What is Boardvantage?

Nasdaq Boardvantage is a board portal – a digital platform for corporate governance, where board members and managers can communicate, organize board work, exchange documents, and run meetings.

This software offers dozens of tools that make it possible to carry out board management and meeting management tasks with the highest possible efficiency. Here are some of the ways Boardvantage helps company boards streamline their entire workflow, and save resources.

Meetings become paperless

Nasdaq Boardvantage clients save a lot of time, money, and effort because they don’t have to print and bind documents for each board member ahead of a meeting. All necessary documents are shared, viewed, and edited online.

Document updates are easy

If the board manager needs to make any amendments or replace documents, this board management software allows him to do that even just a few minutes prior to the meeting. The document updates are immediately reflected across all members’ accounts.

Gathering and organizing data is simpler

When corporate secretaries need to assemble data – say, to create a board book, or to draw the company’s quarterly financial report for the board – this board portal software allows them to store documents from different sources and in different formats all in one place. Folder creation, naming and indexing tools make it easy to keep board materials organized and accessible.

What industries are using the Boardvantage board portal?

Nasdaq Boardvantage serves over 4,000 organizations worldwide. A large number of these are financial services, insurance, banking, and accounting companies. 

However, with so many clients, Boardvantage from Nasdaq serves organizations from just about every industry – including oil and energy, mining and metals, education and research, biotechnology, law, hospital and health care, transportation, retail, and nonprofits (government departments and NGOs).

Main features of the Nasdaq board management software

Nasdaq Boardvantage tools can be classed into three main groups, according to their primary function: document management, communication and collaboration, and security.

Document management features

• Drag-n-drop. This is one of the features of Nasdaq Boardvantage that clients love, because it makes it so easy for them to add documents to the board portal.
• Search and organization features are mentioned by users who consider Boardvantage the best way to keep board materials organized and easily accessible.
• Enterprise sync. Boardvantage users mention that thanks to this feature, sending board materials overnight is a thing of the past, and so is slip-sheeting updated documents right before the meeting. They now share and update documents directly within the portal, and members are automatically notified of the changes.

Communication and collaboration features

• Board secretaries report that the streamlined calendar is an important meeting management tool, which makes it easy for them to communicate with board members and find the best dates for meetings.
• According to Nasdaq Boardvantage clients, the personalized feed is an outstanding tool for keeping directors up to date with relevant board information.
• Board members say the highlighting and post-it notes features make it easy to mark important passages in board materials and leave notes for other users. This saves them a lot of time when collaborating in groups within the board.
• The survey tool is used by Boardvantage customers to carry out electronic voting – for instance, for annual board elections. They find it an easy feature to use, and it significantly reduces the time needed to organize a vote and count results.

Security features

Among the security features that they particularly like, Nasdaq Boardvantage customer reviews mention the user approval process and two-factor authentication for board portal access.

Other Boardvantage security features include:

• Remote purge: by using a system of encrypted folders, board portal administrators keep control even over files that have been downloaded by users. If a user forgets to delete the files from his device – or if his access permission is revoked – the admin can simply erase the files remotely.
• Content segregation: this tool allows the board portal admin to share files within groups, and be sure that they won’t be accessible to anyone outside that group.
• Enterprise sync: besides ensuring smooth file sharing and updating, this tool allows admins to ensure they are not sharing any last-minute updates with the wrong people. When the admin updates a document, the new data is only made public after the admin has confirmed access permissions for the users involved.
• Several authentication options: admins and users can add layers of security to their accounts with facial recognition, biometric fingerprint, PIN codes, and SMS verification codes.

What’s it like to start using Nasdaq Boardvantage?

With a few exceptions only, Boardvantage customers find this board portal easy to set up. After creating an account, the board manager starts by building a customized dashboard. Next, they grant access permissions to board members and any external stakeholders who may need access to the board information.

Each board member can then customize their dashboard to see only information relevant to them. Should any users have difficulty navigating the platform, they can use the training resources available on the portal, or contact the Boardvantage customer support to receive personal training. 

Nasdaq Boardvantage gives pricing details for its board portal on request. This provider also offers a free trial of the software.

Pros and cons

As with everything on this earth, Nasdaq Boardvantage is not perfect. Many customers, even satisfied customers, do report things they wish were different in this software. Let’s have a look at the pros and cons of Boardvantage, as reported by real user reviews from independent review websites.

Pros

• According to most reviewers, the Boardvantage team has a habit of delivering fantastic customer support – clients can contact their account manager anytime and receive a prompt and efficient response.
• A majority of Nasdaq Boardvantage users say the platform is intuitive and easy to use, even for people who are not tech-savvy.
• Software training is praised by many who review this board portal.

Cons

• For a few users, interface buttons are hard to see, and should be larger.
• Some Nasdaq Boardvantage customers wish the platform would integrate with Google Calendar and Google Drive.
• Reviewers also mention bugs with the security questions for accessing this board portal software.
• One Nasdaq Boardvantage client mentions their company’s point person keeps changing, which causes a lack of continuity in the relationship with the Boardvantage team.