Pacific Council staff walk through website, RingCentral and Concur procedures for advisory members

Council staff gave a step-by-step overview of the Pacific Fishery Management Council digital resources and travel procedures to help advisory-body members prepare for upcoming meetings.

Chris Kleinschmidt, the council IT manager, led a walkthrough of the council website, the RingCentral platforms used for meetings, the council's YouTube recordings and the Concur travel and reimbursement system. "This is our homepage," Kleinschmidt said while describing how upcoming meetings, dedicated meeting pages and briefing-book materials are organized.

Why it matters: advisory members rely on the council's electronic systems to access briefing book materials, submit public comments, sign up for oral testimony, find meeting timestamps and file travel reimbursements. Kleinschmidt said using the correct meeting page is the recommended starting point for meeting preparation.

Website and meeting materials

Kleinschmidt explained that each meeting has a dedicated page listing dates, location, travel deadlines, links to the briefing book, the e-portal for public comment and a how-to/FAQ tile. The council has gone paperless: all briefing book materials are posted electronically and revisions are made in the briefing-book page.

Recordings and timestamps

The council posts daily meeting recordings to its YouTube channel and attaches timestamps for agenda items. Kleinschmidt demonstrated how the playlist for a meeting organizes each day and how the "more" button exposes timestamps that jump to specific agenda items. He said this is useful for members who want to re-listen to a particular agenda item.

RingCentral platforms

Kleinschmidt described two RingCentral products: RingCentral Video (used for day-to-day advisory meetings) and RingCentral Webinar (used for council meetings). Attendees join by default as "attendees"; the council can promote attendees to "participants" during hybrid meetings to enable microphones and screen sharing. Kleinschmidt reviewed common controls (mute, video, screen share, chat and hand-raise) and recommended installing the RingCentral app for best reliability.

Concur and travel procedures

Kleinschmidt and Kelly Ames reviewed travel orders and Concur. Ames said official travel invites are sent from a noaa.gov account and constitute travel orders. Concur is the council's platform for booking travel and filing reimbursements; members must set up a profile, attach a bank account for direct deposit and enable multi-factor authentication. Kleinschmidt recommended using the Concur website rather than the mobile app for full expense claims and noted Concur's recent interface update.

Other logistics

Ames highlighted that meeting invites include hotel reservation links (a JotForm for the March meeting was shown as an example), per diem rates and authorized travel dates by advisory body. She emphasized that not all committee start times begin at 8 a.m. and urged members to watch footnotes in the invite for committee-specific start times or extended-stay procedures.

Kleinschmidt also described the council's communications: a Mailchimp e-blast list, a general Pacific Council social feed and a meeting-specific X (formerly Twitter) feed that posts agenda-item movements during meetings.

Staff assistance

Both Kleinschmidt and Ames emphasized that council staff are available to assist with platform questions and travel issues. Ames closed by asking members to monitor their inboxes for the March meeting invite and to return intent-to-serve forms. After the recording stopped, staff remained on the line for additional questions.

Link to resources: council website (meeting pages, briefing book, e-portal), YouTube meeting recordings and travel and reimbursement pages for Concur.