This article explains how to invite your guests to in-person or virtual sessions that are part of an event in zkipster. This functionality comes in handy if you want your attendees to be able to choose which session(s) they would like to attend, rather than you assigning them to the session(s) yourself as the event host.

Before you start preparing your campaign, check out our guidance on how to create and manage sessions in zkipster first. Please also take a look at our main Communications Help Center section for some in-depth articles on how to set up your email and configure your form settings.

Important: Any guests' +1s are not counted towards the session guest count. In order to accurately make use of the session capacity function, it is best to list all guests (including any +1s) you are planning to invite as main guests inside your event. Please also note that adding your guests to sessions will count towards the 10k guest limit for guaranteed best performance.

Adding a 'Sessions' Field to your Response Form

Activating the 'Sessions' Response Field

No matter whether you are working with an Email and Responses Form campaign or a standalone form template (see our template overview here), you can add a 'Sessions' field to your response form.

To do this:

Go into the form builder of your response form
Go to 'Response Fields'
Scroll down until you see the 'Sessions' tab
Turn the toggle from 'Off' to 'On' to activate the field on the form
Don't forget to click 'Save Changes'

Configuring the 'Sessions' Response Field

Once the 'Sessions' field has been activated on the form, you can further configure it. Click into the field tab in order to reveal the field settings.

Like with any other response field, you are able to:

Change the display name
Add a description text
Decide whether you want to make the field
Locked, Required or Conditional

In addition to this, you can choose which and how many sessions your guest is allowed to choose from under 'Session Options':

In detail, you can decide whether guests can:

Choose from all sessions available
Only see a limited amount of sessions which you define in the 'Filter Options'
Pick multiple sessions (or, alternatively, only see a single choice dropdown)
Only select a limited number of session, if multiple choice is allowed

Sessions View Options and Sort Order on Response Forms

Choice of dropdown or list view
Sort by ‘Name’ or ‘Date' and 'Time’
Select the Data Format: include/exclude the name, date or time
Option to display the event time zone

If you are organizing any virtual sessions, you will additionally see the 'Auto-Register in Zoom' toggle. Make sure this is switched to 'On' (which it will be by default) in order to be able to issue your attendees with their unique Zoom Participant Join URLs.

Response Form Example with a Sessions Field

Please see an example of what a form with the Sessions field looks like below:

In terms of session visibility on the form, the following applies:

If a session has already gone over capacity, the guest will not be able to select it
If a session has expired, the guest will not be able to see it on the form altogether
If a session has already started (even if it has not yet ended), the guest will no longer see it on the response form

Form Registration for Guests with Pre-Assigned Sessions

If a guest has already been added to a session/ multiple sessions before any campaigns have been sent, the assigned session(s) will automatically pre-populate and displayed as selected on their response form.

Please note: In case a guest has been pre-assigned to an overbooked session ahead of the campaign going out, they will not be able to complete their registration if they are then trying to RSVP to the event:

If different guests have different pre-assigned sessions, but you do not wish them to view other sessions in your event apart from the ones they have been pre-assigned, you can either:

- Create a separate RSVP Form to send only to guests that have been assigned the same sessions, filtering the sessions options to only show the ones you want them to see;

Or

- Create a generic session and assign all guests to that session. After that, on the RSVP Form, configure the 'Sessions' field option filters to display only the session that is common to all guests. Once they open the form, guests will be able to see the generic session and all other sessions that were pre-assigned to them.

Adding Session Details to the Confirm Email

Please do note that session details and tags are not available through the Confirm WhatsApp/SMS message.

Turning on the Sessions Tab on the Email Builder

You can add session details and a separate Sessions 'Add to Calendar' function to the Confirm Email (which gets triggered automatically after your guest RSVPs their attendance) via the 'Sessions' tab on the email builder:

Simply click on the tab and switch the toggle to 'On':

Please note: If no session is selected by the guest then no Sessions information will be displayed on the Confirm Email.

Sessions Details

The following Sessions details will dynamically pull through to be displayed in the Confirm Email:

Session Name
Date & Time
Session Location

The 'Session Name' and 'Date & Time' sections allow you to further define the font style and size, text color as well as text alignment:

The 'Session Location' section allows to define the alignment of it in the final email:

For any virtual session, the session location will be hyperlinked and redirect to the relevant session URL to give easy access to join:

Important: Though a guest might be enrolled in a virtual session, the ':zoom_join_url' and ':zoom_participant_join_url' dynamic tags will both still point to the main event. Your guests will need to use the virtual 'session location’ URL as described above or the location of the calendar entry retrieved via the 'Add to Calendar' function (further described below):

Sessions 'Add to Calendar' Function

If you would like to add an 'Add to Calendar' function specifically designed to include any Sessions information to your guests' calendars, you can turn via the toggle as shown below (switched 'On' by default):

Once added to the email, you can further define the style, size and color of the font as well as text alignment. You will also be able to amend the icon color, alignment and size as needed:

This final 'Add to Calendar' field will look something like this:

Please note: If you are planning to make you of the Sessions 'Add the Calendar' function on the confirm email, we recommend turning off the 'Add to Calendar' button for the overall event that shows up on the response form submission page.