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Pathable Administrator’s Guide

As part of Pathable’s standard package, we design, configure and deploy your site for you and give you assistance in administering it. The information below is intended as a reference, in case you’d like to make changes on your own. If you have any questions, please don’t hesitate to ask your account representative or e-mail support@pathable.com.

As a site administrator, you will see a link in the upper left entitled “Manage Event” after you sign-in. Click that link to access your administrator’s dashboard.



Customize your event

Event Basics

Clicking the Event Setup link allows you to configure the basic elements of your event: its name, start and end date, custom URL, privacy settings, etc. These settings will be configured for you as part of the initial set-up and you should not need to make changes.

Look and Feel

Pathable is designed to “virtually embed” within an event’s existing web site. This means that Pathable will share a look and feel, navigation bar, URL structure, etc. with an existing event web site so that from an attendee’s perspective, the Pathable community site for the event is just an integrated piece of the overall event web site. The Pathable team will take care of the technical pieces of this integration, including matching your existing design elements and implementing the URL.

There are a few limits to how Pathable’s look and feel can be customized, however:

  • Pathable’s design engine only supports a navigation bar at the top of the page, not down the side. If your site has a sidebar-based navigation system, we will copy elements of it to a top-of-page bar for viewing within the Pathable site.
  • Pathable has a minimum site width of 900px, but we recommend 950px or more. This is to allow room for the conversations and other elements to display correctly.

If your site does not have an existing web site, Pathable can serve as a stand-alone conference community, as well. In that case, all we need to get started is a banner to display at the top. We recommend 972px wide and between 100 and 150px tall.

Categories and Tags

Each event can suggest categories and tags for the attendees to choose from when completing their profiles.

  • Categories are a way for attendees to distinguish each other based on broad, fixed labels. Attendees in different categories will each have a different color associated with their profile (see example at right). Each attendee can be in one and only one category. For example, a music conference might choose “Talent Scout”, “Producer”, “Musician”, “Equipment Supplier” as categories. As the event host, you choose whether or not to use categories and, if so, what they are.
  • Tags are words or short phrases that allow attendees to describe what they’re interested in. You can search for everyone with a particular tag in their profile to find people interested in a particular topic. Tags also function like dynamic mailing lists, in that you can start a conversation with everyone with a particular tag in their profile. Your message will be e-mailed to everyone who has indicated an interest in that tag (by virtue of adding it to their profile).

The key difference between tags and categories is that that attendees must choose one and only one category, but they can choose as many tags as they like.

As a host, you can customize how attendees complete their profiles in several ways:

  • Categories: You can choose the names of the categories and assign them colors. We recommend that you choose 4 – 7 categories, to provide sufficient distinction to attendees without overwhelming them with choices. To configure, click Categories from your Dashboard.
  • Suggested Tags: We recommend that you create 10 – 20 “Suggested Tags” for your attendees to choose from when completing their profile. These will be displayed as buttons the attendees can click to add those tags to their profile automatically. Attendees can also add new tags to their profile by typing them in, but the Suggested Tags list helps orient the attendees and encourages them to gather around common themes and ideas. To configure, click Questions from your Dashboard, then point your mouse at the word Tags and click the icon. Suggested tags are entered at the bottom of the dialog, separated by commas. If you do not specify “Suggested Tags”, the most popular tags will be displayed as suggestions.
  • Additional Questions: You may add additional questions that will behave like Tags (i.e., there will be a suggested list, attendees can search on them, they will be clickable). Just click the Add button from the Questions page to configure. Note that these questions must function like Tags (short words or phrases), they can not be long, free-form answers.

Badges

If your event intends to use Pathable’s printable badges, turn this feature on and choose your template. Please read our badge documentation.

Templates

Templates are messages you can send to your attendees, customized like a mail merge. As a host, you’ll be able to choose to send these templated messages to some or all of the attendees on demand or schedule them.

One special template is the default invitation that is sent to your attendees when their account is created (either because they have been imported from your registration service or you created them by hand). This template contains a personalized link in it that allows the attendee to claim their account: set their own password and complete their profile. You can customize the text of this template by clicking Templates and then selecting the template title with the green flag next to it (typically “Join the community”).

You can customize the look and feel of your templates by clicking Edit Layout under Messages from your Dashboard, then selecting a style and uploading a banner. Once you have selected your layout, the system will tell you the size requirements for the banner (typically between 580px and 600px).

Hint: Click the “Send me a preview” checkbox at the bottom when saving to get immediate feedback on what your messages will look like.

Twitter and LinkedIn Integration

Pathable can prompt your attendees to Twitter links to their profiles. This is a great way to enlist your attendees as viral marketers on your behalf. To include your event’s hash tag in the tweet, enter it in the appropriate blank under Event Basics. Be sure to include the “#” as part of your entry. This same template is used to prompt your attendees to update their LinkedIn status with a link to your event’s Pathable community.

If you would prefer that attendees not be prompted to send out a link over Twitter and LinkedIn, visit the Add-Ons page from your Dashboard and clear the appropriate checkboxes.

Pathable will also automatically discover which of an attendee’s contacts from Twitter and LinkedIn are also registered for your event. Again, if you would like to disable this functionality, visit the Add-Ons page from your Dashboard and clear the appropriate checkboxes.

Sponsors

Pathable allows you to display your event’s sponsors on your Pathable home page as well as on their own page that includes their logo, blurb, list of attendees at the event and other data.

To add sponsors, click the Sponsors link from your Dashboard, then click the Add Sponsor button. You will be prompted for:

  • Name (required): Enter the name exactly as it is used by any attendees from the sponsoring organization. This will allow Pathable to automatically build a “At the Event” list of attendees from the sponsoring organization.
  • Tags: Sponsors will show up first in any searches for tags in their profile.
  • Blurb: Description of the sponsor’s business. You may use HTML in this area to add formatting.
  • Logo (required): Sponsor’s logo as you would like it to appear on the home page. Pathable will resize the logo to the appropriate size. Note that only JPG images are supported at this time.
  • Web sites / Twitter: Just as on attendee profiles, links to web sites can provide additional information on sponsors. In addition, any blog posts or tweets from those links will be aggregated onto the sponsor’s page.

Once a sponsor has been created, you can visit it’s page through the attendee-facing interface and upload additional materials (e.g., Powerpoints, PDF’s) by clicking the Upload Materials button.

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Create a Conference Schedule

Note: if you do not create a schedule, the schedule tab won’t appear on your event.

Importing Your Schedule

Pathable allows you to publish a schedule (aka agenda) of sessions, workshops, or talks for your event. The easiest way to create the schedule is to import from a spreadsheet. Use this schedule spreadsheet template as an example, then e-mail it to your account manager who will import it for you.

Tracks

Tracks are descriptive titles for groups of sessions. Sessions in the same track will be assigned a unique color and can be filtered for. To create tracks, click Tracks under Manage Schedule from your Dashboard. To assign sessions to tracks, mouse over a session in the host tools and click the pencil icon (pencil) on a session, then select the track name from the dropdown.

Speakers

You must first create accounts for your speakers before you can assign them to talks. You can do this through Manage Attendees -> New or importing them from a spreadsheet from the Import Attendees option from your Dashboard. You must have e-mail addresses for speakers to create accounts for them. If you don’t have this information, you can always return later to create accounts for them and assign them to sessions.

Once you have created accounts for your speakers, click Manage Sessions and the pencil on the session you wish to edit, then type the speaker’s name. You may enter more than one speaker in the edit box.

Hint: If you prefer to wait until the site is complete to invite a speaker, you do not need to send them an invitation when you create them. Just remember to send invitations when the site is ready.

Best practice is to complete your site, then invite speakers, then invite the rest of the attendees. That way, the speakers are already part of the community when the attendees arrive.

Uploading Materials

Host and speakers can upload supporting materials (e.g., hand-outs, slide decks, etc.) to individual sessions. To upload materials, just visit the attendee-facing session page you wish to edit and click the Upload Files button

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Attendee Management

Depending on whether you are selling tickets for your event, inviting in select people or allowing anyone who visits the Pathable site to create an account, you’ll want to configure things slightly differently. Pathable doesn’t sell tickets for events directly, but we do integrate with several third-party services that do. Our integration allows us to automatically create accounts for attendees and send them invitations when they purchase a ticket with your registration service.

Ticketing Set-up

  • If attendees must pay to register
    • Click Ticketing and select a ticketing service. If you do not see your service, please contact us, we may be able to help.

    • We recommend you leave all three checkboxes at the bottom of the page checked. This will ensure that attendees receive the invitation message you authored as soon as they have purchased their ticket, but that their profile won’t show up until they’ve accepted the invitation, for privacy reasons.
    • You’re done! Start promoting your event. As soon as attendees register, they’ll be invited into the system. Any attendees that registered prior to the time you created the Pathable event will be invited immediately.
  • If you have a list of people you intend to invite
    • Click Attendees -> Import Attendees
    • Convert your list into a comma-separated text (CSV) using a program like Excel. Be sure the fields are in the order indicated on the page (i.e., e-mail, first name, last name, title, organization, etc.) You may leave any fields you don’t have blank, only e-mail, first name and last name are required.
    • We recommend you select the “List them in directory after they sign-in and complete their profile” and “Send the default invitation to new attendees as they are imported” options. This will ensure that attendees are only visible to other attendees after they have accepted your invitation and that they receive your invitation message (see Step 5) as soon as you import them.
    • Select your file and Import
    • If you have not opted to send your default invitation as you import them, you will need to send your invitations. To do so:
      • Messages -> Send Messages
      • Select individuals to receive your invitation
      • Click Message button
      • Select the message and send.
  • If it is a free, open event
    • Visit Setup -> Event Basics and be sure the “Open” event type is selected. Anyone who visits the site will be able to create an account for themselves. You simply need to promote your event.

Note: Pathable uses an attendee’s e-mail address as the “unique identifier” for that account. If a particular attendee already has a Pathable account, they will not be re-imported or updated.

Sending Invitations and Reminders

If you have configured Pathable to integrate with one of our registration providers, new attendees will automatically be sent the default invitation (set under Messages -> Edit Templates).

You may also send invitations or other host messages manually. Click Manage Attendees, select the attendees you want to send a message to and click the Message button.

For example, if you want to send a reminder to attendees that have not yet completed their profile, you would:

  • Manage Attendees
  • Select “Status” from the filter dropdown, select “Not Responded” then click Search
  • Click “select all”
  • Click the Message button and choose the reminder message

To save time and ensure you don’t forget, you can also schedule reminders to go out automatically:

  • Edit Templates
  • Choose the message template you would like to have sent or create a new one
  • Click “Add Schedule”
  • Select your target audience and frequency. For example, you might choose to have a reminder message sent to all attendees who have “not responded” (i.e., not completed their profile) every week prior to the conference’s beginning.

Note: Messages sent through the host tools will not show up in the public conversations area. However, they can be sent to all attendees, not just those who have responded (unlike the public conversations).

Creating Hosts (Administrators)

Hosts are attendees who have access to the Host control panel. You can grant any attendee host privileges simply by editing them and assigning them to the Host role:

  • Manage Attendees
  • Select an attendee
  • Edit
  • Change role to Host and Save

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Other Options

Pathable has a number of options and customizations. If there’s something you’re hoping for but don’t see, please drop us a line.

Wikis

Pathable allows you to insert attendee-editable sections, called wikis, into your event site. You’ll fnd the settings under Add-Ons.

If you choose to enable wikis on individual sessions, each talk on the schedule will have its own wiki section that attendees can edit. This could be used to suggest questions to the speaker or to take notes, for example.

If you choose to enable a “conference-wide” wiki, a “Wiki” option will appear in your events navigation bar. This could be used for ride-sharing, gathering suggestions for sessions, etc.

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