This guide explains how to use Meeting Notes in Programa. It shows you how to record, upload, and manage all of your project meetings in one central place.
What is Meeting Notes
Meeting Notes brings every project meeting into one place. You can record live in Programa from your desktop browser or your phone, or upload a transcript, or paste one directly from another tool. Programa produces a structured summary, decisions, action items, and open questions which attach directly to the project.
Every project includes a Meetings tab in the project sidebar. This is where you'll find all meeting records, recordings, and transcript uploads for that project.
How to start a Quick meeting
The fastest way to start recording from anywhere in Programa is the Quick meeting button in the left sidebar. Use this when you want to start capturing a meeting before you’ve navigated into the project.
Click Quick meeting in the left sidebar.
A side menu opens listing your recently visited projects. Search or scroll to find the project.
Select the project. Programa creates a new meeting on that project and opens the recording view.
Update the meeting title and confirm the date and time if needed.
Select Start Recording to begin.
Click End to stop recording when the meeting ends.
Programa will transcribe and summarise the meeting within a few minutes.
Important: If you navigate away from the meeting page while recording, your recording will pause. A prompt will appear to let you know. To use the rest of Programa during a meeting open a new browser tab instead.
How to start a meeting from inside a project
Every project has a Meetings tab in the project sidebar. This is where all meeting records, recordings, and transcript uploads for that project are listed.
Open the project.
Click Meetings in the project sidebar.
Click Create Meeting.
Update the meeting title and confirm the date and time if needed.
Select Start Recording to begin.
Click End to stop recording when the meeting ends.
Programa will transcribe and summarise the meeting within a few minutes. A processing status is visible in the Meetings list.
Tip: For best results in an in-person meeting, place your laptop on the table close to where people are speaking.
How to record a meeting on mobile
Meeting Notes works in your phone’s browser, ideal for site walks, client meetings, or any in-person setting where your phone is more practical than a laptop.
On your phone, open and log in to Programa in your browser.
Tap Quick Meeting in the sidebar, or navigate to the project and select Meetings.
Select or create the meeting, then tap Start Recording
Place your phone on the table, or carry it if you’re moving around the space.
Select Stop Recording when the meeting ends.
Phone settings for the best recording
Before you start recording, switch off voice isolation, noise cancellation, and auto-lock on your phone. You can switch them all back on once the recording has stopped.
Voice isolation and noise cancellation keep only the voice closest to the phone and treat everything else as background noise — which can include the conversation you're trying to record. Auto-lock interrupts the recording if your screen locks, so keep the screen on and stay on the Programa page throughout.
iPhone: Voice Isolation is in Control Centre → Mic Mode → Standard (available once recording has started). Auto-Lock is in Settings → Display & Brightness → Auto-Lock → Never.
Android: the names vary by handset — look for noise reduction, noise suppression, or voice enhancement in your sound or call settings, and set your screen timeout to its longest option.
Tip: Recording an online meeting? Place your phone next to your computer. With voice isolation and noise cancellation switched off, the phone microphone picks up speaker audio far better than the laptop microphone picking up its own output.
How to pause and resume a recording
You can pause a recording mid-meeting without ending it - useful for breaks, sensitive side conversations, or interruptions you don’t want captured.
While recording, click Pause.
The sidebar widget will show the meeting as paused.
Click Resume to continue recording in the same meeting.
How to attach files to a meeting
Attach reference files to a meeting record, such as floor plans, images, or PDFs discussed during the meeting. Files can be attached before, during, or after a recording.
Open the meeting.
Click Attach File.
Select the files to attach.
Supported file types (each file must be under 50 MB):
Images: PNG, JPG/JPEG, GIF, BMP, WebP, HEIC, AVIF, TIFF
Documents: PDF, Word (.doc, .docx), Excel (.xls, .xlsx), PowerPoint (.ppt, .pptx)
Other: Plain text (.txt), CSV, ZIP
How to add attendees to a meeting
Attach attendees from your Address Book or team members to the meeting record.
Open the meeting.
Click the Contacts icon to add a contact from your address book.
Search for and select a contact. You can also create a new contact directly from this field.
Select Save.
Note: Attendees is a record of who was present at the meeting. It doesn't give anyone access to view the meeting. To give someone access, you'll need to share the meeting instead.
For more information, see How to manage your Meeting Notes.
Add an existing transcript to Programa
If you recorded a meeting using another tool, you can upload or paste its transcript into Programa. Programa will process the transcript and create the same structured summary you receive from a live recording.
Upload a transcript file
Open the relevant project and select Meetings.
Click Create Meeting.
In the meeting’s action bar, click Upload Transcript.
Select the transcript file from your device.
Wait for Programa to process the transcript and generate a structured summary.
Supported file types
Programa supports TXT, Markdown (.md), VTT, PDF, DOCX, and RTF transcript files. The maximum file size is 20 MB.
You can export transcripts from Zoom, Google Meet, Otter, Granola, or any other tool that provides one of these file types.
Note: Programa does not support audio or video file uploads. If you have an audio or video recording, first generate or export its transcript using the original recording tool. You can then upload the transcript file to Programa.
Paste a transcript
Already have a transcript from Granola or another tool? Paste it directly into Programa to process and summarise it—just as if you had recorded the meeting in the app.
Select Paste Transcript next to Upload Transcript.
Paste your transcript into the text box.
Click Upload.
Programa will process the transcript and generate a structured summary.
For more details on managing your meetings, see How to manage your Meeting Notes.
Need more help with Meeting Notes? Contact our Support team via live chat for personalised assistance.