About Diligent 

Diligent Boards is a modern governance software that helps board members to manage board meetings and securely store confidential board meeting materials.

Diligent is operated by the Diligent corporation — an industry-leading GRC (Governance, Risk, and Compliance) SaaS provider that was founded in 2001 by Alessandro Sodi. 

The Diligent corporation is headquartered in New York, but also has offices in Galway, Budapest, Munich, Vancouver, Sydney, London, Washington D.C.,  and Bengaluru.

One million users from about 25,000 organizations choose Diligent Boards solution to manage their internal control processes.

Executives and board members trust Diligent due to the enhanced level of security, effective product features, and round-the-clock support. 

The company’s employees also provide regular webinar tutorials and in-person seminars to keep their users up-to-date about new services.

With the help of Diligent Boards, you can:

  • Create board presentations
  • Get immediate access to board books and other meeting materials
  • Arrange meetings with your own employees, thanks to the meeting calendar functions
  • Enable secure messaging through diligent messenger and collaborate with the parties involved via note-taking tools
  • Sign documents with the help of instant digital signatures
  • Easily access current agendas and meeting materials from the previous meeting

Diligent Boards solution meets the needs of organizations from many industries. The most common use cases are: 

  • Finance
  • Energy
  • Legal
  • Non-profit
  • Retail
  • Technology
  • Real-estate
  • Manufacturing
  • Government
  • Private equity

Diligent Boards solution fits the requirements of any type of business — from small companies to enterprises.

The main benefits of Diligent Boards

  • It’s easy to upload and manage meeting materials and other sensitive files. You can upload large volumes of data in a click thanks to the drag-n-drop feature.
  • You can view board materials online and offline. No matter the internet connectivity, you can access board books and board presentations at any time.
  • Board members can effectively interact with the help of real-time collaboration tools. You can find streamlined voting, questionnaire tools, and signature approvals. Besides, Diligent software allows sharing comments on particular documents so that other members can react proactively.
  • Diligent Boards provides unlimited training. There are one-on-one personal and group sessions that help new users quickly explore the functionality of the Diligent software.
  • Diligent’s information management security is on a high level. Your confidential board meeting materials are safe with Diligent Boards because it’s ISO 27001 certified. Diligent corporation’s internal control processes have also received SSAE 16/ISAE 3402 (SOC 1 Type 2) audits for nine consecutive years, which also speaks about world-class security.
  • The customer support team of Diligent has deeply knowledgeable employees. Users can get professional round-the-clock assistance in English, Spanish, French, Portuguese, Polish, and German, as well as Indian and Sri Lankan dialects. 99% of the support calls are answered immediately. 
  • An intuitive interface makes modern governance even smoother than you’d expect. An organization’s repository is a one-page dashboard with all the features a boardroom administrator needs.
  • You’re always up-to-date on when the board meeting will take place and who the participants will be. This is possible thanks to the built-in contact list and different functions of the meeting calendar.

Diligent Boards’ adoption

Diligent Boards welcomes all potential subscribers with a free trial period. This way, they can test the software’s functionality before making payment.

There’s also an option of requesting a demo to explore the board portal, and all the board members get professional training from the Diligent Boards team. This way, every new user of the software experiences no troubles when setting up the boardroom, uploading files, and managing board meetings.

After the free trial expires, you’ll need to purchase a full subscription. Unfortunately, there are no pricing details on the site, but you can get all the information after contacting the customer support team.

Pros and cons 

Advantages

  • Improved board collaboration. Diligent’s features improve communications between board directors, administrators, and other board members via instant chatting, comments, voting, and digital signatures.
  • Easy mobile access. There’s a responsive mobile application for iOS and Android. Diligent Boards is also available via mobile browser.
  • Access management. Administrators of the boardroom enable granular permissions. This way they control who can reach the board books and other materials, which improves the organization’s governance.
  • Knowledgeable customer support. All customers admit that their experience with customer support was pleasant, and the support staff always knows how to solve the issues raised.

Disadvantages

  • Scrolling speed is low when browsing large volumes of files. This is especially true about the board portal of enterprises.
  • Administrators can’t complete questionnaires on behalf of the director. Some clients claim such a feature would make the board management process even more streamlined.
  • The pricing model is rather expensive. Many users indicate that Diligent is cost-prohibitive for small companies.