The Speaker Manager is turned off by default. This article walks through enabling it and choosing who can become a participant, how participants are found, and what applicants and session chairs can do on behalf of their team.
Turn on participants
From your dashboard, click Manage on your program.
On the program's Overview page, scroll down to the program settings summary. Under Participant Settings, click Configure.
Check Enable Participants. The remaining options appear below it.
Choose who becomes a participant automatically
Allow Applicants to be Participants — The person who submits an abstract or session automatically becomes a participant on their own submission.
Allow Session Chairs to be Participants — Session chairs automatically become participants on the sessions they chair.
Anyone else, such as co-authors or moderators, is added through a Participants field on your submission or session form. We'll cover that in Add speakers to your submission and session forms with the Participants field.
Set team permissions for applicants and session chairs
Applicants and primary session chairs often act as the coordinator for everyone on their submission or session, making sure co-authors and co-presenters finish what they need to. Applicant and Primary Session Chair Participant Team Permissions controls how much they can do:
Do not Allow Applicants and Primary Session Chairs to Manage Participant Tasks — Each participant manages only their own tasks.
Allow Applicants and Primary Session Chairs to View Participant Tasks and Remind Participants — The coordinator can see the status of every task for their team and send reminders.
Allow Applicants and Primary Session Chairs to Edit Participant Tasks and Remind Participants — The coordinator can also complete or edit tasks on a team member's behalf.
When either of the last two options is selected, applicants and session chairs see a My Team Tasks link on the portal.
Control how participants are searched and added
When a submitter adds someone to their submission, they can search for that person first. This helps prevent duplicate records for the same speaker.
Allow search of existing Participants — Turns on search. Then choose its scope:
Search in all Programs — Matches anyone who is a participant in any program on your site.
Search in this Program — Matches only participants in the current program.
Search in this Program of Participant field type — Matches only participants in the current program who hold the same role as the field being filled out.
Allow lookup from external source — Searches an external system, such as your CRM or association management system, for matching people. As the submitter types, matching records appear, and selecting one fills in that person's details.
Disable manual entry — Requires submitters to choose a person from the search results. Leave this unchecked if submitters should be able to type in a new person's details when no match is found.
Setting up an external lookup
The external source lookup works the same way as a Lookup field on your forms. You can connect it to your own endpoint, or to a Look Up connector in the Integrations Hub. For setup instructions, see:
Click Save.
Once saved, a Participants menu appears in your program's top navigation, and new tabs appear in Participant Settings: Participant Types, Participant Type Groups, Participant Task Configurations, Participant Task Application Conditions, and Participant Task Session Conditions.
Next Steps
Now that the Speaker Manager is on, build the profile every speaker will fill out. See Build your speaker profile form.