Documentation

Creating an account

Go to ordamo.nl and click 'Start free'. Fill in your name, email address, and organization details. You'll receive a confirmation email: click the link to activate your account and set your password.

Logging in

Ordamo offers multiple ways to log in:

• Email and password: The standard method. Use the password you set during activation.
• Magic link: Click 'Send magic link' on the login page. You'll receive an email with a link that logs you in with one click. No password needed.
• Passkeys: The most secure and fastest option. Set up a passkey in your profile settings, then log in using your fingerprint, face scan, or device PIN.
• Single Sign-On (SSO): Available for Enterprise plans. Connect your identity provider (Azure AD, Google Workspace, or any SAML/OIDC provider) and your team logs in with their existing company accounts.

Two-Factor Authentication (2FA)

For extra security, you can enable 2FA in your profile settings. Ordamo uses TOTP: link an app like Google Authenticator or 1Password and scan the QR code. From then on, you'll enter a time-based code in addition to your password.

Forgot your password?

Click 'Forgot password' on the login page, enter your email address, and you'll receive a reset link. This link is valid for 1 hour.

Choosing your organization type

When creating your organization, choose the type: Works Council (OR), Employee Participation Council (MR), Client Council, Staff Representation (PVT), Foundation, or Association. This is important: your organization type determines the legal rules for advice and consent requests. Ordamo automatically adapts deadlines, terms, and binding rules accordingly.

Inviting members

Go to Settings → Users and click 'Invite'. Enter the person's email address, first and last name, and immediately assign a role:

• Council members: Get access to meetings, requests, and documents at the council level.
• Director(s): The counterparty in the request process. Get access to requests directed at them and can respond on behalf of the director.
• Official secretary: Often has additional permissions for managing meetings and minutes.

You can always add members, adjust roles, or end memberships later.

AI configuration

Go to Settings → AI. Here you determine how Ordamo's AI features work:

• Built-in AI: Use Ordamo's standard AI provider. Your data is never used for training and stays strictly separated per organization.
• Custom API key: Enter an OpenAI-compatible API key to use your own AI provider. All AI requests then run through your own provider and billing.
• AI features per function: Toggle AI on or off per functionality: minute generation, request drafting, feedback analysis, and semantic search.

Storage provider

Go to Settings → Storage. By default, Ordamo uses the built-in S3 storage. You can also connect your own S3-compatible storage provider if you want to keep documents on your own infrastructure.

The dashboard (Feed)

After logging in, you land on your personal feed. This is your central starting point. You'll see:

• Recent activity within your works council: new requests, minutes to approve, responses to documents.
• Your open tasks: system tasks like 'Approve minutes' or 'Review request', and manual tasks colleagues have assigned to you.
• Notifications about things that need your attention.

Navigation sidebar

On the left, you'll find the main navigation:

• Feed: Your dashboard and starting point.
• Meetings: All scheduled, ongoing, and completed meetings. Plan new meetings, view the agenda, and work on minutes here.
• Requests: Advice requests, consent requests, information requests, and initiative proposals. Filter by status, type, or topic.
• Topics: The central organizing principle of your works council. Link meetings, documents, and requests to topics like 'Reorganization' or 'Health & Safety policy'.
• Documents: All uploaded documents, linked to topics and meetings.
• Participation: Run feedback rounds and pulse surveys among employees.

Depending on your permissions, you'll also see: Users, Groups, Roles, Billing, and Settings.

Task feed

Your task feed shows everything expected of you. System tasks are created automatically: for example, when minutes are ready for approval. You can also manually create tasks for yourself or others. Each task has a status (open, in progress, completed) and can have a deadline.

Search

The search bar at the top supports semantic search. You can search by meaning, not just keywords. Type something like 'what was decided about the remote work policy' and Ordamo finds relevant meetings, minutes, and documents.

Profile and settings

Click your avatar in the top right for:

• Profile: Change your name, email, avatar, language, and notification preferences.
• Settings: Organization settings (admins only).
• Switch language: Toggle between Dutch and English.
• Log out: End your session securely.

Creating a meeting

In the Meetings overview, click 'New meeting'. Fill in the basic details:

• Title: A clear name, e.g. 'Works Council Meeting June'.
• Date and time: Start and end time. Ordamo uses these for agenda timings and calendar integration.
• Location: Physical location or a video meeting link (Teams, Zoom, Meet).
• Initiator: Which party is calling the meeting (council or director). This is relevant for the audit trail.

Setting the agenda

Add agenda items by linking existing topics from your topic library. Each agenda item gets:

• A duration in minutes: the agenda automatically calculates the total duration.
• A responsible person: who will present or lead the agenda item.
• Optionally: linked documents that are shared with participants in advance.

If a topic isn't in your library yet, create it first via Topics → New topic, so it's reusable for future meetings.

Agenda suggestions by others

Members can propose adding agenda items. These proposals appear as tasks for the secretary or chair, who can approve or reject them.

Publishing

When the agenda is ready, click 'Publish'. The meeting is then visible to all invitees. They can view the agenda, read attachments, and add the meeting to their own calendar via the calendar integration.

Calendar integration

Each user has a personal iCal link (found under Profile → Calendar). Copy this link to Google Calendar, Outlook, or any other calendar app. All your Ordamo meetings then automatically appear in your own calendar, including location and agenda items.

Recording the meeting

Open the meeting and click 'Start recording'. Ordamo captures audio directly through your browser: no separate equipment or software needed. The audio stays exclusively on your computer and is never stored on our servers.

Note: transcription requires the right to use AI transcription. This is included in all plans (Starter: 10 hrs/month, Professional: 30 hrs/month).

Transcription

Stop the recording after the meeting ends. Ordamo automatically sends the audio to Mistral AI for transcription with speaker recognition. Within minutes, the raw transcript is in your minutes editor, split by speaker.

You can edit speaker labels: click a label and assign the correct name. Ordamo remembers these mappings for future meetings.

AI-generated minutes

Click 'Generate minutes with AI'. The AI:

• Structures the transcript by agenda item
• Concisely summarizes discussions
• Highlights decisions taken and action points
• Preserves original wording for formal passages

The AI minutes are a draft. You can adjust, supplement, or rewrite everything.

Real-time collaboration

The minutes editor supports real-time collaboration. Multiple council members can work in the document simultaneously. You see each other's changes instantly, like Google Docs. Changes are auto-saved: you never lose work.

Useful features:

• Formatting: Headings, bold, italic, lists, and tables.
• Mark decisions: Use the 'Decision' button to mark formal decisions. These are highlighted separately in the minutes.
• Action items: Mark text as an action item and immediately assign an owner and deadline. These automatically appear in the person's task feed.

Marking minutes as ready

When the minutes are complete, click 'Minutes ready'. Note: once marked ready, the minutes can no longer be edited by participants. So check that everything is complete and correct.

Approval process

Once marked ready, every attending council member automatically receives a task: 'Approve minutes of [meeting]'. The overview shows each participant's status:

• Open: The participant hasn't responded yet.
• Approved: Accepted, no changes needed.
• Rejected: The participant wants changes. The minutes go back to draft so the secretary can make the adjustments.

You can remind participants via the task feed: the system also sends automatic reminders after prolonged inactivity.

Final minutes

Once all participants have approved, the minutes are final. The status changes to 'Adopted' and the minutes receive a final stamp. From this point, they can no longer be modified, which is important for the legal audit trail.

Exporting as PDF

Click 'Export' and choose 'PDF'. Ordamo generates a professionally formatted PDF with:

• The report per agenda item
• Decisions taken (highlighted)
• Action items with owners and deadlines
• Attendance list
• Date, time, and location of the meeting
• The adoption stamp

You can download, print, or email the PDF to stakeholders who don't have an Ordamo account. The export is also useful for your own archive or compliance purposes.

Emailing minutes

In addition to PDF export, you can also send the final minutes directly from Ordamo by email to council members and other stakeholders. They'll receive a clean email with the report as an attachment.

Uploading documents

You can upload documents in two ways:

• Drag and drop: Drag files from your file explorer into the upload area in Ordamo.
• File picker: Click 'Upload' and select files via the file picker.

Supported formats: PDF, Word (.docx), Excel (.xlsx), PowerPoint (.pptx), images (.png, .jpg, .gif), and text files (.txt, .csv).

When uploading, give the document a clear title and optionally a description. Ordamo automatically detects the file type and size.

Linking documents

Documents become truly valuable when you link them. You can link each document to:

• Topics: For example, link the health & safety plan to the topic 'Health & Safety policy'. This way, all relevant documents are in one place.
• Meetings: Add attachments to a meeting so participants can review them in advance.
• Requests: Add supporting documentation to an advice or consent request.

Storage and security

Documents are stored by default on Ordamo's secure S3 storage within the EU. All files are stored encrypted (AES-256) and transferred via SSL/TLS.

In your organization settings, you can connect your own S3-compatible storage provider if you want to keep files on your own infrastructure. Ordamo then only stores the metadata; the files remain on your own S3 environment.

Fair use

Ordamo storage is intended for normal use of the platform: works-council documents, meeting materials, minutes, requests, and related files. Files are limited to 100 MB each, with a maximum of 10 files and 100 MB combined per upload. The service is not intended for general-purpose file hosting or backups. If usage is excessive or disproportionate, we may contact you to agree on a suitable solution, such as upgrading, using your own S3 storage, or another arrangement.

Searching documents

Using the semantic search function, you can search not just by filename, but also by document content. Ordamo indexes text from PDFs, Word documents, and other formats, so you always quickly find what you need.

Visibility levels

For each document, you decide who can see it. Ordamo offers the following visibility levels:

• Only me: Only you see the document. Useful for personal notes or drafts.
• Council: All council members see the document, but the director does not.
• Director: Only directors see the document.
• Council and Director: Both parties have access. The default for most council documents.
• Public: Anyone within the organization with an Ordamo account can view the document.
• Custom: Manually specify which specific users or groups have access.

Adjusting visibility

You set visibility when uploading a document. You can always change the visibility later via the document menu. Note: widening visibility (e.g., from 'Only me' to 'Council') is permanent and cannot be undone once others have viewed the document.

Secure sharing

For confidential documents subject to the duty of confidentiality (Art. 20 WOR), choose the 'Council' visibility level or 'Custom' with only the relevant members. The WOR requires that council information be treated confidentially: Ordamo helps you with the right settings.

Request types

Ordamo supports all Dutch works council request types. When creating a request, choose the type:

• Advice request (Art. 25 WOR): The director asks the council for advice on a proposed decision. The council issues its advice.
• Consent request (Art. 27 WOR): The director asks the council for consent on a decision. The council votes, and the vote is binding. Without consent, the decision may not be implemented.
• Information request (Art. 31 WOR): The council asks the director for information needed to perform its duties.
• Initiative proposal (Art. 23 WOR): The council itself proposes a topic or decision to the director.

Creating a request

Click 'New request' in the Requests overview. Fill in the title and content. You write the content in the editor with real-time collaboration: colleagues can co-write.

AI support: Click 'Write with AI'. Describe in a few sentences what the request should be about, and the AI writes a complete draft. You can instruct the AI on tone, length, and arguments. You then adjust the draft yourself. The AI does the groundwork; you remain responsible for the content.

Link the request to a topic and optionally add supporting documents.

Sending

When the request is ready, click 'Send'. The request goes to the other party. Ordamo automatically calculates the legal deadline based on your organization type and request category.

Responding

The receiving party sees the request in their task feed and can respond with:

• Accept: The request is accepted.
• Deny: The request is denied. A reason is mandatory.
• Propose changes: Accepted under conditions. You describe what changes are needed.
• Request information: You need more information before deciding.

Voting

For consent requests, you can attach a vote. Council members vote in favor, against, or abstain. Votes can be confidential (anonymous) or public. You set voting thresholds, and the result is calculated automatically.

Deadlines and reminders

Each request's deadline is visible in the overview. You get automatic notifications as deadlines approach. For prolonged inactivity, the system sends reminders: configurable per organization. An expired deadline is flagged, which is important for the audit trail.

Completed requests

Completed requests are archived and remain searchable. The complete history: the original request, all responses, votes, comments, and attachments: is preserved. This is your legal dossier.

Initiative proposal (Art. 23 WOR)

The works council has the right to make its own proposals to the director. This is called the right of initiative. In Ordamo, you create an initiative proposal the same way as other requests:

• When creating, choose 'Initiative proposal'.
• Describe the proposal: what you want to achieve, why it's important for the organization, and what you expect from the director.
• Link relevant documents and the corresponding topic.
• Send to the director.

The director receives the proposal as a task and must respond within the set term. The response can be: accept, deny, or a request for more information. The entire process is transparent and documented.

Information request (Art. 31 WOR)

The council has the right to all information reasonably necessary for performing its duties. With an information request, you formally ask the director for data:

• When creating, choose 'Information request'.
• Specify what information you need, why, and: if applicable: within what timeframe.
• Link to the relevant topic.
• Send.

The director is legally obliged to respond. Ordamo makes it easy to track which requests are still open and which have been answered.

Comments and discussion

Council members and directors can post comments on any request. This is useful for:

• Clarifying questions about the request.
• Internal discussion among council members (only visible to the council).
• Discussion about the director's response.

Comments are threaded: you can reply to a specific comment. All comments are preserved in the activity log.

Activity log

Each request has a complete activity log. It shows exactly who did what and when: request created, sent, response given, vote held, comment posted, document added. This log is legally relevant: it demonstrates that the council acted diligently.

Exporting requests

You can export any request including responses, votes, and comments as a PDF. Useful for:

• Sharing with external parties (lawyer, union, regulator).
• Archiving in your own systems.
• Complying with information requests from employees.

Your data belongs to you, always

Let's start with the most important thing: you remain the owner of your works council data. Always. We process your data only to provide the service: nothing else. You can export everything at any time, and if you cancel, we delete your data completely. No vendor lock-in, no hidden hooks.

Encryption at every layer

All your data is encrypted, everywhere, all the time:

• At rest: Everything in our databases and file storage is encrypted with AES-256. Even if someone were to physically access our servers, your data would be unreadable. This includes your meetings, requests, minutes, transcriptions, and user data.
• In transit: All communication between your browser and our servers runs over SSL/TLS. Your data is never sent over an unencrypted connection. Not between you and us, not between our internal services.
• Backups: Backups are encrypted too. There is no unencrypted copy of your data anywhere. Not in production, not in backups, not in logs.

European servers, European law

Our servers are located exclusively in the European Union. Your data never leaves European jurisdiction. We are fully GDPR-compliant and comply with Dutch works council law (WOR) regarding confidential handling of council information. No American clouds, no legal grey areas.

We store as little as possible

We believe the safest data is the data we don't have. Wherever possible, we avoid storing sensitive information longer than necessary:

• Meeting audio recordings are never stored by Ordamo. The audio stays on your computer and is only processed in memory during transcription. At no point does an audio file exist on our servers.
• You can connect your own S3-compatible storage, so your documents live on your own infrastructure: not on ours.
• You decide what goes into Ordamo. We don't collect anything you don't explicitly provide.

Access control you configure

Within your organization, you determine who can see what. With role-based access control (RBAC), you assign roles and permissions per member. For each document, request, and meeting, you set the visibility: from 'Only me' to 'Public'. This way, confidential council information stays confidential. You're in control of your own works council's privacy.

Independent security testing

Our platform is regularly tested for security vulnerabilities. We work with external security researchers to identify and resolve potential issues before they can be exploited. Keeping your data safe isn't a one-time effort: it's continuous.

Recording, made simple

When you record a meeting in Ordamo, the audio is captured directly through your browser: no separate recording equipment, no extra software. The audio file stays exclusively on your computer and is never stored on our servers. During transcription, the audio is only processed in memory.

Transcription via Mistral AI

Once the meeting ends and you stop the recording, the audio is encrypted and streamed to Mistral AI for transcription with speaker recognition. Here too, audio is only processed in memory: no file is ever written to disk. Mistral does not store your recordings, does not use them to train their models, and the audio disappears from memory the moment transcription is complete.

Never stored, transcript stays

At no point does Ordamo or Mistral store an audio file. The audio only exists on your computer during recording and in memory during transcription. What stays in Ordamo is the transcript: plain text, securely stored and encrypted just like all your other data.

Your transcript, your property

The transcript is yours. It sits in your encrypted Ordamo environment alongside your minutes, requests, and documents. You can edit it, use it to generate minutes with AI, and eventually archive it. When you cancel your account, the transcript is deleted along with all your other data.

AI that doesn't train on your data

A question we hear often: does Ordamo's AI train on our works council data? The answer is no. Your data is never used to train AI models: not by us, not by Mistral, not by any AI provider we work with. Your works council data stays strictly separated per organization. You can also toggle individual AI features on or off in your organization settings: you decide what to use.

Two options, both secure

By default, documents you upload to Ordamo are stored on our secure, encrypted S3 storage within the EU. That's the simplest path: nothing to configure, and your files are fully protected with AES-256 encryption.

For organizations that want full control over where their documents reside, we offer a second option: bring your own storage.

Connect your own S3-compatible storage

Go to Settings → Storage and enter your S3 credentials. From that moment:

• Every document you upload goes directly to your own S3 infrastructure: not to ours.
• Ordamo stores only the metadata: the document title, description, topic links, and upload date. The actual files never touch our servers.
• You manage your own access policies, retention rules, and backups.

What this covers

When you connect your own storage, it applies to documents and files: minutes, attachments, meeting materials, PDF exports. Your meetings, requests, user accounts, and other application data remain in Ordamo's secure database. That data is needed for the platform to function: your task feed, your deadlines, your approval flows. Think of it this way: files go to your S3 bucket, the works council workflow runs in Ordamo.

Compatible providers

Any S3-compatible object storage works. That includes AWS S3, Cloudflare R2, Backblaze B2, MinIO, Wasabi, DigitalOcean Spaces, and many others. If it speaks the S3 protocol, Ordamo can work with it.

Switching is seamless

Already using Ordamo with our built-in storage? No problem. When you connect your own S3 provider, new uploads go to your storage. Existing documents can be migrated on request. And if you ever want to switch back, that works too.