How to use Q&A upvoting in your live sessions?

For your Q&A sessions, you can choose to enable upvoting.

Upvoting will drive attendee engagement before and during your live sessions, by allowing participants to express their enthusiasm for any questions/comments that are already posted and (if applicable) approved.

This option is very helpful for the host and speakers, as it allows them to see what questions or comments are generating the most interest among their audience, in order to prioritize discussing them.

Upvoting, on the attendee's side, is done via the mobile app or the web app, by adding a "thumbs up" vote to one or more question(s)/comment(s) in the Q&A panel to the right:

Remember that in the app, attendees can access the Q&A panel in your live session before it actually begins to be live, and post their questions/comments there. If these questions are approved by the moderator (if applicable), then the attendees will be able to see them in the app and vote for them (if upvoting is enabled).

With upvoting enabled, the attendees can:

• Vote/unvote for any questions/comments present in the "For discussion" tab that they are interested in, even after it was discussed.
• See the number of votes that each question/comment has.
• Sort the order of the question/comments in the list. They can choose between:
  • Sorting by "Upvotes": The questions/comments with the most upvotes will be at the top.
  • Sorting by "Time", by default the questions/comments will be sorted with the oldest comments at the top. If the "Time" option is selected, users can then choose between showing the newest questions/comment at the top or at the bottom.

If the attendee has sorted the questions/comments by "Upvotes", and multiple questions/comments have the same number of votes, then those questions/comments will subsequently be sorted based on the date and time of the question/comment (oldest on top).

Notes: There is no actual limit on the amount of times a question can be upvoted. Each participant can however only vote once for each question, so the maximum number of upvotes for a question cannot exceed the number of attendees.

How to enable upvoting on a live session?

Upvoting can be enabled on individual live sessions.

You can enable or disable the Upvoting option when you create the live session (by default it is enabled):

Or, you can enable the Upvoting option after the session was created, via the live session's Settings > Interactivity:

Remember to click on Save to confirm your changes to the settings.

What happens if I enable or disable upvoting?

If you enable upvoting in Backstage, before or during the live session, in the live session's Q&A panel:

• The upvoting button will appear on all the visible questions/comments for your attendees to use via the app.
• The number of votes for each question/comment will also be displayed.
• The sorting by options will become available, and the questions/comments will by default be sorted by "Upvotes".

If you disable the upvoting in Backstage before or during the live session:

• The upvoting button will no longer be available on all the visible questions/comments for your attendees to use via the app.
• The number of votes for each question/comment will not be displayed.
• The sorting by options will no longer be available, and the questions/comments will by default be sorted by "Time".

If you enable the Upvoting option on a live session, then decide to disable it after having received votes from the attendees, and then later you enable it again, then the votes that were previously collected for the questions/comments will all be retained and visible in the app.

How can I use upvoting as a host/moderator/speaker?

In Backstage, in addition to their usual controls for moderating and controlling the flow of Q&A questions/comments, the host and moderators can also see the number of votes, or "thumbs up" that each question/comment has:

They also have the same sorting options as the attendees in the app. They can choose between:

• Sorting by "Upvotes": The questions/comments with the most upvotes will be at the top.
• Sorting by "Submission time", by default the questions/comments will be sorted with the oldest comments at the top. If the "Time" option is selected, users can then choose between showing the newest questions/comment at the top or at the bottom.

The speakers can also see the number of votes for each question/comment, and choose between the same sorting options. They cannot however moderate questions or control the flow of questions.