With Agenda and Meeting Management Select and Agenda Accessibility and Translation powered by DocAccess, WCAG-aligned, HTML accessible transcripts of public meeting agendas, packets, and supporting documents are enabled across your Public Portal.
In many situations, HTML is a better choice for web content than a PDF because HTML typically offers stronger accessibility, improved search visibility, and a smoother experience for online readers. U.S. government guidance reflects this approach, encouraging agencies to publish information as web pages whenever possible. For example, the Section 508 website notes that federal policy directs agencies to prioritize HTML over PDFs.
Agenda Accessibility and Translation powered by DocAccess also provides translated views of meeting content and your Public Portal interface without requiring your agency to create, manage, or store translated records.
Accessibility Functionality
With Agenda Accessibility and Translation powered by DocAccess, users can find accessible HTML versions of the PDF files published to your Public Portal in two locations.
You can quickly access accessible versions of your PDFs using the Download Files from this Event function on the Public Portal home page.
You can also engage with accessible versions of your PDFs using the Download and PDF Viewer functions on Meeting Files pages.
DocAccess Viewer
Within the DocAccess Viewer, Public Portal visitors can quickly toggle between the Print-Friendly PDF View that users expect and an Accessible Transcript View. The Accessible Transcript View includes a full-text interpretation and summary of the PDF. This ensures equal access for people of all abilities.
Ask a Question
Public Portal visitors can use the DocAccess Viewer’s “Ask a Question” function to ask questions about a document. Questions might include, “What was the total budget for Item A?” or “How much more was spent this year than last year?” This saves valuable time and gets users the information they need. Combined with the ability to translate documents, users can ask questions and get answers in their own language.
Document Outline
Users can navigate documents with ease with the DocAccess Viewer’s Document Outline. Simply click a heading to jump to that section of the document. Selections are automatically highlighted and smoothly scroll into focus.
Translate
The DocAccess Viewer’s Translate function allows Public Portal visitors to translate meeting documents and DocAccess tools into more than 250 languages. DocAccess automatically provides statistics on the languages spoken in your service area, and will prioritize those languages in the available options.
Disability Assistance
Users needing additional assistance reading and understanding documents can connect to a live visual interpreter from the DocAccess Viewer interface. 30 minutes of live visual interpreting are available for free through Aira, the leading visual interpreting service.
Print and Download
Built-in print and download options in the DocAccess Viewer make it easy for visitors to create copies of the meeting documents they need.
Translation Functionality
With Agenda Accessibility and Translation powered by DocAccess, users can quickly translate your Public Portal’s user interface into a commonly spoken language.
The following languages are available in the Translate dropdown, but nearly 250 languages are available once translation has been engaged:
English
Spanish
Chinese (Simplified)
Filipino
Vietnamese
Korean
Arabic
French
German
Russian
With Translation applied, residents can navigate the Public Portal in their preferred language.
Enable Agenda Accessibility and Translation Powered by DocAccess
Agenda Accessibility and Translation powered by DocAccess is available to customers with both DocAccess and Agenda and Meeting Management Select at no additional cost. Agenda and Meeting Management Select customers who wish to add Agenda Accessibility and Translation powered by DocAccess to their Public Portal can do so for an additional cost. For more information or to enable the integration, please contact your Customer Success Manager or Account Manager.
Need Help?
The DocAccess Support team is happy to assist with technical questions related to Agenda Accessibility and Translation powered by DocAccess. Contact DocAccess Support using the form at the bottom of the Support and Setup Guide page.