Restricting Access to Sessions Based on Tags and Tickets

Whether attendees need a paid registration, need to be a part of a specific group (e.g. voting members), or need to register in advance because spots are limited, there are a vast number of reasons you may want to restrict access to sessions for your event. This doesn't mean you need to restrict access to the entire event to a certain subset of people (though you can do that too), but gated access to specific content is an important feature for many events for financial, regulatory, or strategic reasons.

For the Virtual Event Portal, if an attendee visits a session they do not have access to, they will be prompted with a message stating that there is restricted access. 

For on-site events, if you are using the Mobile Event App as a session check-in scanner, upon scanning an attendee’s badge if they do not meet the criteria, the scanner will receive a pop-up alerting you that the attendee cannot gain entry to the session. Furthermore, attendees who attempt to add sessions to their schedule using the on-site app or the attendee portal will not be able to.

Areas this Impacts:

Virtual Event Portal - Attendees can't see the details of session and can't add the session to their schedule

Mobile Event App - Attendees can't see the details of session and can't add the session to their  schedule

Member Portal - Attendees can't add the session to their schedule

Registration Selection Step - Attendees can't add the session to their schedule whilst registering for the event

1. Ticket Restrictions

In order for this form of restricted access to work, you must be using PheedLoop’s registration system and have tickets created. If you are not using our registration system, please use other options to restrict access to sessions.

Restricting access based on tickets associated with an attendee’s account is a powerful way to bridge your PheedLoop registration experience and the opportunity to provide privileged access. Imagine creating different tiers or levels of tickets, and depending on what tier of ticket(s) an attendee has associated with their profile, they are allowed into certain sessions.

1. From the Event Dashboard, navigate to Sessions > Sessions
2. Select a session would like to restrict tickets for from the list
3. In the session editor form, navigate to Details > Advanced Settings
4. Under Ticket Based Restrictions, select the ticket(s) that would be necessary for attending the session from the list
5. Select Save Changes

For example - if Session A has a restriction for Ticket A then that means ONLY people that have Ticket A in their profile will be able to access this session. Only people that POSSESS Ticket A will be able to access it fully.

2. Tag Restrictions

If you are not using PheedLoop’s built-in registration system, this method is particularly helpful but it is also helpful in general as most events rely heavily on tags to segment communication, promote filtering, identifiers on badges on-site, and for internal data management. Tag restrictions can also be combined with ticket restrictions and vice versa, which would mean any one of the conditions would need to be satisfied to grant access.

2 (A). Create a Tag:

1. From the Event Dashboard, navigate to Attendees > Tags
2. Above the tag table, select Create
3. Fill out the Name field and other details you desire

2 (B). Enable Tag Based Restrictions:

1. From the Event Dashboard, navigate to Sessions > Sessions
2. Select the session you would like to restrict tags to from the list
3. In the session editor form, navigate to Details > Advanced Settings
4. Under Tag Based Restrictions, select the tag(s) that would be necessary for attending the session from the list
5. Select Save Changes

For example - if Session A has a restriction for Tag A then that means ONLY people that have Tag A in their profile will be able to access this session. Only people that POSSESS Ticket A will be able to access it fully.

3. Exclusions

The exclusions feature is similar to the restrictions feature as it allows for targeted tickets and tags to be excluded from the intended session. Unlike restricting, where you have the option to limit the session to specifically chosen tickets/tags, exclusions allow for you to target tickets/tags which cannot join the session entirely. 

Whilst restrictions work for tickets and tags, exclusions allow for tickets, tags, and an option to restrict access to the Polls & Q&A page in the event app and virtual portal to specific attendees who have tags assigned to them.

For example -  if you place Ticket A under the Ticket Based Exclusions in Session A, an attendee with Ticket A who tries to go into Session A will not be able to view it or add it to their schedule.

Likewise - if you place Tag A under the Tag Based Exclusions in Session A, an attendee with Tag A who tries to go into Session A will not be able to view it or add it to their schedule.

Exclusions for tickets and tags have the same step-by-step process as restrictions and can be found underneath the Ticket Based Restrictions under the Advanced Settings section.

4. Testing Restrictions/Exclusions

4 (A). Virtual Event Portal:

1. From the Event Dashboard, navigate to Event Portals > Virtual Event Portal
2. Login as one of the attendees which has a restricted ticket or tag
3. From the left hand side navigation menu, select Sessions
4. Select the session with the restricted ticket or tag

If the restrictions/exclusions have been executed correctly, if you try to get into that restricted session with a attendee profile with those restrictions attached you should be prompted with a message that says “Sorry, access to this session is restricted!”

4 (B). Mobile Event App:

1. From the Event Dashboard, navigate to Event Portals > Mobile Event App > Mobile App Preview
2. Login as one of the attendees which has a restricted ticket or tag
3. From the left hand side navigation menu, select Schedule 
4. Select the session with the restricted ticket or tag
5. Select Add to Schedule

If the restrictions/exclusions have been executed correctly, if you try to select Add to Schedule it should prompt you with a message that states “We’re sorry, you are not permitted to access this session”

Note: If you are trying to access a session that has restrictions on it and you are logged in with your event admin account, the restrictions will not affect you as administrators have unrestricted access to all content.