In this article, you will learn :
- What is the Topic Hub,
- Why using the Topic Hub,
- How to manage permissions.
What is the Topic Hub?
The Topic Hub is a central place within Sherpany where you can manage both short- and long-term topic planning efficiently.
Instead of maintaining cumbersome Word or Excel files, you and other meeting participants can collect, structure, and manage discussion topics directly in Sherpany.
Once the topics are added to the Topic Hub, they can easily be scheduled to upcoming meetings and added to the agenda with just a few clicks.
Why use the Topic Hub?
The Topic Hub is designed to support excellent meeting management by:
- Collecting and centralising agenda item proposals throughout the year,
- Facilitating co-creation of agenda items with team members,
- Prioritising topics based on importance and timing,
- Scheduling agenda items into the most relevant meetings,
- Making connections between meetings, agenda items, tasks, and decisions visible.
Submitting agenda item proposals directly in Sherpany helps streamline communication and preparation.
For organisers, it means:
- Proposals are saved in a structured and centralised way
- They can easily review each suggestion (ask for more details, accept or reject, schedule into a session etc)
To simplify the process, requesters can assign users and guests to a topic directly during its creation. This is especially helpful in large meetings, where tracking who should participate in which agenda item can be challenging.
How to manage permissions?
Editors (or Users with access to all content) can manage the topic and the assigned users.
To control permissions, Sherpany uses the concepts of:
- Requesting group: where the topic is submitted from
- Assigned group: the group responsible for reviewing/scheduling the topic
Requesters can assign users and guests directly to a topic in the Topic Hub. The system will distinguish between participants and viewers at the topic level. When the topic is scheduled to a meeting:
- Users already in the meeting will gain access to the topic,
- Users not in the meeting will be added as guests with access to that specific topic only,
- The participant flag will be set if the requester indicated the user is a participant.
This avoids unnecessary access and allows for precise participant management right from the beginning.
To resume, when a topic is scheduled:
| Rule | Result |
|---|---|
| User not yet in the meeting | Added as a guest |
| User already in the meeting | Gains access to the new agenda item |
| Guest already in the meeting | No access to the new agenda item |
| User with partial access | Gains access to the new agenda item |
| Inactive users | Ignored during scheduling |
| User removed from all topics | Removed unless part of a group linked to the meeting |
Information
Currently, the Topic Hub is only available on the web application.