Usually, any attendee can add a Session to their personal agenda (known as 'My Agenda' in an Event App) without restrictions. However, Sessions let you limit their capacity or close them using Attendance Management. If you set a capacity limit, attendees can add the Session to their personal agenda until the Session reaches its limit. If you set a Session to 'Closed', only attendees you add to the Session can have it in their personal agenda.
Configuring Attendance Management is especially important if you're using Onsite Session check-in and want to limit access to in-person Sessions based on attendee personal agendas.
Let's learn about how Attendance Management works. 🔍
Activate Attendance Management
When adding or editing a Session, click the Attendance Management section to expand it. The default Attendance Management setting is 'Open' so that anyone can add the Session to their personal agenda.
Click the 'Status' drop-down and select either Closed or Limited Capacity.
Closed means that only attendees you add to the Session can have it in their personal agenda.
Limited Capacity means that any attendee can add the Session to their personal agenda until the Session reaches the maximum attendance capacity you set.
Check the Customize the denial message box if you want to edit the default denial message. When an attendee tries to add the Session to their personal agenda, this message appears if the Session is full (left screenshot, below) or it's closed and they're not in the participant list (right screenshot, below).
If you select 'Limited Capacity', enter a number for the Session attendance capacity in the 'Maximum Attendance' field.
💡 Keep in mind, maximum attendance shouldn't be confused with location capacity. To learn about location capacity, read our article about adding locations.
The current and maximum attendance are listed below the Session title in the Event App. Any attendee can add the Session to their personal agenda until a Session reaches capacity.
💡 Keep in mind, if you uncheck the 'Show participants list' box in the Agenda feature's settings, the participant count won't appear.
If you select 'Closed', only attendees you add to the Session will have it in their personal agenda. On the Event App, all attendees can still find the Session in the Agenda feature and join the live stream (if any) unless you restrict visibility using tracks and groups.
Finish any other edits to the Session, then click Save changes.
If you simply set a limit on the Session's capacity, you're all done! Bye. 👋
If you set the Session to 'Closed' to limit it to only specific people, keep reading to learn how to add Session participants. 📖
Add Session participants
Before you begin, make sure there are attendees in your Event! This won't work without them. 🤷
When you set a Session to 'Closed', it can only appear in attendees' personal agendas if you add it. You can add closed Sessions to personal agendas using one of three methods. The one you choose depends on your needs, so here's a quick overview of each:
Import preset agendas - Best for when you need to add a lot of Sessions for a lot of attendees.
Manually add one or multiple Sessions for one attendee - Best for when you need to add one or more Sessions to one attendee's personal agenda.
Manually add attendees to a single Session - Best for when you need to add a lot of attendees to a single Session.
💡 Keep in mind, attendees can remove themselves from Sessions you add to their personal agenda.
Now let's explore each of these options in detail. 🔍
Import preset agendas
The fastest way to add many Sessions to many personal agendas is to use the Preset agenda import template.
Go to your Event's Attendees page.
Click the Preset agendas button.
In the 'Import preset agendas' modal, click the Download button to download the import template.
After a few moments, a notification appears letting you know that the template is ready to download. Click the Click here to download link to download the .xlsx file. If you missed the notification, simply click the notification icon next to your profile image in the top right corner of the screen to find a list of past notifications.
Read the 'Instructions' sheet to learn how to assign Sessions for each attendee on the 'Preset Agendas' sheet.
When you're done entering information in the 'Preset Agendas' sheet, save the .xls file, then return to the Import preset agenda modal and upload the file.
To adjust the personal agendas you've preset, simply download the Preset agenda template again, make changes, and reimport. For more information about import templates, read our Export and Import Attendees, Sessions, and Feature Content article.
Manually add one or multiple Sessions for one attendee
Go to your Event's Attendees page
Search for an attendee's name or scroll through the list to find them.
Click on the attendee to open their profile.
On the attendee's profile, click the Personal agenda tab.
Click Add Sessions.
In the 'Add Session' modal, use the search field to locate Sessions by name. As you search the Session list, click each Session you want to add.
Click Add Session(s) when you're done.
Remove Sessions from a single attendee
To remove a single Session from an attendee's personal agenda, click the Settings (⋯) icon next to a Session and click Remove from Personal agenda.
To remove multiple Sessions from an attendee's personal agenda, click the checkboxes next to the Sessions you want to remove, click the three-dot (⋯) icon, then select Remove from personal agenda.
Manually add attendees to a single Session
On your Event's Sessions page, click the Settings (⋯) icon next to the Session
Click Session participants.
💡 Keep in mind, if a Session is open or has a limited capacity, use the Session participants modal to identify which attendees have added the Session to their personal agenda.
In the 'Session participants' modal, click the Add participants button to open the 'Add attendees' modal.
Search for attendees by name, then click on an attendee's name in the search results to add them to the Session.
Click Add attendees when you're done.
Remove attendees from a single Session
To remove a single attendee from a Session's participants list, click the Settings (⋯) icon next to that attendee, then click Remove from Session.
To remove multiple attendees from a Session's participants list, check the boxes next to the attendees you want to remove, click the three-dot (⋯) icon, then select Remove from Session.
Export the Session participants list
To export the Session's participants list, check the 'User' box at the top left corner of the list, click the three-dot (⋯) icon next to the search box, then click Export.
Now you know everything you need to use Attendance Management and preset attendee personal agendas!
Attendees simply go to the 'My Agenda' tab on the Event App to access any Sessions you or they added to their personal agenda. If you restrict Onsite Session Check-in access to attendees who have it in their personal agenda, they can check in to the Session using Session Check-in.
Now that your attendees are ready to start interacting with your Sessions, read our guide to attendee moderation.
Questions? Chat with us or email support@socio.events.