About Our Cat Herder Board Portal

Our Cat Herder is a board collaboration and governance platform. The company describes itself as an online secretary or executive assistant to board directors and committees.

Our Cat Herder is a product of Better Boards, a leading independent consultancy from Australia. It specializes in developing solutions for governing boards, executive committees, and executives. 

The platform’s main advantage, according to Our Cat Herder board portal reviews, is that it helps to save money and time on board meeting preparation. 

In general, in comparison with other Our Cat Herder alternatives, the company has a high rating and users recommend it to non-profits and small businesses for secure and easy board administration.

What is Our Cat Herder best for?

Our Cat Herder is best for conducting board meetings, preparing agendas, coordinating communications between board members, and streamlining the approval process.

Here are the features and services that can help to organise meetings and optimize board management.

Group of featuresDescription
Meeting management features Agenda builder to create agendas fast and speed up the workflow
Agenda templates to create and customize unique templates for each meeting type
Board pack distribution to share ​​board materials and meeting papers quickly and securely
Minute taker to document the important records from the meetings
Document management featuresDocument storage to have secure access to confidential data and important documents from anywhere
User access permissions to protect board materials from unauthorized access
Meetings archive to generate folders with files added to the specific meeting
Collaboration featuresChats to have public or private discussions via the platform
Voting to make decisions in or between the meetings
Meeting comments to collaborate with other board members when creating board packs
Activity tracking to track tasks assigned to board members and committees

Features Overview

  • Cloud-based
  • Document management
  • Polls/Voting
  • Document storage
  • Customizable templates
  • Email reminders
  • File sharing
  • Scheduling
  • Attendance management
  • Meeting notes
  • Access controls/Permissions
  • Approval process control
  • SSL security
  • Secure data storage
  • Task management
  • Communication management

Our Cat Herder Board Portal use cases

Let’s look at the industries and organizations that can benefit from using Our Cat Herder board software.

Independent and Catholic schools 

The use of an online board portal is one of the ways to empower and transform the way school boards lead. Here are some of the benefits:

  1. Cost savings. Paperless meetings significantly reduce board resources on preparing, binding, and delivering traditional paper board packs.
  1. Engagement. The platform’s functionality like messaging, task assigning, or progress tracking helps board members to proactively and remotely collaborate with the team.
  1. Transparency. Any of the school stakeholders like students, parents, teachers, or administrators can get access to the data they request quickly and securely.

Associations

Here’s why every professional association needs board management software:

  1. Virtual meetings. Board members can run meetings from anywhere in the world securely and conveniently.
  1. Centralized document storage. Two-thirds of association boards mandate term limits, typically to three years. The portal allows training and involving new board members in the process quickly and easily.
  1. Better governance. Administrative or security concerns won’t distract board members from corporate governance which allows them to focus on better decision-making.

Financial services

The main advantages for financial institutions are:

  1. Regulatory compliance. Financial services and credit unions are highly regulated. The Our Cat Herder board portal provides them with tools that help securely and efficiently gather information for regulatory reporting.
  1. Top-level security. Boards of financial institutions need to store a lot of sensitive, confidential information. Using the board portal, board members can forget about data breaches or leakages. 
  1. Efficient communication. Secure messages, notes, and annotations let the financial boards improve their communication and collaboration. 

Community healthcare

Healthcare boards can also benefit from the board management software:

  1. Security. Healthcare is the most breached industry. But advanced security features like two-factor authentication and encryption help boards protect sensitive healthcare information.
  1. Productivity. Boards can reach decisions more quickly with online voting, task assigning, and messaging.
  1. Cost reduction. Reduction of expenses in healthcare means redirecting the savings to areas of healthcare that directly serve patients.

Pros and cons of using Our Cat Herder 

Let’s learn what clients like and dislike about the Our Cat Herder software.

Pros 

  1. User-friendliness. The software is easy to use because of its intuitive interface and straightforward navigation.
  2. Helpful training resources. Webinars, learning tools, and a knowledge center are really valuable for new users to learn how to use the platform. There are also options for live online and in-person training. 
  3. Professional customer support. Users can contact a customer support rep 24/7 via email or phone or look for an answer among documents in the help center.
  4. Cost-effectiveness. Our Cat Herder is a reliable and functional system with a good range of features for an adequate price.
  5. High information security. The provider has all necessary security certifications including SSAE-16 SOC 1, 2, 3, ISO 27001, and FedRAMP/FISMA reports.

Cons

  1. Integrations. Users claim the platform lacks integration with Office for more convenient work with the documents. 
  2. E-signature. Users can’t sign documents online.
  3. Single sign-on. Users need to have different credentials for different projects, which is inconvenient as they have to remember more passwords.
  4. Desktop version. Our Cat Herder is web-based and doesn’t offer a desktop version.
  5. Mobile app. Our Cat Herder doesn’t have a mobile app and users can access the portal only from a computer.

FAQ 

How much does Our Cat Herder cost?

The provider’s price is based on an organization’s gross annual revenue or turnover. It’s $595 per year or $55 per month for organizations with under $1 million in annual revenue. For companies with over $1 million in annual revenue, the cost is $995 per year or $99 per month.

Does Our Cat Herder offer a free trial or free demo?

Yes, there’s a 45-day free trial. Free demo isn’t offered.