The Sidebar in Your Event Room

The sidebar of your event room can be customized according to your needs for your events. We'll show you how to choose your settings and explain to you what the different tabs are.

IN THIS ARTICLE

Customize the Sidebar

You can customize the tabs that will be displayed on your sidebar. Indeed, you can choose to enable the tabs you need or disable the tabs that won't be necessary during your event.

Directly from your Event room settings, you'll be able to:

  • Enable/Disable Chat tab

If you disable the Chat tab, it will be disabled for attendees but still enabled for team members & guest speakers.

  • Enable/Disable Questions tab. You can choose between enabling:
    • Public questions
    • Private questions (only visible by team members & guest speakers).
  • Enable/Disable Polls tab
  • Hide/Show the People tab

If you hide the People tab, it will be hidden for attendees but still be visible to team members & guest speakers.

  • Hide/Show your attendees last names

If you hide the attendees' last names, team members & guest speakers will still be able to see the full names.

  • Allow attendees to download shared PDF presentations (by default, they're not downloadable).

Thanks to our preview mode, you'll be able to see the changes that you make on the sidebar directly from an attendee or a team member's point of view.

The Chat Tab

If the Chat tab is enabled, it will be public. It means that everyone in the room will be able to see the messages.

There are 2 tabs in the Chat tab:

  • Everyone: this chat is visible by everyone in the room
  • Moderators: only team members & guest speakers can access this chat

Moderators' chat messages won't show up if you export the chat messages.

In the Chat tab, you can:

1
Write messages
2
Send emojis
3
Send Dropbox and Google Drive links
4
Delete a message by clicking on the ••• icon next to the message
5
Block someone by clicking on the ••• icon next to the message
6
Invite someone to participate by clicking on the ••• icon next to the message
7
Mention someone by typing "@" and the name of the participant (e.g. @SarahMartin)

Only the team members and guest speakers can remove a message, block someone, and invite someone to participate.

Livestorm Tip 👉  As the chat message history will be public once you start the event, you can send a welcome message before the event starts so your attendees will see it as soon as they join the room.

The Questions Tab

The Questions tab is very useful as everyone can ask questions and they're all gathered at the same place allowing you not to miss any of them. You can either answer live or write an answer, and you can also order the questions.

The questions will be available to everyone in the room if you've enabled "Public questions", otherwise only team members and guest speakers will be able to see them.

Asking a question

In the Questions Tab, everyone in the room can ask questions by clicking on Ask new question and Upvote the questions.

Only team members and guest speakers can answer questions.

Answering a Question

You can answer the questions in 2 ways:

  1. Answer live while you're participating
  2. Write your answer in the dedicated space

1. Answer live while you're participating

1
Click on Start live answer.
" Public Questions" must be enabled to have access to this feature.
2
A popup window will be displayed in the room showing the question being answered live. The popup window can be minimized.
3
A message will be displayed under the questions in the Questions tab telling your attendees who "is answering live" and will switch to "has answered live" once you've clicked on I'm done answering.

2. Write your answer in the dedicated space

1
Click on the Type your answer field and start writing your answer.
2
Once done, click on the Send button (or CTRL/ ⌘ + Enter).
3
Your message will then be displayed to your attendees.
4
You can edit it again if you need to by clicking on the ⋮ icon next to the answer.

Ordering the Questions

For better question management purposes, you can order the questions by:

  • Date
  • Upvotes
  • Not answered

Ordering the questions will help you manage them as you like, for example:

  • if you want to answer chronologically (first arrived, first served): order them by "Date"
  • if there are a lot of questions (you won't be able to answer them all): order them by "Upvotes"
  • if you don't want to miss any (you want to please everyone): order them by "Not answered"

The Polls Tab

During your event, you might need to ask a question through a poll to all your participants and gather all their answers. 

In this section, we're going to show you how to:

Only team members can send polls.

Create a New Poll

1
Click on Add a poll
2
Create a New poll.
3
Enter your question.
4
Enter the options (click on Add option if you need more fields).
5
Choose the settings of your poll.
You can make your poll mandatory by checking the option in the settings. Your attendees will have to answer the poll appearing in the middle of the room (non mandatory polls are being displayed in the sidebar).
6
You can either Save as draft to publish it later or Send poll directly.
7
You can then Publish (if you saved it as draft)/ Unpublish (if you've published it)/ Edit/ Delete poll by clicking on the ⋮ next to the question.

Publish a Saved Poll

We save all your previously added polls so you can easily publish them in future sessions or events.

1
Click on Add a poll
2
Select your saved poll.
3
If you have many saved polls, you can search for one or order them.
4
Click on Add 1 draft poll.
5
You can then Publish/ Edit/ Delete poll by clicking on the ⋮ next to the question.

Answer a Poll

Everyone in the room can answer a poll. To do so, they need to:

1
Select their answer(s).
2
Click on Submit vote.

Poll Results

Team members & guest speakers have a different view of the poll results than attendees. Indeed, they can see how many people voted and how many votes there are on each answer, while attendees only see the % of answers.

Team members & guest speakers can click on the " eye icon" to see the results without voting themselves.

The results are displayed in real-time and anonymously to your attendees. However, in your dashboard, you can export the registrants'data to see everyone's answer.

In this example, 3 people voted in total. And, as it was a multiple-choice question, there are more than 3 answers in total.

Team members & guest speakers view:

Attendees view:

The People Tab

The people tab is a list of all the registrants, team members, and guest speakers that entered the event room.

You can hide/show this tab to your attendees but it will always be visible by team members & guest speakers.

From the People tab you can:

  • See who is connected and disconnected (they left the room)

When there are more than 1,000 attendees in your event, you need to refresh the tab display the new connected people.

  • Check who is participating as people that are participating have a red circle around their avatar
  • Verify if people that are participating have their cam enable/disabled and their mic muted/unmuted
  • Distinguish team members from guest speakers thanks to the tags next to their names (no tag means they are attendees)
  • Block someone or Invite to participate by clicking on the ⋮ next to their name

Team members & guest speakers' view:

Attendees' view:

Externalize the Sidebar

To be able to externalize the sidebar of your event room, you first need to enable the External Sidebar app from your App marketplace.

Externalizing your sidebar can be useful if you have only one screen and you are sharing your entire screen. It will allow you to have your sidebar on another device (mobile, tablet) by only scanning a QR code so you can see the chat and questions while screen sharing.

Enable the External Sidebar App in your Event Room

1
Go to the App marketplace either from your dashboard or by clicking on the Apps icon inside your event room.
From your dashboard:

From your event room:

2
Click on the External Sidebar card you want to enable.

3
Enable the app.

4
Your External Sidebar app is now activated in your event room! 🎉

Externalize Your Sidebar on Another Device or Window

1
Click on the Apps button and then select External Sidebar.

2
Log in to your Livestorm account from your mobile/tablet.
3
Scan the QR code displayed in the sidebar with your mobile/tablet (or click on Open the sidebar in a new window if you just need a second window).

4
The sidebar shows up on your mobile/tablet. You can then use all the sidebar buttons like on the sidebar in the event room (except the Apps button).

Mute all Notification Sounds

You can mute all the notification sounds directly from your sidebar. Just click on the bell icon. 😉

Close the Sidebar

To close your sidebar, simply click on the X at the top right corner of it.

Closing the sidebar will only apply to your layout and not to your participants'.

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