How to manage session registrations

As a part of building your event agenda by adding sessions, you may wish to manage your session attendance, by configuring certain rules for registering.

This can include the session capacity, i.e the number of participants that can register to a session, and how your participants can register to a session.

There are several advanced settings that can help you manage your session registrations.

This is done through the session-registration-restrictions package which needs to be installed on the workspace by SpotMe support as well as the Session registration restriction component that needs to be added to the session default display template.

Install the session registrations restrictions package

Please contact SpotMe support to install the session-registration-restrictions package.

Once the package is installed on the workspace, the next thing you need to do is edit the session display template, before you can use the package's functionalities.

Add the session registration restrictions component to the session display template

1. Go to Content > Sessions, and open the Default display template tab.
   
   
2. In the central pane, remove the Session Registration component from the template, and then add in the Session registration with restrictions from the side panel to the left:
   
   
3. Click on Save to confirm the changes.
   
   
4. Next, head over to a session where you would like to manage the capacity or registration, via the Advanced session settings.

Advanced session settings in the Session module

After installing the session-registrations-restrictions package and editing the session default display template, a set of new settings is now available when you open a session, called Advanced session registration:

A new tab is also added to the Sessions module, called Session registration restrictions:

As we explore the different possible advanced configurations for managing session registrations, we'll be going back and forth between the three items described above:

• The Session page
• The Advanced Session Registration section in the session page
• The newly added Session registration restrictions tab.

Adding waitlisting for a session

Waitlisting in a session means to create a waiting list for participants to be added to once the pre-determined full capacity of a session is reached in terms of registrations.

If a registered participant decides to unregister from a session, then the participants on the waitlist will gradually be registered for that session, based on the available space.

For waitlisting to work, the session capacity needs to be set prior to opening registrations for the session. If the capacity of the session is modified while the registration for that session is already open, waitlisting will no longer work: the waitlisted participants will no longer be registered automatically if a space becomes available in the session.

Follow these steps to set-up waitlisting on a session:

1. Start by setting a maximum capacity for the session. In the session page, use the Edit capacity settings field for the session.
   Do so by selecting Managed capacity and defining a max number of participants:
2. Next, in the session page again, in the Advanced Session Registration section, check the Allow waitlisting for this session option:
3. Now, in the Advanced Session Registration section again, choose a Restriction group name. Here we will choose "Group 1"
4. Click Save in the session page to save the changes.
   
   
5. Next, head over to the Sessions registration restrictions tab in the Sessions module:
   
   Here we will configure a group behavior. Group behaviors are basically configurations  for sessions that can be created and associated to one or more sessions. To associate a group behavior to one or more sessions, you need to enter the same Restriction group name here as in the session(s), so that it matches the one used in the session page in step 3 above (Group1):

How does managed capacity and waitlisting look in the app?

When accessing a session that has managed capacity, users will see the number of spaces available, and be able to register if there is enough space:

Once a user has successfully registered to a session, they will see it when accessing the session in the app:

If the session has managed capacity, and that the capacity is full, with the waitlisting enabled they will be able to register to the waitlist, by selecting Add to Waitlist.

If, in the full session, a participant unregisters and frees up a space, then the first participant in the waitlist will automatically be moved into that free spot and become registered for the session. The newly registered participant will received a notification informing them that they are now registered to that session

Note: Track sessions with managed capacity (that are linked to a master session) will by default not allow a participant to register to more than one of the track sessions:

Additional settings can be used in the group behavior. These are explained in the Other advanced settings available in a group behavior section below.

Changing the colors of the session registration bar and buttons

If you want to, you can change the colors of the Session registration bars that the attendees will see in the app, to match your event theme:

Note: The changes will impact all the sessions in the event, and cannot be modified for individual sessions.

This is done by accessing the Session registration restrictions tab, in the Sessions module.

Here, you can modify the three theme colors to your liking:

Unregistered session color block:

Registered session block color:

Note: The "background color for error" color is used only when there is an error when registering to a session.

Other settings available in the Advanced session registration section

In the Advanced session registration section (in the session page), in addition to enabling and entering a managed capacity for the session, and enabling waitlisting, you can configure additional behaviors for that specific session:

• Choose whether participants who have registered to this session should NOT be able to unregister from this session.
• Choose whether only invited attendees should be able to register or unregister from this session (if they do they will automatically register or unregister any guest(s) they have).
• Choose whether to send an email to a person to notify them of any new registration activity on the session (for this to work, a group behavior must be associated and an email address entered in the Email address to send an email to when specific session registrations change, as mentioned below in the Other advanced settings available in the Session registrations restrictions tab section.
• Choose whether you want a full list of registered participants to show in the session page in the app. More information on how to set this up

How to display the list of registered attendees in the session?

You can choose to show the full list of all the registered attendees for a session:

To do so:

1. Go to Content > Sessions, and open the Default display template tab.
   
   
2. In the central pane, add in the Session registration participant list component from the side panel to the left:
3. Click on Save to confirm the changes.
   
   
4. Go to the Advanced session registration section (in the session page), enable the Show participant list publicly option, and click on Save:
   

Other advanced settings available in the Session registrations restrictions tab

In a group behavior, in addition to configuring how the waitlisting will work, you can configure additional behaviors that can be associated to one or more sessions, in order to manage the registration and capacity of those sessions:

Here you can use the following options:

• If a session is full, hide it from the agenda?
  Enable this to hide the sessions from this group from the attendees' agenda, if the session has already reached its full capacity.
  
  
• Add to waitlist when already registered
  Enable this option to add attendees to a waitlist, even if they are already registered to a parallel session. If an attendee is already registered for session A in a group of sessions are happening at the same time, but requests to be waitlisted for a session B within the same group, they will be waitlisted for the session B but remain registered to session A, until a space is available in session B (in which case they would be unregistered from session A a registered for session B):
  
  
  
  
• What is the maximum number of sessions someone can sign-up for in total / for each day of the agenda?
  Choose how many sessions that a participant can register for among those associated to this group, all days included. This field must have a value entered/cannot be left blank.
  AND/OR
  Choose how many sessions in this group that a participant can register to, during a single day. This field must have a value entered/cannot be left blank.
  Notes for the above two options regarding master (track) sessions:
  Outside of group behaviors, i,e. if no group behavior is configured on sessions, if two sessions are at the same time and an attendee registers for both, the attendee will see the below message and have to choose which session to register to:
  Within the group behavior, and for track sessions in the group (associated to a master session), if this field is left blank the attendees will only be able to select one session within the master session. However if a number of sessions is configured in this field, then the setting here will override the default behavior of the master session, therefore allowing users to register for multiple track sessions. Attendees will see a message in the app if they attempt to register for multiple tracked session that are scheduled at the same time:
  
  
• How many minutes before the start of the session can participants no longer make any changes to it?
  Choose how long, in minutes, before the session starts, that attendees can no-longer register or unregister from it.
  
  
• Email address to send an email to when the sessions fill up
  This functionality is no longer supported.
  
  
• Email address to send an email to when specific session registrations change
  This functionality is no longer supported.
  
  
• App user(s) to send a push notification to when session fill up
  This functionality is no longer supported.

How can I see who is registered and who is on the waitlist for my sessions?

A more detailed report of all registrations for all sessions, including the status of the registrations (Registered or Waitlist), can be downloaded from the Sessions list.

Click on the X, and then select Download sessions report:

Example of a report:

You can also download a registration report for an individual session from the session's page in Backstage, and see how many participants have registered: