Event Cloud believes in the power of engagement, but how do you provide engaging content for pre-recorded virtual sessions? One great way is to offer a live chat on your sessions page so that attendees can connect with speakers or other attendees to discuss session material! Event Cloud offers embedded live chat, and enabling this feature is easy!

1. Navigate to the Admin portal.
2. Select Sessions
3. Select All Sessions
4. From this page, locate the session you want to enable chat for and click on the Session Details Icon to access the session details page.

Please note, if you do not see the Session Details Icon as shown below, you may need to enable it in your Summary View Settings.

Enabling Chat

From the session details page scroll down to the Chat heading. Here you have the options to publish the chat, enable a group chat or a moderated chat, and schedule when you want the chat to appear on the session page.  Let's cover each one of these options below.

Chat Published

Choosing Chat Published will publish the chat to the sessions page in schedule builder. Choosing Chat Not Published keeps the chat from appearing on the sessions page in schedule builder.

Chat Type

Group chat: This is Event Cloud's recommended type of chat. This allows users to chat freely without the need for a moderator. Please note that even though this chat is not moderated, you can still assign chat administrators to perform moderating tasks. For more information please see this article.

Moderated Chat: Enabling moderated chat requires all messages to be approved by a Chat Moderator before attendees can see messages. The moderator can also deny messages. Admins can assign chat moderators using custom roles. Please note that only one custom role can be assigned to the moderator feature per site, and the moderator role is applicable to all chat rooms on that site.

Chat Enabled On

 Selecting Always Show will show the session chat on the schedule builder session page at all times as long as it is also published. Selecting During Session Time Slot will only show the chat on the page during a session's scheduled time slot. Selecting Custom allows you to enter a custom start and end time for the chat to be visible on the session's page. Please note that all custom time scheduling needs to occur within the event dates selected in your event options.

 After making your selections, don't forget to save!

Now that you have enabled chat, Event Cloud will automatically create a chatroom for this session that is located on the session details page of the schedule builder module. 

How to Enable Private Chat Between Users

Enabling peer-to-peer chats is a site-wide setting that allows attendees to private message each other from the main chat in sessions or sponsor chats. It can be enabled on the event properties page. Follow the steps below to navigate there from the Admin portal:

1. Select Event
2. Select Setup Properties
3. Choose the Event Options tab
4. Select Edit Details in the top right corner
5. Scroll down to the Chat Configuration heading and select Enable Peer to Peer (P2P) Private Chat

Don't forget to save!

After this setting is enabled attendees can start chats with other attendees who are actively logged into the chat. 

Please note that if you plan to use chat for sessions, you should talk to your customer success manager about your specific chat needs. Event Cloud can help strategize, and provision chat room settings based on your event's needs!