Event managers can use Eventsforce to display a public agenda on their website and also allow attendees to book sessions as part of their registration process. Sessions can be added to your Eventsforce program in three ways:
Manually adding sessions
Duplicating sessions
Importing sessions from a list
Note: If duplicating an event, sessions will also be copied into the new event.
For understanding how sessions are booked when allowing group registration, please refer to our articles; booking sessions in group organizer mode, and booking sessions in self service mode.
This article will cover the following:
Adding sessions manually
Sessions can be added to your Eventsforce program manually from the ‘Sessions’ page. This is best used if you have a smaller number of sessions to add and you want to manually assign labels, locations, and presenters at the same time.
To add a session:
Go to Setup > Program > Sessions
Click the Plus
Icon in the top left corner, then select "Create session"Enter the “Session name” at a minimum (no other information is needed to save)
Add additional session details, as desired
Click “Save”
Session details
The following options are available for each session in your program:
Day: Use the dropdown to select the day this session will occur. Each day of your event is an option in the dropdown. Day names can be customized by going to Setup > Event > Properties.
Start/ End time / Duration (mins): The start and end time to display for the session on your agenda. The duration is automatically calculated by the start and end time.
Location: Use the dropdown to select the session’s location.
Allow booking: Determine whether or not attendees can book this session as part of their schedule. If you select “No”, the session is only visible on the agenda.
Labels: Assign previously created session labels to this session.
Status: Choose the status of your session. “Published” will appear to attendees and on public agenda. “Draft” will only appear to event admins.
Limit visibility by attendee category: Check this box to limit which attendee categories can view this session and add to their schedule. If selected, add one or more attendee categories by clicking them from the ‘Only make session visible for’ dropdown.
Video settings: Add a ‘Live video URL’ and/or ‘Recorded video URL’ as a method of virtual content delivery.
Capacity: Determine whether the session should have a “Limited” capacity. If “Limited”, enter the capacity allowed. If “Stopped”, the system will prevent all further bookings of this session.
Price: If the session should incur a fee, enter the price, including tax, for the session and select the appropriate tax rate. The price will appear to bookers when booking the session.
Note: In a group booking, only bookers will be able to book sessions with a price on behalf of their attendees.
Duplicating sessions
A session can be duplicated or copied if a similar session needs to be created. To duplicate a session, take the following steps:
Go to Setup > Program > Sessions
Select the session you want to duplicate
Click the Spanner
Icon and select “Duplicate”Click “Yes” in the popup
Note: The session will be duplicated with the same name, labels, presenters, location, date/time, etc.
Importing sessions
When the event has a larger program, it may be more efficient to import sessions into Eventsforce from an Excel file. Eventsforce offers an “Import template” which event managers can populate information on.
The session import feature in Eventsforce allows you to:
minimize the time it takes to create sessions
maximize the efficiency of producing an agenda
minimize the duplication of work if the session information is already available
Note: The session import is only for creating new sessions, the import cannot be used to “update” existing sessions. If the same file is imported multiple times, duplicate sessions will be created.
Downloading the import template
The first step is to download the import template:
Go to Setup > Program > Sessions
Use the Plus
Icon and select “Download import template…”
Once downloaded, open the import template and add the following information:
Name: The name of the session
Summary: The session summary or description
Start: The start time of session (use the format associated with your event)
End: The end time of session (use the format associated with your event)
Allow Booking: Enter “Yes” or “No”. This is based on whether attendees can book this session during registration
Day number: Enter the relevant day number if a multi-day event (eg. "3")
Location: Enter a location name that has already been created
Capacity: Enter a number, the word "stopped" or leave it blank to be unlimited
Note: All fields except for "name" can be blank. "Start", "end", and "location" can be listed as "unassigned".
Importing the template file
At a minimum the session must have a ‘Name’ in order to be imported. Once the template file has been filled out, take the following steps to import your file:
Go to Setup > Program > Sessions
Click the Plus
Icon and select "Import from file..."Click "Choose file..."
Locate and select the file you wish to import
Click "OK” once the import is complete
Note: The system will create any sessions with valid data. If a row has any errors, those sessions will not import, and the error report can be downloaded. All incorrect fields will be displayed with asterisks (eg. *Hall*).