed up for this meeting. Same name added within the last hour. Are they actually a different person, or did this get added twice?"

You then choose Cancel — let me check (to fix the spelling or close the modal) or Add anyway (to record them as a genuinely separate person — two Jane Smiths, a parent and child with the same name, etc.). The check is name-based and capped at the last hour, so re-adding the same speaker an hour later won't trigger it.

Speaker statuses

Every row carries a status. The normal flow is:

1. signed_up — the default when a speaker is added
2. present — they're in the room and ready (this is what activates the timer strip)
3. spoke — they finished their comment

Two off-path statuses are available:

• no_show — they signed up but didn't show
• removed — pulled from the list (the speaker is notified by email if they provided one)

The speaker timer strip

If your meeting has a per-speaker time limit set, the moment any speaker is marked Present a colored timer strip appears above the list with the label Speaker Timer and a large MM:SS readout.

The strip exposes these controls depending on state:

• Start — begins the countdown from the time limit
• Pause — freezes the remaining time; a PAUSED tag appears
• Resume — restarts the countdown from the paused remainder
• Reset — clears back to the full time limit

The timer is stored on the meeting record, not in your browser. Refresh the page, hand the laptop to another staffer, or open display mode on a second device — every screen reads the same countdown to the second. The strip turns amber under 30 seconds and red with a pulse under 10.

Reordering the list

Drag handles on each row let you reorder speakers.

Without agenda items

If the meeting has no agenda items, the list is a single flat queue. Drag any row up or down to set the speaking order.

With agenda items

If the meeting has agenda items, the list is grouped under each item header (General Comment, Item 1 — …, Item 2 — …, etc.). You can reorder within a group, and you can move a speaker between groups by changing their agenda item assignment from the row.

Display mode

Open /meetings/[id]/display in a new tab to launch the public-facing projector view. It shows the live queue, the current speaker, and the speaker timer — all driven by the same realtime channel.

Because it's a separate URL, you can open it on a second laptop, an HDMI-connected display, or a tablet, while you keep the management view on your primary device. Status changes you make at /meetings/[id] update the projector immediately.

Questions or something behaving differently than this describes? Email support@commtrail.com.