All Collections
Best Practices
Limit Attendee Content Access
Limit Attendee Content Access

All the ways to control access to Registration, Event Apps, features, items, and Onsite Session Check-in

Daniel Murphey avatar
Written by Daniel Murphey
Updated over a week ago

While inclusive experiences are at the heart of every great event, some situations require attendee access limitations because of timing, relevance, paid content, and more.

This article gives a brief overview of the privacy settings, login options, and visibility settings that limit attendee access in Webex Events products. Each topic also has links to relevant articles that show step-by-step instructions. 📚

Groups, tracks, and categories

Groups are crucial to limiting access to Event App content and Onsite Session Check-in. When combined with groups, tracks let you create different attendee experiences in the Event App's Agenda feature or limit who can check in to Sessions with Onsite.

What is a group?

There are two different types of groups in Webex Events:

  • Exclusive groups uniquely identify different types of attendees, such as in-person or virtual attendees, and people can only belong to one exclusive group.

  • Groups also identify different types of attendees. However, attendees can belong to as many groups as you want them to.

What are tracks and categories?

Tracks and categories simply identify different types of Sessions and feature items. When you assign a group to a track or category, you're restricting access to the items associated with them to only the attendees in those groups.

If you're using Onsite Session Check-in, you can choose to limit each Session to only certain tracks, so attendees can only check in to Sessions assigned to the tracks associated with their groups.

How groups can limit access

  • In Registration, attendees are assigned to an exclusive group based on which ticket they buy. Optionally, automatically assign them to one or more non-exclusive groups to categorize them further, or let them choose their own groups. After attendees register, use groups to send emails to only specific types of attendees.

  • In the Event App, make features visible to only certain groups to create experiences tailored to virtual and in-person attendees, for example. With tracks and categories, you can take this tailored experience to the level of individual sessions and items within features. Assign items to a track or category, then assign the track or category to a group to hide the items in those tracks or categories from anyone not in the associated group.

  • In Onsite, you can limit Session Check-in based on tracks. When editing a Session's 'Session Check-In' settings, select 'Tracks' in the 'Limit access based on' field to make sure that only attendees in the groups assigned to the same tracks as the Session can check in to the Session.

Learn more about groups, tracks, categories, tickets, emails, Sessions, and Session Check-in in the following articles:

We understand that relationships between groups, tracks, categories, and features can be complex. Chat with our support team if you're stuck or confused, and we'll help guide you. 👍

Now let's talk about limiting access to specific elements of each product.

Registration

Restrict registrations by email domain

One way to manage who can access your Event App is to simply prevent them from registering. While you can't block individual people from registering, you can choose specific email domains to either allow or block.

The Restrict Registrations by Email Domain section of the Registration General Settings page.

In your Event navigation bar under ‘Registration', click Settings, then click General, and scroll down to the 'Restrict Registrations by Email Domain' section to get started. For more details, read the related section in our Registration Settings article.

Hidden tickets

When you create a Ticket in Webex Events Registration, consider hiding the ticket from your Registration page. Registrants can only access the ticket by entering an access code you created. This is useful for providing complementary tickets or special pricing for staff, VIP, or press sign-up, and more. 🤫

When creating a ticket, click to expand the Advanced Settings section, and activate the 'Hide Ticket' option.

The Advanced Settings section of the New Ticket modal. The Hide Ticket toggle is indicated.

After you publish Registration, you gain access to the 'Promote' menu. Go to the Promo Codes page, create an Access Code, and assign it to the hidden ticket. Then, distribute the code to people who should have access to the hidden ticket.

The Promo Codes page and Create Access Code modal.

Read our articles about creating tickets and promo codes for complete instructions.

Checkout forms

When you create a Checkout Form in Webex Events Registration, you must assign one or more tickets to the form. Creating different questions for different tickets is a great way to make sure that different types of registrants only answer the questions relevant to them. 🙈

The New Checkout Form modal. The Assign To field is expanded.

Require policy consent

If you need to make sure that attendees agree to critical event policies, such as health guidelines and codes of conduct, add one of the Privacy and Consent custom questions to your checkout forms, and require agreement. If an attendee doesn't agree to the policy, they can't complete the registration process.

Screenshot of a custom consent question that requires attendees to agree to a health policy.

💡 Keep in mind, if you're using the Event App, attendees can use their Privacy & Consent page to review and change their answers to multiple-choice consent type questions after they log in to the Event App.

Read our article about checkout forms and questions for complete instructions.

Onsite Session Check-in

Limit Session Check-in with Preset Agendas

When editing a Session's 'Session Check-In' settings, select 'Personal Agenda' in the 'Limit access based on' field to make sure that only attendees who have the Session in their personal agenda can check in to the Session.

Read our article about Attendance Management and Preset Agendas to learn how to assign Sessions to attendees, and read our article about configuring Sessions for Session Check-in to learn more about Session Check-in.

Event App

Privacy settings

Selecting a Privacy Setting is one of the final steps in setting up your Event App. Selecting the Event Code option and checking the Hide event... box lets you publish your Event App and continue building feature content without worrying about anyone finding the Event App before it's ready. Even people who register through Webex Events Registration can't access the Event App until you tell them how.

When you're ready to welcome attendees, send the code to them or edit your Privacy Settings and choose one of the other options. Easy! 🥧

The Privacy Settings page. Event Code is selected and a code has been filled in.

Read our Event App Privacy Settings article for more information. Refer to our Event App Access Instructions for Attendees article for welcome message templates.

Hide attendees from each other

After people join your Event App, they can browse the Attendees feature to find out who else is in the Event. If you don't want this kind of visibility, simply delete the Attendees feature. Don't worry! This only removes the feature from the Event App, and you can add it again if you like. No attendees are deleted. 👍

The Selected Features area. The Attendees feature's Delete button is indicated.

Hide inactive attendees

If hiding everyone is too aggressive for you, click the Attendees feature's Settings (⚙️) icon and check the Show active attendees only box. This ensures that only people who have logged in to the Event App are shown in the Attendees feature.

Hiding Event App feature content

The following sections briefly outline limiting feature content access before and after your event. In either scenario, use groups! For complete instructions on assigning groups to features and attendees, read our article about groups.

💡 Keep in mind, if you want to limit attendees' access to all Event App content after your event is over, read our guide to hiding an old Event App for detailed instructions.

Hide features and items with groups

It's easy to hide entire features from certain groups in your Event App. If hiding an entire feature is too extreme, use categories with groups assigned to them to hide individual items within a feature. Read our article about groups for complete instructions.

Hide features before the event

Before your event, you may not want attendees to access your Event App's feature content until it's finalized.

Edit your Lobby feature and turn it into a "Welcome" page. Include the event countdown and a welcome message. This is also a great place to add an image that highlights key speakers and sponsors.

Next, create a 'Hidden' group and assign it to each feature except the Lobby so that the Lobby is the only available feature.

The web version of the Event App with only the Lobby feature titled "Thanks for coming!".

Once you're ready to reveal finalized feature content to attendees, remove the 'Hidden' group from the feature.

Hide features after the event

To limit attendee access to feature content after your event ends, first edit your Lobby feature and turn it into a "Thanks for coming" page.

Next, create a 'Late access' group and assign it to each feature except the Lobby.

Finally, assign the 'Late access' group to each attendee who should keep access. All attendees not in the 'Late access' group can now only access the Lobby feature.

💡 Keep in mind, consider assigning attendees to late access groups if late access is based on tickets and/or price.

Now you know all the ways to limit attendee access and visibility to your Event's Registration and Event App features and items. Since a lot of this article revolves around managing users and groups, it's a good idea to read our Attendees feature guide next!

Questions? Chat with us, email support@socio.events, or attend a Face to Face session.

Did this answer your question?