How the Sessions Channels Feature Works with the Virtual Portal and Event App

Channels are an amazing way to create a second schedule of content in your Virtual Event Portal and the Mobile Event App. Channels are meant to provide an option for attendees who want to stick around on one screen for an extended period of time instead of clicking through sessions. 

At the end of the day, channels are functionally no different from sessions in your Virtual Event Portal, in fact, they pull from the exact same data source. Identical to the way the showcase is essentially a secondary Exhibit Hall where the intended use-case is to separate academic/poster style exhibits from corporate/sponsor style exhibits.

So what we generally see events use the channels section for is to embed continuous streams for sessions. For example, if you're using the same Zoom meeting/webinar or RTMP stream to broadcast all your individual sessions, you may drop it into a container channel session and have individual speakers flow in and out of the same stream source. For attendees who want a more active virtual event experience, they'd use the sessions section and select each session individually so that they can participate in session-specific experiences like chat, Q&A, surveys, personalized schedules, and more.

1. Enabling Channels 

The Channels section in both the Virtual Event Portal and Mobile Event App have to be enabled for them to appear in either front facing applications. 

1 (A). Enabling Channels in the Virtual Event Portal

1. From the Event Dashboard, navigate to Experiences > Virtual > Settings
2. Under Options, toggle on the Enable Channels Section checkbox
   1. Note: Access to this feature requires the Stage & Sessions, Attendee Experience Module.
3. Select Save Changes

1 (B). Enabling Channels in the Mobile Event App

Similarly to sessions in the Mobile Event App, the Channels section will allow attendees to view the time of the session, the speakers list, live attendee check in list, personalized schedules, accessing session files along with all the hybrid capabilities of chats, attendees list, polls, feedback surveys, and Q&A. It does not, however, have the option to stream the sessions directly.

1. From the Event Dashboard, navigate to Experiences > Mobile App > Pages
2. Select Channels from the list
3. In the channels editor form, toggle on the Is Visible checkbox
4. Select Save Changes

Quick Tip - You can either be a channel session or not. You cannot have a session be in the regular sessions list and also be in the Channels section. It will not be available in both areas.

2. Designate Sessions as Channel Sessions

To separate sessions in your PheedLoop dashboard between the sessions and channels section in your Virtual Event Portal, you will have to designate sessions as channel sessions.

1. From your Event Dashboard, navigate Sessions > Sessions
2. Select a session you would like to designate from the list
3. In the session editor form, navigate to Virtual Settings
4. Toggle on the Channel Session checkbox
5. Select Save Changes

After designating a session, it will automatically update in the Virtual Event Portal and appear in the Channels section in the left hand side Navigation Menu. If you log into the Mobile Event App you can find the Channels section in the left hand side Navigation Menu as well.

Virtual Event Portal:

Mobile Event App:

3. Common Use Cases for Channel Sessions

Although the intended use-case for Channel Sessions is to embed continuous streams for sessions, we've seen events use the channels function for all sorts of creative applications: 

1. English Content and French Content
2. On-Demand Content and Live Content
3. Breakout Sessions and Regular Sessions