Changing the governance game: This month’s Diligent innovations

It’s 4 p.m. on Friday, and you’re frantically pulling together board materials for Monday’s meeting. Sound familiar? We’ve rolled out a new set of enhancements in Diligent Boards designed to make those last-minute scrambles a thing of the past.

From AI that understands your formatting preferences to mobile questionnaires that work seamlessly across devices, these updates are all about saving time, reducing stress and giving you more control over your governance workflow.

So, what’s new this month?

Smart Builder got even smarter

Building board materials is easier than ever with two powerful new updates: Quick Guidelines and a rich text editor. Start with pre-built best-practice templates for board and investor presentations, audit committee presentations, pitch decks, annual general meetings and more, all inserted with a single click.

Then customize your content in a familiar, Word-like editor where you can bold, italicize, and structure text naturally without markdowns. Together, these updates make creating professional board materials faster and more intuitive than ever.

That’s just the beginning! Smart Builder’s recent innovations include:

• Director access: Smart Builder is no longer just for administrators. Director and executive users can now create AI-powered documents too, so your entire team can work smarter without using up admin seats.
• Global data residency: Compliance just got easier. If your organization needs to keep data local, Smart Builder now supports sites in the U.K., Germany (EU) and Australia.
• Integrated access: Tired of bookmarking URLs? Your customer success manager can now add a button directly in your Boards interface for quick access to Smart Builder.
• Tabular data support: Got financial data in spreadsheets? Now you can upload Excel or CSV files directly into Smart Builder as source material. Perfect for generating accurate reports based on real data.
• Multilingual support: Write your guidelines in Dutch, French, German, Italian, Spanish, or Portuguese, and Smart Builder will generate your document in the same language.

More mobility, greater efficiency and easy customization

Meeting minutes to match your brand

Creating professional minutes no longer means hours of manual formatting. You can now upload your own Word templates with placeholders, and your meeting minutes will automatically match your organization’s style. That means less time tweaking fonts and spacing, and more time focusing on what matters.

Smart tab organization

Ever wished you could control how your meeting books are structured? Now you can. Choose numbering styles (numbers, roman numerals, letters) for each section and decide whether pagination runs across the entire book or resets with each tab. Your board materials will look cleaner and be easier to navigate, exactly how you want them.

Mobile questionnaires done right

Directors can now complete questionnaires on the go, right from the Boards app. Whether you’re in a taxi, at the airport, or between meetings, you can respond without waiting to get back to your computer. It’s a small change that eliminates big delays.

Drag-and-drop meeting book creation

No more rearranging agendas after the book is created. When building a meeting book from Data Room folders, you can now reorder agenda items as you go using a simple drag-and-drop interface. It’s faster, easier, and ensures your final structure is right the first time.

Elevated governance and enhanced security

Diligent Data Room gets (even more) serious about security

Our secure file sharing solution has evolved into a comprehensive Virtual Data Room, purpose-built for high-stakes scenarios like M&A, fundraising and audits. With an intuitive interface and enterprise-grade security, you’ll get the professional infrastructure to stay compliant and maintain full control.

Stay transaction-ready with these five new features:

1. Track document views, time spent, and user activity
2. Require NDAs or Terms before granting access
3. Apply custom watermarks to secure your content
4. Hide member identities during competitive bids
5. Receive real-time notifications for any updates

And it’s not just about individual deals. Diligent Data Room also strengthens governance and keeps internal teams aligned with a secure system of record for contracts, financials, and IP to help you improve compliance and operational efficiency across the board.

Smart Risk Scanner goes live for all users

Risk scanning shouldn’t be optional; it should be easy. Smart Risk Scanner is now live for all customers with GovernAI activated. Quickly scan board books for potential issues before they become problems.

Getting started FAQs

• What’s live now? Most features are automatically available. Smart Risk Scanner rolls out to all GovernAI customers this month.
• Which features require setup and how do I do it? For Smart Builder button placement, Data Room features or regional data storage, contact your customer success manager.
• Where do I find additional training? Updated guides are in the Help Center.
• Will I experience a workflow disruption? No, these updates enhance your existing processes.
• I’m not yet a Diligent customer, how can I see these features in action? Simply request a demo here and one of our product specialists will be in touch shortly.

Ready to put these enhancements to work?

If you’re already a Diligent customer, log into your platform today and start experiencing these updates firsthand. Need help? Your customer success manager is ready to guide you.

Not a customer yet? Request a demo, and one of our product experts will connect with you shortly to show how Diligent can transform your board and governance workflows with AI.

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