Session Categories

Use session categories along with tracks and strands to organization your agenda for easy access to layers of information.  Categories are perfect for abstracts, posters, panels, oral presentations. 

When to use Sessions Categories

1. Grouping smaller presentations into a single category tile on your agenda:  For example there is an AM TED Talks session which encompasses 30 talks on a variety of subjects. For each TED talk you have a detailed description, ppt of the talk, and speaker profile.  Listing TED Talks as a single session on your agenda will make it impossible for users to access materials and information for each talk.  Instead, you create the Category "TED Talks" and each Talk is a session assigned to the category "Ted Talks". 
2. Including Poster or Abstract details to the agenda.
3. Grouping Panels / Discussions with various speakers, topics, materials grouped into a time slot.   

The sessions categories appear on your agenda as a single category tile.  There is a plus sign at the far right of the tile indicating that the tile can be expanded to show the sessions that are assigned to that particular session category.  The screen shot below shows the agenda with two session categories:

Clicking the plus sign expands the tile to show the sessions for that session category:

When expanded the plus sign changes to a minus sign with the sessions shown below that session category.  To collapse the session category, simply click on the minus sign.

Limitation to Session Categories 

Sessions or activities in a session category on the agenda can't cross tracks.  For example if your agenda tracks represent days of your conference (Mon, Tues, Wed), then all the sessions in the session category "AM Panel Discussion" must be listed on the same day (for example all on Monday).  

Manage Session Categories

From the manage session categories screen, you can see a current listing of the session categories in your agenda.  From here you can edit an existing session category, make a session category inactive, or remove a session category in the Actions column. 

Add a Session Category

In the admin portal, go to Agenda -> Session Categories.  Click the Add Category Tab (Next to the Manage Categories tab).  The screenshot below shows the Add Session Category screen.

1. Name: category name must be unique.  If the same category needs to be used over multiple days, create a category for each day (i.e., Engagements Presentations - Monday, Engagement Presentations - Tuesday).
2. Type: This is useful to help users locate the category.  Perhaps the Type is Poster, or Panel
3. Track: Must assign the category to a track. 
4. When the track is selected, you will then see the sessions available in that track to assign to the session category.  You will need to add the sessions prior to creating the session category.

To save your changes, tap the "Add Session Category" button.

Now your new category shows up on the Manage Categories table.  Tap the edit icon to assign sessions to the category and more details.