Meeting Transcript → Action Items Parser

1. Overview

This process reads a meeting transcript, pulls out every decision or action discussed, identifies who is responsible, and records any deadlines. The result is a clear, concise list of all actionable items from the meeting.

2. Business Value

Ensures accountability: every decision and responsible owner is documented.
Saves time: eliminates manual note‑taking and reduces the chance of missed follow‑ups.
Improves coordination: team members receive a single source of truth for next steps, making project tracking easier.

3. Operational Context

When it runs: Immediately after a meeting when the transcript is available and the team wants a quick, reliable list of next steps.
Who uses it: Project managers, executive assistants, or anyone responsible for tracking meeting outcomes.
How often: Every time a meeting with actionable items is recorded (usually daily or weekly, depending on meeting cadence).

4. Inputs

Name/Label	Type	Details Provided
Meeting Transcript	PDF Document	The full transcript of a single meeting, including speaker names when available. The file must be readable (text‑based, not an image‑only scan).

Optional: If the transcript does not include speaker names, a separate Participants List (plain text list of participant names) may be supplied, but it is not required for the core process.

5. Outputs

Name/Label	Contents	Formatting Rules
Action Items List	A plain‑text table where each row contains:
• Decision / Action – short description of what was decided or the task to be completed.
• Owner – name of the person responsible (or “Unassigned” if not identified).
• Deadline – date the action must be completed, in MM/DD/YYYY format, or “No deadline” if none is given.
• Notes – optional extra information (e.g., clarifying comment).	Use a simple table format (pipe‑separated) with a header row. Tone: formal and professional.
Processing Summary (optional)	Plain text indicating how many actions were found, how many were flagged for review, and any error messages.	Plain paragraph, formal tone.

6. Detailed Plan & Execution Steps

Open the PDF and extract all readable text.
Split the text into sentences (or natural language units).
Identify decision or action statements by looking for key phrases such as: “decide”, “agree”, “we’ll”, “I will”, “you need to”, “let’s”, “will do”, “plan to”, “commit”, “task”, “action item”, “next steps”, “follow‑up”.
Extract the action description: the part of the sentence that tells what should be done. Keep it concise (max 150 characters).
Find the owner: locate a name or role directly attached to the action (e.g., “John will…”, “Maria, please…”, “the team will…”). If a name is missing, set the Owner to “Unassigned”.
Detect a deadline: look for dates, day‑names, relative expressions (“by next Friday”, “by end of month”), or explicit timeframes (“within 2 weeks”). Convert the date to MM/DD/YYYY if a specific date can be resolved; otherwise keep the phrase unchanged and list it under Deadline. If no deadline appears, set “No deadline”.
Create an action‑item row containing the four fields: Decision / Action, Owner, Deadline, Notes (optional).
Check for duplicates: if two rows have identical action descriptions, combine owners (separated by commas) and keep the earliest deadline. Remove the duplicate row.
Validate each row:
- Decision / Action must not be blank.
- Owner must be a name or “Unassigned”.
- Deadline must be either a valid date in MM/DD/YYYY format, a clear phrase (“No deadline”), or a readable phrase (“next Friday”).
- Flag any row with missing required fields for manual review.
Assemble the final table in the format described in the Outputs section.
Write the processing summary: count of total actions, count flagged for review, any error notes (e.g., “PDF not readable”).
Deliver the output (Action Items List and optional Processing Summary).

7. Validation & Quality Checks

Presence Check: Each row must have a non‑empty Decision / Action. If empty, mark the row “Invalid – missing action”.
Owner Check: Verify that Owner is a recognizable name or “Unassigned”. If the name is not in the transcript (or participants list), mark as “Unassigned”.
Deadline Format Check: Ensure any date follows MM/DD/YYYY. If a date cannot be parsed, keep the original phrase and flag it as “Review needed”.
Duplicate Detection: After assembling the table, scan for identical action descriptions (case‑insensitive). Consolidate as described in Step 8 of the plan.
Total Count Check: Compare number of action items found against an estimated count (e.g., “total decisions identified”). If the count differs by more than 20 % from an estimate made while reviewing, flag for manual review.
PDF Readability Check: If the PDF cannot be opened or no text is extracted, stop the process, generate a “Processing Summary” with the error “Unable to read PDF” and produce no Action Items List.

8. Special Rules / Edge Cases

Situation	Handling
No decision statements	Return an empty Action Items List and a summary stating “No action items found”.
Multiple owners	List all owners separated by commas (e.g., “John, Maria”).
Relative deadline (e.g., “next Friday”)	Keep the phrase as‑is in the Deadline column and add a note “Relative date – please confirm exact date”.
Ambiguous owner (e.g., “someone will do it”)	Set Owner to “Unassigned” and flag the row for manual review.
Multiple deadlines in one sentence	Use the first date mentioned as the primary deadline; include any additional dates in the Notes column.
PDF contains only images (no selectable text)	Abort processing, return a “Processing Summary” with error “PDF contains no selectable text – please provide a text‑based transcript”.
Duplicate actions with different owners	Merge rows: keep all owners (comma‑separated) and retain the earliest deadline.
Missing or unreadable PDF	Return a “Processing Summary” with error “File could not be opened or read”. No Action Items List is generated.
Owner name includes titles (e.g., “Dr. Smith”)	Keep full name as presented.
Deadline expressed in range (e.g., “by 5 pm on 04/10”)	Use the final date/time (04/10) as the deadline, and add “by 5 pm” in the Notes column.

9. Example

Input

File name: Team_Meeting_2024-08-10.pdf
Content (excerpt of the transcript):

John: We need to finalize the Q3 budget by next Friday.
Sarah: I’ll draft the budget template today and send it to the team by 08/15/2024.
Mike: Please review the draft by the 18th, and we’ll discuss any changes at our next meeting on 08/20.
John: The client presentation slides need to be ready for the 30th.
Emily: I’ll create the first draft of the slides by 08/25.

Output

Action Items List

| Decision / Action                              | Owner   | Deadline   | Notes                                    |
|----------------------------------------------|--------|-----------|------------------------------------------|
| Finalize the Q3 budget                       | John    | 08/15/2024| Deadline expressed as “next Friday” (actual date assumed 08/15/2024) |
| Draft budget template and send to team      | Sarah   | 08/15/2024|                                            |
| Review draft and discuss at next meeting   | Mike    | 08/18/2024| Meeting scheduled for 08/20.               |
| Prepare client presentation slides     | John    | 08/30/2024|                                            |
| Create first draft of slides                | Emily   | 08/25/2024|                                            |

Processing Summary

Total actions identified: 5
Items flagged for review: 0
No errors encountered.

Appendix A – FAQ

Q1: What if the transcript contains no speaker names? Answer: The process will still extract action items. When an owner cannot be identified, the Owner field is set to “Unassigned”. You can later add the owner manually.

Q2: How are dates that are written in words (e.g., “the 20th of September”) handled? Answer: The process converts the text to MM/DD/YYYY if the month and day are clear. If the year is missing, it assumes the current year.

Q3: What if a deadline is described as “by end of month”? Answer: The deadline field will contain the phrase “end of month”, and the row will be flagged for manual review to determine the exact date.

Q4: How are multiple owners indicated? Answer: List all names separated by commas (e.g., “John, Sarah”). If the transcript lists a team, use “Team” or “Unassigned” and flag for review.

Q5: The PDF is scanned and contains only images. What should I do? Answer: Convert the scanned image to text using OCR (outside the scope of this SOP) and then run the process on the resulting text‑based PDF.

Q6: Can the process handle multiple meetings in one document? Answer: This SOP is designed for a single meeting transcript per run. For multiple meetings, run the process separately for each transcript.

Q7: What if I want the output in a different format (e.g., CSV)? Answer: This SOP produces plain‑text tables. If a different format is needed, you may convert the output manually or with a separate tool.

Q8: How are ambiguous actions handled? Answer: If a sentence is ambiguous, the row will contain the best‑guess action and be flagged with a note “Ambiguous – review”.

Q9: What if I notice duplicate actions after the process? Answer: The duplicate detection step merges identical actions. If you still see duplicates, manually review and delete any duplicates.

Q10: How does the system handle dates like “next Monday” when the meeting date is known? Answer: The SOP does not calculate exact dates for relative expressions; it leaves the phrase as‑is in the Deadline column and adds a note for review.

Appendix B – Glossary

Action Item – A specific task or decision that requires follow‑up.
Owner – Person responsible for completing an action item.
Deadline – The date (or relative time) by which an action must be completed.
Transcript – Written record of a meeting, often including speaker labels.
Processing Summary – Brief text describing the result of the parsing (e.g., number of items found, errors).
Flag for Review – Indicator that a human should check the item for completeness or correctness.
Duplicate – Two or more action items that have the same description.

Appendix C – Reference Materials

C1. Decision & Action Keywords

Category	Keywords
Decision	decided, agreed, decided to, agreed to, settled on, concluded, voted
Action	will, will be, will do, will do, will create, will send, will review, must, need to, plan to, intend to, will handle, will draft, will prepare, should, must
Deadline	by, before, by the end of, on, by (date), next (day/week/month), within, by [date], by [day], by next [weekday]

C2. Owner Identification Patterns

“Name will action” (e.g., “John will finalize …”)
“Name, please action” (e.g., “Sarah, please draft …”)
“We’ll action” → Owner = “Team” (or “Unassigned” if no specific person)
“I will action” → Owner = speaker of the sentence (if speaker is known)
“The team will action” → Owner = “Team”

C3. Date & Time Formats Accepted

MM/DD/YYYY (e.g., 08/15/2024) – preferred format.
Month Day, Year (e.g., August 15, 2024) – automatically converted.
Relative Expressions (e.g., “next Friday”, “by end of month”) – kept as‑is with a “Review needed” note.

C4. Formatting Guidelines

Table Header: Use a pipe (|) delimiter with a header row.
Rows: No extra spaces; keep the text concise.
Text Cases: Title case for the header; sentence case for data entries.
No Trailing Spaces: Ensure each line ends with a newline character, not spaces.

C5. Sample Validation Checklist

Action column: Non‑empty, < 150 characters.
Owner column: Name, “Team”, or “Unassigned”.
Deadline column: Either MM/DD/YYYY or “No deadline”.
Notes column: Optional; use for clarification.
Row count: Compare to number of decision phrases identified.

C6. Error Messages

Error Code	Description	Action
ERR01	PDF not readable	Provide a text‑based transcript.
ERR02	No actions identified	Review transcript; perhaps meeting had no actionable items.
ERR03	Missing owner	Add “Unassigned” and flag for review.
ERR04	Invalid date	Keep original phrase and flag for review.
ERR05	Duplicate rows	Merge owners and keep earliest deadline.

C7. Example Templates for Manual Use (when automation is not available)

Template A – Action Item Row (Plain Text)

[Decision / Action] – Owner – Deadline – Notes

Example: Finalize Q3 budget – John – 08/15/2024 – Deadline expressed as “next Friday” (assumed 08/15).

Template B – Processing Summary (Plain Text)

Total actions: X
Flagged for review: Y
Notes: …

From Meeting Minutes to Actionable Tasks