To help your in-person attendees to navigate your event, you can easily import venue maps, including multiple floors, and add interactive markers that are linked to the rooms in which the sessions take place.
What you will need
To create your map, you will need an image file for each floor of the venue.
Each floor image should be a simple representation of the floor of the venue. Files should be only in .png or .svg format, with a 2000 x 2000 px resolution. The recommended file size is less than 2 MB.
1 - Creating your map's floors
The first step to add an interactive map to your event is to create all the floors that make up the map.
To create a floor for your map in Backstage:
- Go to Content > Maps, via the main menu in the workspace.
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Click on the Floors tab, then Create Floor:
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Fill in all the necessary fields:
ID: The ID is the unique identifier of the floor.
Name: The name used within Backstage to identify the floor name.
Status: This field can be set to:
Visible: The floor will be displayed in the app. This is the default status of the floor if no section is made here.
Hidden: The floor will not be displayed in the app. This option can be used to temporarily hide the floor when it is not open to participants.
Asset: This field is used to select or upload a floor image file to the floor. You can select an image that is already uploaded in the dropdown list, or you can upload a file by clicking on UPLOAD:
Width and height are set by default for the image. Please do not edit or remove these automatically calculated values.
Availability: We recommend you make maps available offline, so that they are automatically downloaded with the app on participants’ devices.
Unique Identifier: This is the unique identifier of the file – it can be left blank, if so it will be automatically assigned by Backstage.
- Click on Select or drop a file to upload a file from your computer, and click on Save Asset.
- Click on Save Item to finish creating the floor. Repeat the steps above for each floor that needs to be added to Backstage.
The created floors will appear in the Floors tab list:
2 - Creating the map
Once all floors have been created in Backstage, they need to be added to the map.
- Go to the Maps tab, and click on New map:
- Fill in all the necessary fields:
Name: This is the map’s name that will be displayed in the app
Search enabled: This setting is enabled by default and allows attendees to use the search function in the app.
Maximum, Minimum and Preset Zoom: If needed, you can use these fields to adjust the zoom in the app. The maximum scale is between 1 to 5. You would typically use a maximum zoom of 5 if you are using a large map.
Peek mode allowed: When this is enabled, attendees can preview the map instead of full opening it in the app.
Default Floor: This field is used to select the floor that will be displayed first when attendees open the map in the app. Normally this is the floor where most of the sessions take place.
Floors: This field is used to select all the floors that need to be added to the map. Floors need to be created first before you can select them in the dropdown menu. Please make sure to include the "Default" floor (field above) here as well.
- Click on Save changes to finish creating your floor.
The created map will appear in the list:
3 - Adding the map to the event and adding location markers
The last step is to make your map interactive, by adding markers to the map that will in turn be linked to session locations and sponsors.
- Go to the Maps tab, and click on the Editor button for the map that you want to add locations to.
- Here you can use the map editor to start editing the map:
- Click on the "edit" (pencil) icon.
- If needed, choose the floor you want to add a location to in the dropdown menu on the top left side of the editor.
- Click on a location or room in the map to drop a marker. Clicking on the marker text "New Item" will allow you to set the marker details:
Icon: Choose which icon will be displayed in the map (eg. Circle, Restaurant or Café). New icons can be added to the assets section in Backstage. Please do not select the icons that contain "marker" in their name. Should you need to use a "marker" icon, please download it and then re-upload it with a different name.
Type: This field is used to determine what you would like to link this location to in the workspace. You can choose a sponsor (for example for a sponsor booth) or a session. Do not select map here. If you simply wish to create a standalone location that will not be linked to a sponsor or a session, simply leave the "Type" field empty. This will create a location without a clickable action.
Name: Enter a name for the location that will be displayed on the map
BSTG Location: Enter a location name here. This location name will be visible in Backstage, and can be selected when linking the sponsor or a session to a map location, via the "Location link" field in the session or sponsor pages.
Show: You can choose here what to display on the map for this location:
- All: both the icon and the label are displayed on the map.
- Icon only: only the chosen icon is displayed, the location name is not shown.
- Label only: only the location name is displayed, the icon is not shown.
- Search only: the location is not displayed on the map unless it is searched for by the attendee, or unless opened from a map location link.
- Search icon only: only the chosen icon is displayed for the location when searched for, or opened from a location link
- Don’t show anything: the location is not displayed on the map, even if searched for or opened from a map location link.
- Click on Save to finish creating the location. You can create as many markers as necessary, then exit the map editor mode by clicking on the edit (pencil) icon again.
4 - Adding a sponsor or session to a map location
The locations/markers created in the map can be accessed via the Locations tab.
Selecting a location in the Locations tab list will open the View location tab, where you can edit the location's information, and in particular the Link type and the Link ID for associating a session or sponsor to the location:
The "Link ID" field (as explained in the Adding a sponsor or session to a map location section below) is used to link your map location to a single specific sponsor:
If you need to link a single sponsor or a single session to a map location, use the Link ID field in the map location tab (above screenshot) and add the fp_ext_id of the sponsor or the session.
To find the fp_ext_id for sessions, go into the Sessions list in the workspace and download an XLS export. The fp_ext_id is located in the first column of the report:
You can find the sponsor fp_ext_id by downloading the report from the Sponsors list in the workspace.
If you need to link multiple sponsors or sessions to a map location, open the sponsor or session in Backstage, and use the Location link field to select the map location there:
Location link in a sponsor:
Location link in a session:
How can I replace a map image once my map floors and locations are set-up?
Once you have finished with the configurations for your event map (with the assets, floors, locations, etc.) you may find that you need to update/change one of the floor images.
This can be done, however the new image that you upload will need to have the same dimensions as the original one, otherwise all the previously created locations’ positions will not match the new image.
Should you need to replace one of the floor’s image:
- Go to Maps > Assets
- Open the asset corresponding to your floor image.
- Click on the image under “File Preview".
- Upload the new image that you want to use.
Showing the location link name in the Session bust
In a session page in the app, you can choose to display the name of the associated location as a direct link to the map location:
The association location in the session is defined using the Location link field (as shown above).
To ensure that this is enabled, in the workspace main menu go to Settings > Metadata. Select Session in the dropdown, and make sure that in the Representation section, the Second line field is set to "_location" (make sure that you include the "_"):
Note: This is only possible on session pages, and not on sponsor pages.
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