Where should meeting notes live? A short decision guide
Notes are only useful if people can find them. Decide by who needs them, how long you keep them, and where the meeting’s work already happens.
On this page
Key takeaways
- Choose a home by audience, retention needs and where the work happens.
- Link notes from the calendar invite so they are always findable.
- Use one naming convention: team, meeting, date.
- Consistency matters more than the tool.
Three questions decide it
| Question | If the answer is… | Then keep notes… |
|---|---|---|
| Who needs to find them? | One team | In that team’s shared space |
| Who needs to find them? | Several teams or the whole company | In a wiki with a predictable page structure |
| How long are they kept? | Under a formal retention policy | Where the policy can be enforced automatically |
| Where does the work happen? | In a tracker or CRM | In the notes tool, with links from the tracker or CRM |
Make one convention and stick to it
The location matters less than consistency. GitLab’s handbook on meetings asks for agendas and notes in a shared document linked from the invite, so anyone can find them from the calendar.
- Link the notes from the calendar invite.
- Name pages the same way every time: team, meeting, date.
- Keep recurring meetings in one running document or one folder.
Frequently asked questions
Should transcripts and notes live in the same place?
Not necessarily. Notes are for reading; transcripts are reference material with stricter retention. Link from one to the other.
One document per meeting or one running document?
Running documents suit recurring meetings; one-off meetings get their own page.
