This article is the latest in an occasional series on how to use the NAHB website for maximum benefit.

NAHB members can quickly and efficiently organize their personal schedule for the NAHB Fall Board of Directors Meeting, which will be held on Sept. 22-25 in New York, with the NAHB Board of Directors Meeting Planner Web-based scheduling tool on the NAHB website.

The planning tool will enable them to create their schedule, print it, download it to Microsoft Outlook and view it on their smart phone, Blackberry or other mobile device while attending the fall board meeting.

The NAHB online Meeting Planner tool enables members to create their schedules for the upcoming NAHB Board of Directors meeting in New York and print it and/or view it on their mobile device during the meeting.

The Meeting Planner enables members to choose and compile their personal schedule from the 152 committee and council meetings held at the New York Marriott Marquis on Broadway. All the meeting information has been pre-populated into the scheduling tool.

In addition, members can download related committee and council meeting materials using the Meetings Document — Quick Download tool, which is also available on the NAHB website and linked to the Meeting Planner tool for scheduling convenience.

Log In to NAHB Website to Use the Scheduling Tools

Members must be logged into www.nahb.org in order to use the Meeting Planner and Meetings Document tools.

Members who have not logged in to the NAHB website in the past will have to create a website account and will be prompted on how to do so when they click the “Login” button on the website — or they can visit www.nahb.org/login.

To create an account, members will need their NAHB personal identification number (PIN) and the state where they registered to join their local home builders association. Members can call their state or local home builders association — or NAHB at 800-368-5242 — to verify their PIN.

Once logged in to the NAHB website, members can quickly navigate to the Meeting Planner by clicking the Board of Directors Meeting Planner link located in the text beneath the NAHB Dashboard that appears when members initially visit the website. Members can also go to www.nahb.org/MeetingPlanner.

When first accessed, the Meeting Planner tool will provide instructions on how members can add meetings to their personalized schedule. Once they have added meetings, however, and in subsequent visits to the web page, their selected meetings will be displayed in their planning tool — along with options to find additional meetings or add personal events through the planning tool’s Find a Meeting and Add a Personal Event buttons.

How to Find and Add Meetings

By clicking the Find a Meeting button, members can search for council and committee meetings by keyword, group or date to add to their personal Meeting Planner schedule. If the selection fields are left blank, all the meetings planned for the fall board will appear on the search results page and members can scroll through the results to select particular meetings.

To narrow the search, members can search for meetings by group by selecting a particular committee or council and then clicking the search button. Only meetings related to that group will appear on the search results page — sorted by date, time, group and meeting name as well as an option to add the meeting to their Meeting Planner schedule.

Members can choose to select all or specific meetings that appear in the search results and then add them to their Meeting Planner schedule. They also can refine their search of the results listed by date, time and other parameters.

To add meetings of additional committees and councils to their schedule, members can repeat the entire process when searching for different groups. The scheduling tool will not duplicate the meetings selected because it is programmed to enable members to only select a meeting once.

How to Manage the Schedule

After selecting the appropriate meetings, members can view all the meetings they have added to their personal schedule by clicking the View My Meetings button at the top of the page, which populates the schedule on the My Meetings page with all the meetings selected and automatically sorts them by date. Members can also sort their schedule by time, group or meeting name.

Once the schedule is created, icons in the Add to Outlook column of the My Meetings page will give members the option to download each meeting individually to their Microsoft Outlook calendar. Clicking the icon will activate a screen prompt to complete the download.

In addition, members can adjust their personal schedule by removing individual meetings or all the meetings listed by checking all the meetings or specific ones in the Check All-Uncheck All column on the My Meetings page and activating the appropriate button.

How to Add a Personal Event

Members can also add a Personal Event — such as personal travel information or one-on-one meetings — to their schedule by using the Add a Personal Event button.

Members will be prompted to include basic options — such as event name, date, location, time and any notes related to the event — when creating the Personal Event. Once created, the event will appear on the member’s meeting planner schedule.

In addition, once the event has been added to the schedule, it can be downloaded to Outlook, but the Personal Event will only appear on the member’s screen, mobile device and schedule.

How to Download Meeting Materials

Members can easily find and download meeting documents related to their individual meetings when creating their schedule by clicking the link to the Meeting Documents — Quick Download tool, which can be found on the Meeting Planner page.

The Meeting Documents page lists all the committee and council materials a member can access. To retrieve them, members can check whichever boxes on the page are appropriate and then click the Find Documents button at the bottom of the page.

This will open to a webpage that enables members to view a list of all the files associated with the committees and councils selected that are currently available, as well as the date the materials were posted or last updated.

Members can download each file separately or choose specific files to be downloaded into a compressed Zip file for quicker downloading. Members can also select all the files listed and choose to have them downloaded into one Zip file.

Not all the materials have been posted online yet and members are encouraged to visit the Meeting Documents tool often, as meeting materials will continue to be added during the days leading up to the meeting.

For more information, e-mail Hina Ansari, NAHB webmaster, or call her at 800-368-5242 x8137.

A typical schedule with details.

Next in the series: The NAHB Dashboard