27 Best Meeting Management Software in 2021

What is Meeting Management Software?

Meeting Management software is a broader umbrella under which several web conferencing and other collaborative services like online meetings, webinars (web seminars) and webcasting fall in. It allows two or more people that are sitting in different parts of the world to interact with one another.

Agenda meeting software is an internet-based software application, hence one must have an active internet connection to attend an online meeting. The meeting management software helps you effectively enhance communication, reduce travel costs and increase efficiency.

There are several meeting management systems available today that run as a web browser application while some others require software downloading and installation. An added advantage of meeting management systems is that they allow the participants to do instant messaging, share online video, file sharing and screen sharing also.

What is Web Conferencing Software?

Web conferencing refers to those cross-collaborative technologies that allow users to communicate with each other sitting in different parts of the world through the internet. Web conferencing comprises of real-time collaborative solutions like video conferencing, screen and document sharing, etc.

• Audio and video quality: In web conferencing, you are required to have a high-quality audio and video. This gives participants a real, life-like conversation experience when they will be connecting with each other from different parts of the world. Further, beyond the audio and video quality, sometimes the software itself will feature tools that improve the overall quality of the conversation.
• Screen sharing: The screen sharing feature is an important part of web conferencing as we have seen that often these conferences become more collaborative. The screen sharing feature should be easy to toggle and navigate. As far as meeting management systems are concerned, this is not quintessential to online meetings.
• Multiple device support: Having multiple device support is compulsory as nobody has the time to sit and join meetings at their leisurely pace. Many of the participants attend meetings and conferences on the go. As a result, many meeting management systems and web conferencing software provide multiple device support for desktop, laptop, mobiles and tablets.
• Easy to use interface: Be it web conferencing software or meeting management software, it should have an interesting user interface. The meeting manager software must run without glitches and users need to be able to easily join meetings and manage them in a simple process.
• Chat: This is a ubiquitous feature to all web conferencing software. In web conferencing, participants should be able to send across messages to communicate. During in-meeting chats, wherein one not only can take down notes but also communicate their ideas to host or other participants.

Web & Video Conferencing Software Features for Online Meeting

In today’s time, meeting management tools have become more popular than ever, for the simple reason that they give you accessibility to interact with others from the comfort of your place. You can join video conferences at your convenience as you are not required to travel to any place to talk to a person. You can simply do it from your phone. Now, coming at the features of a web and video conferencing software, here they are:

• Shared presentation: The most useful and optimizing feature of any online meeting management software is that it allows you to share ideas from a presentation. It is just like giving a presentation to a roomful of people, with the only difference being that here you launch the presentations on the computers or laptops of several participants.
• Whiteboard: It is a useful meeting management tool, especially for calling virtual meetings. You use a whiteboard to draw numbers, figures, etc., and share it with all the participants. Attendees can take turn to participate and mark on the whiteboard.
• Co-browsing: It’s another key feature of meeting manager software that enables you to do multi-tasking and provides value addition to the meeting management software. You use it to look things up on the internet and share it live with the attendees. The feature of agenda management software eradicates confusion and brings clarity and perspective to the agenda of a conference.
• Instant messaging: Instant messaging gives you the ability to check the response of participants in real-time. Meeting manager software allows you to see what impression the audiences have of you. You can also use enterprise meeting management software to communicate with them. However, the only shortcoming is that the audience is prompt and they send too many messages which make it difficult for the presenter to read them individually.
• VoIP audio conferencing: VoIP or Voice over Internet Protocol is a service that allows you to do voice call directly via the internet. As you can imagine, the calls made through VoIP cost much lesser as compared to your regular phone calls, especially when you are calling in a different country.
• Video conferencing: Done through inexpensive webcams, video conferencing allows two or more people to communicate virtually on a face-to-face basis. Though the video quality in some of these calls aren’t really up to the mark and sometimes due to a signal delay, you see a video lag, but still, it is much better than voice call to give both sides a little more personal feel to their conversations.
• File sharing: For someone who is joining in the conference from a far location, this is a really nice feature for them that help them connect with what is being discussed and what is the takeaway of the whole conversation. The meeting management system helps you share files in formats like PDF, MS word, spreadsheet, or any other presentation document.

Benefits of Online Meeting Management Software in the Corporate Sector

Meeting management solutions are cost effective and have made it extremely easy for all of us to conduct/attend corporate meetings from a remote location without having to move even an inch. Enterprise meeting management software enables us to discuss various business strategies face-to-face. Also, meeting management solutions help you with all three scenarios

• Before the meeting,
• During the meeting, and
• After the meeting

Below are the advantages of meeting management solutions:

• Before meeting: It is important to provide critical information to meeting attendees before the meeting so that they can be informed about what is the agenda. Here is how meeting management system helps you with:

1. Meeting scheduling: Strategic meeting management software helps you schedule the meeting when all participants are available.
2. Agenda setting: Setting an agenda prior to a meeting is a sensible thing. Agenda management software helps create meeting agendas for participants to understand what the meeting is about.
3. Agenda distribution: Agenda distribution allows different meeting stakeholders to know how they will contribute to the meeting.
4. Assigning pre-meeting tasks: Strategic meeting management software enables your teammates to come for your help as to how they can help you with the pre-meeting tasks.

• During meeting: In during the meeting scenario, the meeting manager software automates things and makes the meetings run faster. The right meeting management software will help you organize the meeting and prompt you to form a structure. Here is how it may help you:

1. Noting Attendance: Meeting software helps track the attendance of people attending a given meeting.
2. Covering agenda topics: The meeting management system allows you to cover the agenda topics for the meeting.
3. Decision making: Helps you with decision making as to what is the right thing to do for the business.
4. Assigning tasks: You can start assigning the tasks to your team then and there from the meeting with the help of enterprise meeting management software.

• After meeting: For after meetings, the effectiveness of the software is determined by, easy distribution of task, security features, task allocation, etc. Here are the benefits of online meeting management software post meeting:

1. Consolidated meeting notes: Minutes of meeting management software sends you a consolidated report of the notes taken during meeting.
2. Minute documentation: Minute documentation help you understand what all was discussed during the meeting.
3. Assigning tasks: Agenda meeting software helps you remind what tasks have been assigned to which team member.
4. Task follow-up: Minutes of meeting management software enables you to do a follow up on things that have been assigned to the team.

• Improved communication: Online meeting management software helps in improving the communication as you can see presentations made by professionals where you can ask questions and clear your doubts. There are platforms that offer effective participation and communication between the two or more people. Corporates can use agenda management software for their monthly/quarterly meets to communicate with the staff sitting at remote locations.
• Easy access for guests/speakers: A useful service for large scale enterprises, where the organizers invite special guests who are required to travel to a great length to be a part of them. However, that is not the case with the enterprise meeting management software. Here the organizers can invite speakers without spending any money on their travel or stay and still can make them join through online conferences or webinars.

Web Based Meeting Management Software Comparison: Factors to Consider

Here, we will look at things that are essential for you to consider before you buy a meeting management solution. Let’s take a look at the essential meeting management software features:

• Security and encryption: Before you go ahead and buy strategic meetings management software, make sure that the software solution ensures secure access. The feature is required so that your meeting management system doesn’t get hacked midway. Think of it like this, that you are doing a video conference with a celebrity guest. Having a security encrypted meeting management solution becomes paramount to prevent unauthorized access.
• Recording options: This is an important feature that you must check out as you buy a meeting management tool, because many times, you are required to record a session. If you are a teacher, you need it so that your students can go back and understand what was taught in the class at time of their revision. Also, if you are doing an interview which you want to show to your audience or share it on YouTube, this is a must-have feature.
• Integrated calendar: The biggest challenge that we face these days with online meetings is finding a time that works for everyone. We also know that sometimes scheduling a meeting takes more time than the actual meeting. Therefore, calendar integration is a key feature that you should check before investing in strategic meetings management software.
• Technical support: If you are new to meeting management tools, you will definitely need time and help to understand how it works. For such times, you seek some sort of technical support that can help you setting up the software for you or can tell you the basics of how the software works. Also, once you are midway in a conference and some error shows, how will you address it then? Hence the tech support for of meeting management solutions is a must.
• Dial-in option: Like all small tech issues, the said feature can give nightmares to the tech-averse audiences. A dial-in option can help such users in making sure that their computer’s audio and video system are properly connected and working correctly – another important feature of the online meeting management software.

Meeting Management Software: Pricing Details

Meeting Management software pricing varies based on various features and requirements. For example, for a hosted service, you might have to pay for every participant who is taking part in the conference.

If your business requires you to hold business conferences, then you can find service providers that can offer you a set number of seats available per month at reasonable rates.

A large enterprise actively holds conferences, and it would be advisable for you to look for an enterprise meeting management software that addresses your need and provides unlimited meeting licenses. Though it would cost you a little more, it still will be best for you in the long run.