Report Collaboration Workflow

SPRFMO

South Pacific Regional Fisheries Management Organisation

Jack Mackerel Working Group

Report Collaboration Workflow

Purpose

This note describes how to use Google Docs for collaborative drafting while keeping the Quarto/GitHub repository as the source of record for the benchmark report.

The intended audience is contributors who can help draft, comment on, or review report text but do not need to work directly in GitHub.

Source of Record

The source of record for the benchmark report is:

• Quarto source: JMWG-Benchmark-Meeting-report-2026.qmd
• Published HTML: JMWG-Benchmark-Meeting-report-2026.html
• Published PDF: JMWG-Benchmark-Meeting-report-2026.pdf
• Word export: JMWG-Benchmark-Meeting-report-2026.docx

Google Docs should be treated as a collaborative drafting and review copy, not as the final technical source.

Recommended Workflow

1. Render the benchmark report from Quarto to DOCX.
2. Upload the DOCX to Google Drive and open it as a Google Doc.
3. Share the Google Doc with contributors using comment or suggestion access.
4. Ask contributors to work in assigned sections, such as Acoustic, CPUE, Biology, Assessment, Operating Models/MSE, Decisions, and Action Items.
5. Periodically review the Google Doc and incorporate accepted edits into the Quarto source file.
6. Re-render the Quarto report to refresh the HTML, PDF, and DOCX outputs.
7. Replace or update the Google Docs drafting copy when the Quarto version has materially changed.

Contributor Guidance

Contributors using Google Docs should:

• use Suggesting mode for proposed wording changes;
• use comments for questions, caveats, or requests for supporting evidence;
• avoid broad formatting changes unless needed for clarity;
• keep technical recommendations short enough to be moved into the meeting report;
• include document numbers where possible, for example SCW16-Doc06 or SCW16-Doc15;
• identify whether a point is a decision, an unresolved issue, an action item, or background context.

Section Ownership

Use a small ownership table to track who is drafting and whether the text has been integrated back into Quarto.

Section	Google Docs lead	Reviewers	Integrated into Quarto?	Notes
Acoustic indices	TBD	TBD	No	Include Chile and Peru acoustic material.
CPUE indices	TBD	TBD	No	Include Chile, Peru, effort creep, and index ranking.
Biological inputs	TBD	TBD	No	Include biology, length-weight, and length-frequency evidence.
Assessment model	TBD	TBD	No	Include model structure, simplification, and diagnostics.
Operating models / MSE	TBD	TBD	No	Include OM grid, MCMC feasibility, and MP-input diagnostics.
Decisions and action items	Chair / rapporteurs	Session leads	No	Update daily.

Reconciliation Rules

When moving text from Google Docs back into Quarto:

• keep accepted edits, not unresolved suggestions;
• preserve report structure and heading levels from the Quarto file;
• convert Google Docs comments into action items or open issues only when they require follow-up;
• rewrite long discussion text into concise report language;
• keep tables simple enough to render cleanly in HTML, PDF, and DOCX;
• re-check links to SCW16 documents after edits are incorporated.

Practical Commands

Render the benchmark report:

quarto render JMWG-Benchmark-Meeting-report-2026.qmd

Render the site home page after adding or changing links:

quarto render index.qmd

The rendered DOCX can then be uploaded to Google Drive for collaborative editing.

Versioning Practice

Use dates in the Google Docs title so contributors know which draft they are editing, for example:

JMWG Benchmark Meeting Report 2026 - Google Docs Draft - 2026-05-18

When a new Google Docs draft is created from a re-rendered DOCX, mark the older Google Doc as superseded rather than deleting it immediately. This preserves comment history while making the current working copy clear.