SteadyState and BoardDocs: which one, and when
What each one is for
BoardDocs has been around since 2002 and is used by boards across the country, including most Maryland county school boards. It is a mature tool for building agenda packets, generating minutes, keeping a searchable policy library, and publishing a public transparency portal with separate public and members-only views. If your job is to assemble the meeting, publish the packet, and give the public a clean record, BoardDocs does that work well and has done it for a long time. Diligent acquired BoardDocs in 2016 and is now moving customers to a successor product, Diligent Community.
SteadyState does a different job. It runs the decision itself, from draft to a locked record: a member drafts a decision, eligible members vote on it, the database refuses to alter the approved record, and follow-up actions get owners and due dates. It installs into your own Microsoft 365 environment and stores everything in your own Microsoft database (Dataverse). There is no SteadyState-hosted service. We never receive, host, or access your records.
The two tools do not overlap much. BoardDocs publishes the meeting. SteadyState governs the decision. For most boards the useful question is which of two situations you are in, described next.
Use SteadyState with BoardDocs when
You are a school board or a larger public body already on BoardDocs Pro, and the publishing workflow is working. Keep it. Your packets, minutes, policy library, and public portal stay exactly where they are.
Add SteadyState for the part BoardDocs was not built to do: what happens to a decision between meetings. Who approved it, whether the record can still be edited afterward, and whether the follow-up actions actually got done. SteadyState checks voter eligibility in the database, locks the approved record so no one can quietly change it, and tracks the resulting actions to completion. The pricing calculator shows what that layer costs at your seat count.
The two tools run side by side. Nothing has to leave BoardDocs.
Use SteadyState instead when
You are a smaller board or committee, roughly 10 to 40 seats, and one of these is true:
- You have no board software today and are pricing your first tool.
- You are on BoardDocs LT, which does not support voting at any price.
- What you need most is a trustworthy vote record: who was eligible, who voted, and proof the result was not changed afterward. Publishing to the public matters less to you.
- You are pricing against a tight budget. SteadyState's price is published, includes voting at every tier, and the pricing calculator gives you the number without a sales call.
In this situation SteadyState stands on its own. You get the decision lifecycle and the locked record without paying for a publishing layer you may not need. Outcomes reach the people who need them through Microsoft Teams.
Which fits you? Three questions
Answer these in order.
Q1. Do you publish agendas and minutes to the public today, and do you need to keep doing that?
- Yes: keep BoardDocs for publishing. Continue to Q2 to see whether you also need the decision layer.
- No: SteadyState alone may cover you. Continue to Q2.
Q2. Does your board vote between meetings, or only inside a scheduled meeting?
- Between meetings, or you wish you could: SteadyState fits. It runs eligibility-checked votes without a meeting. If you answered "yes" to Q1, run SteadyState alongside BoardDocs. If you answered "no," SteadyState on its own is likely enough.
- Only inside meetings, on BoardDocs Pro: your live in-meeting voting is already handled. Continue to Q3 to check the record side.
- Only inside meetings, on BoardDocs LT: LT has no voting. SteadyState adds it. Use it alongside LT, or in place of it if you do not need LT's publishing.
Q3. Once a decision is approved, can someone with admin access still edit the record?
- Yes: SteadyState locks approved records in the database itself, so the edit is refused no matter what tool attempts it, including administrator tools and spreadsheet connections. Add it to what you have, or use it as your record of decisions.
- No, you are confident the record cannot be changed: you may not need SteadyState today. If you want to see how the lock behaves before deciding, the interactive demo shows it.
If your answers do not land cleanly on one path, talk to us and we will tell you honestly whether SteadyState helps.
Capability comparison
Only rows we could verify are shown. Where we could not confirm how BoardDocs handles something, it is left out rather than guessed at.
| Capability | BoardDocs | SteadyState |
|---|---|---|
| Packets, minutes, policy library, and public portal | The core of the product: agenda templates and packets, a minutes generator, searchable policy books, and a transparency portal with public and members-only views | Not in v1. Minutes are a field on the meeting record, and outcomes are shared through Teams |
| Voting | Live in-meeting motions and roll call on the Pro tier; the LT tier has no voting | In-app voting from the moment it installs; the system checks each voter's eligibility before accepting the vote; a reject requires a written reason; the tally is computed by the database, not assembled by hand |
| Decision lifecycle between meetings | Built around the scheduled meeting | Draft, submit, vote, verdict, with no meeting required |
| Record immutability | Access is managed in application configuration | The database itself blocks every change and deletion on an approved record, and the refusal is the same no matter what tool makes the attempt, including administrator tools and spreadsheet connections. You can trigger it yourself in the demo |
| Change by amendment | No documented equivalent | Amend creates a new linked decision and routes it through approval; the original is marked Superseded and stays in the register |
| Follow-up actions | Not a capability we could verify | Actions with owners, due dates, and blocked-state tracking; overdue items surface on the home dashboard |
| Data location | Vendor-hosted (Diligent on AWS) | Your own Microsoft 365 environment; the vendor cannot access your records |
Packets, minutes, policy library, and public portal
- BoardDocs
- The core of the product: agenda templates and packets, a minutes generator, searchable policy books, and a transparency portal with public and members-only views
- SteadyState
- Not in v1. Minutes are a field on the meeting record, and outcomes are shared through Teams
Voting
- BoardDocs
- Live in-meeting motions and roll call on the Pro tier; the LT tier has no voting
- SteadyState
- In-app voting from the moment it installs; the system checks each voter's eligibility before accepting the vote; a reject requires a written reason; the tally is computed by the database, not assembled by hand
Decision lifecycle between meetings
- BoardDocs
- Built around the scheduled meeting
- SteadyState
- Draft, submit, vote, verdict, with no meeting required
Record immutability
- BoardDocs
- Access is managed in application configuration
- SteadyState
- The database itself blocks every change and deletion on an approved record, and the refusal is the same no matter what tool makes the attempt, including administrator tools and spreadsheet connections. You can trigger it yourself in the demo
Change by amendment
- BoardDocs
- No documented equivalent
- SteadyState
- Amend creates a new linked decision and routes it through approval; the original is marked Superseded and stays in the register
Follow-up actions
- BoardDocs
- Not a capability we could verify
- SteadyState
- Actions with owners, due dates, and blocked-state tracking; overdue items surface on the home dashboard
Data location
- BoardDocs
- Vendor-hosted (Diligent on AWS)
- SteadyState
- Your own Microsoft 365 environment; the vendor cannot access your records
Where your records live
This is a design difference worth asking any vendor about. In a vendor-hosted platform, the rules deciding who can see a record are software settings on the vendor's servers – and the category has had publicly reported misconfiguration incidents, including one at BoardDocs in 2025. That is not a criticism of any one product so much as a property of the architecture: a hosted copy exists, so its access rules can be misconfigured.
In SteadyState, the records never leave your environment. They sit in your own Microsoft database, under your organization's own sign-ins, permissions, and audit history. There is no SteadyState server for them to be exposed from, because we do not hold them.
Pricing
BoardDocs pricing is quote-based and not published, so we will not put a number on their side. SteadyState's price is published: run your board through the pricing calculator, which covers the seat minimum, the one-month free trial, the annual option, and the separate Power Apps licensing from Microsoft. People without a seat need no SteadyState license. Anyone can share a verdict with them by Teams or email.
For larger boards or custom procurement terms, we set up a private plan on the same Microsoft billing.
See it before you decide
The interactive demo runs the full lifecycle, including the moment the database refuses an edit to an approved record. It takes a few minutes and does not require an install.
- Try the demo at /explore
- Or contact us and we will walk your board through it
Questions boards ask
- Do we have to leave BoardDocs to use SteadyState?
- No. If BoardDocs is doing your packets, minutes, policy library, and public portal, keep it. SteadyState adds the decision and record layer alongside it.
- Does SteadyState publish to the public the way BoardDocs does?
- Not in v1. There is no public transparency portal yet. Decision outcomes are pushed to the people who need them through Microsoft Teams. If a public-facing portal is a requirement, that is a reason to keep BoardDocs for publishing and use SteadyState for the decision layer.
- Where does our data live?
- In your own Microsoft 365 environment, in your own Microsoft database. SteadyState installs directly into that environment. There is no vendor-hosted copy. We do not receive, host, or access your records, and your existing Microsoft backup, retention, and compliance policies apply to them.
- We are a school board with the MABE arrangement. Does that change anything?
- No. Keep your BoardDocs arrangement. SteadyState coexists with it. We are not trying to displace your publishing tool; we add the between-meetings decision layer on top of it.
- Is SteadyState SOC 2 certified?
- The platform SteadyState runs on is Microsoft's, and its compliance certifications belong to Microsoft. We do not claim SOC 2, HIPAA, or FedRAMP certification for SteadyState itself. Our trust model is simpler to reason about: SteadyState holds none of your data, so there is no vendor copy to certify. Your records stay in your own environment under your controls.
- How is SteadyState priced against BoardDocs?
- BoardDocs pricing is quote-based and not published, and its lowest tier does not include voting. SteadyState's price is published, includes eligibility-checked voting at every tier, and the pricing calculator on our pricing page gives you the full number – including the Microsoft Power Apps licensing line – without a sales call. When you compare quotes, make sure the BoardDocs quote is for the tier that carries voting.