Running a Live Assembly
What happens when an assembly goes live in Assembley — fixing the eligible register, tracking presence, opening agenda items for voting, watching results in real time, and closing the meeting.
Going live is the moment a prepared assembly becomes a real meeting. From here, participants join, vote, and the result takes shape in front of you. This article describes what happens and what to watch for.
What "going live" does
Taking an assembly live triggers several things at once:
- The eligible register is fixed — Assembley snapshots who can vote and the voting power and capital they represent, so the meeting's basis is stable for the rest of the session.
- Invitations are sent to eligible voters so they can confirm their identity and reach the ballot.
- The meeting opens, and you can begin working through the agenda.
Because the snapshot is taken here, it's worth making sure your register and eligibility are right before you go live. See Sending Invitations and Managing Eligibility.
Presence and quorum
As participants join and confirm their identity, the meeting tracks presence. For a share-based assembly, the platform shows how much of the eligible share capital is represented against your quorum threshold, so you can see at a glance whether the meeting is quorate. For an association, presence is counted in members. See Understanding Quorum.
Opening items and voting
You work through the agenda one item at a time. When you open an item for voting, eligible participants can cast their vote on it; the tally updates live. Each vote is weighted correctly — by the voter's voting rights for share-based groups — and that weight is frozen onto the ballot as it is cast, so the record can't drift. See How Votes Are Counted.
You can watch the result build, see turnout for the current item, and move on when voting is complete.
Closing the assembly
When the agenda is finished, you end the assembly. At that point its evidence package is available — a complete record of attendance, quorum, every vote, and the outcomes, ready to verify or hand to an auditor. See The Evidence Package Explained and Reading Assembly Results.
A calm checklist for the day
- Confirm the register and eligibility are correct before going live (the snapshot is taken at that moment).
- Watch presence against quorum before opening substantive votes.
- Open items in order, let voting complete, then move on.
- End the meeting cleanly so the evidence package reflects the full session.
Where to go next
Afterwards, read Reading Assembly Results and The Evidence Package Explained. To prepare, revisit Creating Your First Assembly.
Related articles
- Building the AgendaHow to structure an assembly's agenda in Assembley — the kinds of agenda items (resolutions, elections, polls, announcements), ordering them, and how each is voted on and recorded.
- Creating Your First AssemblyA step-by-step overview of creating an assembly in Assembley — naming it, choosing its type and mode, setting eligibility, and what happens between draft and going live.
- Remote vs In-Person ParticipationHow Assembley supports remote, in-person, and hybrid assemblies — the differences in how participants join and how presence and votes are captured into one consistent record.