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IE Compass · What's included

Everything your municipality needs.

A modern Municipal Operating System — meeting legal requirements, serving residents, and reducing staff workload, all in one connected platform.

Accessibility isn't optional, and the deadline is real: April 26, 2027.

The U.S. Department of Justice's Title II web-accessibility rule applies WCAG 2.1 Level AA to web content and mobile apps that state and local governments provide. For the small municipalities Compass is built to serve, the federal compliance date is April 26, 2027. Every page, form, and record Compass publishes is built with that standard as the working target from the start — not as a retrofit project later.

01 · Meetings & Minutes

Meetings & Minutes

Prepare meetings, organize agendas, manage minutes, actions, evidence, and historical records — all connected to the meeting that produced them, not scattered across folders and email.

Agendas & Notices

Publish agendas and required notices before each meeting, so residents know what's being discussed before they show up.

Minutes, Motions & Actions

Draft, review, and approve minutes with motions and follow-up actions tracked against the same meeting record.

Evidence & Historical Records

Keep supporting documents and historical meeting records connected to the meeting itself — including records digitized from years of paper archives.

02 · FOIA & Open Meetings

FOIA & Open Meetings

Compass gives municipal staff a controlled workflow for receiving, reviewing, tracking, and responding to public-records requests — and a consistent, evidence-backed process for Open Meetings Act procedure — without turning sensitive working material into public content.

Intake & Tracking

Capture the request, description, requester information, dates, status, assignments, and supporting material in one matter.

Search Before Request

Compass can help residents discover public information before they submit a records request, reducing avoidable requests.

Review & Collaboration

Coordinate staff and authorized professional review while keeping internal work, attachments, and legal guidance protected.

Controlled Release

Separate internal case material from what is intentionally provided to the requester or made public.

Meeting Procedural Readiness

Surface OMA meeting-procedure steps and warnings so staff can see what needs attention before the meeting proceeds.

Closed-Session Awareness

Where sensitive procedures require special handling, Compass preserves the workflow and evidence without automatically making the underlying information public.

What this means for your municipality

Fewer lost handoffs

One matter shows what is pending, what was requested, and what still needs action.

Safer information handling

Internal FOIA records and attachments are protected from public search unless intentionally released through the proper workflow.

Consistent meeting process

Notices, agendas, minutes, actions, and related records stay connected to the meeting that produced them.

Clearer resident service

Public discovery can answer easy questions first while preserving the resident's ability to submit a formal request.

Compass manages the workflow — it does not make the municipality's legal decisions. FOIA determinations, exemptions, fees, redactions, extensions, releases, and OMA compliance itself remain municipal and legal-counsel decisions. Compass organizes the evidence, workflow, access controls, and history around those decisions.

03 · Ordinances & Legislative History

Ordinances & Legislative History

Compass turns ordinance publishing from a stack of PDFs into structured, searchable legislative history — residents see what's in effect, staff retain how it changed.

Structured

Organize chapters, sections, subsections, numbering, and ordinance content as connected records instead of standalone files.

Searchable

Help staff and residents find ordinance language without knowing which PDF contains it.

Legislative History

Preserve prior states and view ordinance content at a point in time.

Compare Changes

See what was added, removed, modified, moved, or renumbered between legislative states.

Conflict Awareness

Built-in legislative intelligence surfaces potential conflicts or inconsistencies for human review.

Cross-References

Track relationships between ordinance provisions instead of relying only on manual memory.

What this means for your municipality

Easier for residents

People can browse and search ordinance information instead of opening document after document.

Better staff continuity

Clerks and managers can see the current language and the history behind it in one system.

Stronger change control

Structured history, comparison, validation, and certification make legislative changes easier to follow and review.

Less duplication

The ordinance record supports public access, internal search, legislative work, and institutional knowledge without rebuilding the same information elsewhere.

04 · Search & Institutional Knowledge

Search & Institutional Knowledge

Search municipal records, history, research, and AI-assisted discovery from one trusted knowledge foundation — so the answer doesn't leave when an employee does.

One Search

Search across meetings, minutes, ordinances, documents, notices, and other municipal information from one place.

Ask Your Municipality

Ask a plain-language question and receive an answer grounded in municipal information the user is authorized to access.

Institutional Memory

Preserve useful knowledge when clerks, managers, department heads, board members, and other staff change over time.

Historical Context

Understand not only what exists today, but how records, decisions, and municipal work developed over time.

Research Workspace

Bring municipal records and approved external research together for analysis without automatically turning outside material into an authoritative municipal record.

Evidence & Provenance

Keep the underlying source visible so staff can understand where information came from and distinguish evidence from AI-assisted explanation.

What this means for your municipality

Less time searching

Staff spend less time opening folders, PDFs, and old minutes just to reconstruct what happened.

Faster orientation

New staff and elected officials get context from the municipality's retained knowledge instead of relying only on institutional memory.

Better decision context

Current work can be viewed alongside relevant history without making history the authority for what should happen next.

More use from existing records

The same records used for public access and municipal operations become easier to discover without creating duplicate information silos.

Intelligence does not override authorization. Search, research, historical intelligence, and AI do not create a new path around existing access rules — what a person can discover remains bounded by what they are authorized to receive.

05 · Professional Portal

Professional Portal

Compass connects municipal staff with authorized attorneys, engineers, planners, consultants, and other professionals — without giving those professionals broad access to the municipality's internal system.

Exact Assignment

Professional access is tied to the organization, relationship, member assignment, municipality, and specific matter — not simply to having a professional account.

Context Without the Email Chain

The professional sees the relevant question, matter context, messages, and authorized supporting material together, reducing repeated requests for background information.

Revocable Access

Authorization is checked when information is disclosed. If the relationship or assignment is no longer valid, prior access does not become permanent entitlement.

Advice Stays Advice

Professional guidance can inform municipal action, but Compass does not silently convert outside advice into an official municipal decision, public record, or published position.

What this means for your municipality

Less administrative overhead

Spend less time assembling background packets and forwarding long email chains.

Faster professional review

The professional receives the question with the municipal context needed to begin review.

Narrower access

Outside professionals see the work they are assigned — not an open door into the municipal workspace.

Better institutional memory

Questions, responses, attachments, and outcomes remain connected to the municipal matter for future authorized reference.

The Professional Portal extends the municipal workflow — it does not replace professional judgment. Compass is designed to make collaboration more efficient and controlled while preserving attorney-client roles, professional responsibility, and municipal authority.

06 · Accessible Public Experience

Accessible Public Experience

Accessibility is part of the municipal workflow, not a cleanup project after something is published. Compass presents important public information as structured web content when practical, rather than making residents depend on a PDF as the only usable version.

HTML First When Practical

Important public information is presented as structured web content when practical, rather than PDF-only.

Accessibility in the Workflow

Staff work through connected publishing and record workflows instead of treating accessibility as a separate website project.

The Original Record Still Matters

Where an original document is part of the municipal record, Compass preserves access to that source while giving the public a more usable web presentation.

A Better Resident Experience

Searchable, structured information is easier to navigate and generally more useful on phones and with assistive technology than a folder of scanned files.

What this means for your municipality

Less retrofit work

Build accessibility into normal publishing so staff aren't constantly going back to repair yesterday's content.

Lower operational risk

A structured process gives the municipality a better foundation for meeting its own accessibility responsibilities.

Better public service

Residents can reach meeting information, ordinances, notices, records, and services in formats designed to be easier to use.

One connected approach

Accessibility, records, workflow, search, and publication are handled as parts of the same municipal operating system.

Compass supports accessibility — the municipality still owns its content. No platform can guarantee that every future document, image, video, or third-party item a municipality publishes will be compliant. Compass is designed to give staff a stronger, more accessible publishing foundation and better workflow guardrails.

AI-Powered Features

Carefully selected AI tools that help small municipal offices do more — without sacrificing accuracy, public trust, or staff oversight. AI can assist, but municipal authority always remains with people: every AI output goes through your staff before it becomes public.

Ask Your Municipality

Ask a plain-language question and get an answer grounded in your municipality's own records — meetings, minutes, ordinances, and more — bounded by the same authorization rules that already govern who can see what.

Meeting Minutes Auto-Draft

Upload your raw meeting notes or a PDF scan. The system generates a structured draft of the official minutes — ready for the clerk to review, edit, and approve before publishing.

Web Publishing Workflow

Once a draft is reviewed and approved, a single click formats and publishes it to the correct section of your site — with proper headings, archive links, and metadata.

Legislative Conflict Awareness

Built-in legislative intelligence surfaces potential conflicts or inconsistencies between ordinance provisions for human review — it flags, staff decide.

See it in action.

The best way to understand IE Compass is to see a live municipal site. Browse our public demo, then request a personalized walkthrough with our team.

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