The guide below walks you through the steps to create, edit, and manage events from your event dashboard.

The dashboard is the behind-the-scenes or back end of the community where you can create events, make edits, manage attendees, etc.

The administrator of your community has configured your access and permissions, so if you think there is something you should be able to access or see that's not available, reach out to your administrator directly.

Navigate to that link and sign in by entering your email address in the email field. This will prompt the system to send a magic link to your email inbox to log into the dashboard.

Follow the link in your inbox and you will be directed to the dashboard. Select the community you will be managing, and you're in!

The guide below walks through creating and editing events & the access and permissions for those in the Event Editor level (fewest permissions/most limited access) to the Event Admin level (most permissions/most expansive access).

The permissions and access build off of the level before, so Event Managers have all the permissions and access of an Event Editor, plus any listed below that level. An Event Admin has all the permissions and access of an Event Editor, plus those of an Event Manager, plus any listed below that level.

As an Event Editor, you can create, edit, and manage many elements of an event from your dashboard.

Navigate to the Events menu item in the dashboard, select the + Create an event button in the upper right and enter all necessary information:

You can add and edit lots of information and elements to events for increased visibility and engagement. The below guide walks you through each menu item found on the left-hand side, within each event.

This is the event dashboard page where you can see event registration, attendees online, and general data analytics. Most importantly, the direct event link can be found at the top of this page, to direct members to the event on the front end.

All events remain hidden (unpublished) until an admin or collaborator takes action to publish them.

As an Event Editor, you do not have access to change this setting and must reach out to your Event Manager, Event Admin or Community Manager to publish your event.

Because the event is unpublished until an admin takes action, you can preview the event and make sure it looks great before requesting for it to be published.

The Event Link at the top of this page is the direct link to the event that can be shared with potential registrants, and attendees to sign in.

This is where you can change information about the event like Title, Timezone, and Date. For in-person events, you can list the physical address where the event is taking place.

Set what date and time 'doors open' or the event page goes live.

This is enabled when the event has ended and allows you to enter a URL for users to watch a replay of the event.

Provide a description of the event. You can customize the content block with different text types (headers, quotes, links, numbered lists, tables, etc.). You can also embed code or iframes, and insert graphics, tweets, and videos.

Upload an image to stand as the graphic for the event. It's recommended as a JPG file that is no more than 5MB.

Tags are used to group events, and power recommendations to the user. You can select from a previously added Tag, or enter a new Tag.

Keep tags short and sweet, and add as many as you'd like. They will populate as hashtags on the event detail page.

Select who's listed as organizing this event - individuals like yourself, or organizations as partners. The system will automatically list you as the organizer if you select 'Organized by individual(s)' but you can add others, or select 'Organized by organization(s)' to list a company, partner, or other group. You can also select 'None' if that's more appropriate for the event.

If you'd like to list the community as the organizer, reach out to the community administrator to make that customization.

Assign meeting hosts and panelists for your event. Meeting events must have at least one host assigned, and that host must be an attendee of the event.

Learn more about the capabilities of a host versus a panelist, and how to add and assign them here.

Build out or edit your event agenda by adding sessions, speakers, and engagement opportunities.

If you are building a 1:1 Match networking event, you will not need to build an agenda.

Learn all about the components of your event agenda and how to build it here.

If you need to Edit or change a session, select the Edit button within the agenda item block.

You can edit all fields except Type. If you need to edit or change the type of session, you will need to delete the agenda item/session and create a new agenda item/session with the corrected type.

If you need to Delete a session, select the Delete button within the agenda item block, and confirm your deletion by selecting Delete.

Multi-day events can be accommodated in the agenda by adding and titling each day where you will host sessions. You can only add multiple days to your agenda if your event dates span more than one day in General Info.

Utilizing Tracks is an optional way to group your agenda items. Tracks can be topics, categories, attendee types, etc. If you are planning to use Tracks to organize your agenda, we recommend creating them before creating your agenda.

If you are hosting a multi-track event where you will be streaming video for two or more sessions at the same time, you will need to add stages to accommodate multiple stream feeds. Each stage in Gradual requires it's own RTMP feed.

You add a stage by selecting the + Add A Stage button in the upper right. You will need to name each additional stage and the platform will automatically build a Stream Key and Stream RTMP URL for you.

Learn more about streaming to Gradual here.

Gradual does not have a native streaming service, so if you are live streaming into an event you will need to connect the event stage(s) to a streaming service to feed the video to the event attendees.

All events will automatically configure one stage and title it 'Stage 1'. If you want to change the name of the stage, select Edit, enter a new title, and select Submit to save your work.

If you are hosting a multi-track event where you will be streaming video for two or more sessions at the same time, you will need to add stages to accommodate multiple stream feeds.

You add a stage by selecting the + Add A Stage button in the upper right. You will need to name each additional stage and the platform will automatically build a Stream Key and Stream RTMP URL for you.

Gradual supports any streaming service or encoder that can output an RTMP stream.

When it's time to connect your streaming service to the stage(s) in Gradual, follow these steps, depending on the service you are utilizing:

All the speakers for your event can be found here. You can add or remove speakers, and reposition how speakers populate when listed on the event detail page.

Learn how to add speakers to your community & events here.

Remove speakers from the event by selecting the edit icon in the Action column and selecting 'Remove from Event'. Removing speakers will also remove them from any agenda items they've been assigned.

Repositioning speakers will reorder them on the event detail page on the front end. Reposition your speakers by dragging the three-line, hamburger icon in the Sort column to the order you'd like displayed.

Roundtables are simple, on-platform video calls that users can host, or join, to discuss topics and build new connections within your events. Roundtables can be hosted concurrently to other roundtables and agenda items, and allow users to pop in and out at their leisure without needing to register for each roundtable.

Learn more about how to build roundtables here.

Ensure your roundtable has at least one time slot added to ensure attendees can engage in the video call during the event.

Add a time slot by selecting the Roundtable from the list by clicking on its Title. At the base of the page, Select + New Time Slot and enter the scheduled start date and time, select OK and enter the scheduled end date and time, select OK. Enter the number of seats and decide if you want to add a host. You can select a host from the list of attendees.

Customize your event registration form by asking attendees a series of questions before confirming their registration. Registration forms can be built for all types of events in Gradual and can include as many questions as you need to get the right information from your registrants.

Learn more about how to build custom questions and export the information on each attendee here.

As an Event Editor, you are not able to make changes to the automated platform emails.

Within Gradual events you can launch push Notifications. Notifications are pop-up messages that appear at the top of all users' screens within the event.

As a collaborator, you must activate and push the notification in real-time, during the event but all types of notifications can be created before an event and then turned on and off one at a time, during the event.

Announcements are used to notify users of an update or call to action. You can add links to announcements that will activate a button on the pop-up that users can follow.

For example: Another stage is live or a session has begun. Here Is How To Link To Specific Livestream Stages.

Alerts are used if there’s something unexpected that needs to be shared right away. The alert is stylized in red to draw attention.

For example: A delay on start time or a presentation.

Learn more about how to set up notifications and activate them during events here.

Ensure that your event is optimized for online searching by adding keywords associated with the event, changing the image that is used when members share on social, and even updating the 160-character count description that's listed. The event description listed in Event Setup will automatically load in the SEO Settings description but you can change it to be a more descriptive one or two-line explanation and to draw in registrants. The Social Sharing Image will default to the cover image loaded in Event SetUp as well.

All registrants and attendees to the event are listed in this tab. Details on their ticket type, total amount paid, and date and time of registrant are all listed here. Search by registrants' information and access their profile and ticket information by selecting their name, avatar or the eye icon.

Change the order attendees appear on the front end by featuring certain attendees, or hide them by marking them 'staff'. You can also toggle the visibility of the attendee list on the front-end event detail page on this page, in the upper right-hand side.

From this tab you can also add attendees one by one, or in bulk, and export the list to see details on the attendees ina csv file.

As the Event Editor, you will not see the members' email addresses and cannot add or remove attendees from the event.

Hosts can record meetings and roundtables (NOT livestream or 1:1 events). All recordings are saved as mp4 files and are accessible from the Recordings tab. If there are multiple recordings for one event, they will list in chronological order and show the duration of the recording in the Time column.

Channels are the chats associated with each stage. If an event has happened or is in process, you will see all chat messages come through in real-time. If the event has not happened yet, there will not be any chat messages, and you cannot draft messages from the dashboard.

During an event, moderate, delete and pin live messages that come in from attendees, by following these steps. Add Chat Moderators from this tab as well.

Event Q&A can be enabled in meeting or livestream events and can be general Q&A where questions are visible to all attendees, or moderated Q&A where chat moderators or hosts approve questions to be visible to other attendees, and answered in the event.

General Q&A creates a Q&A tab in the chat box for attendees to submit questions to presenters - all questions are visible to all upon submission.

Moderated Q&A puts the visibility controls of questions into the hands of chat moderators or hosts. With moderated Q&A enabled, questions are not visible to any attendees unless they have been approved by the chat moderators or hosts.

Learn more about the user's experience of Q&A module and how to enable it here.

Here you can make edits to the types of tickets provided, any promo codes or discounts offered, and create eye-catching and graphic virtual tickets for your event registrants to share and promote your event.

You can create promo codes to apply discounts to paid tickets when event registrants are checking out.

Learn more about how to create promo codes here.

A "Free Ticket" at $0 cost is automatically set up for each event but you can edit the Ticket's name and cost, and add any number of types of tickets (with costs associated to them, or not) that your event registrants can choose from when registering. You can also limit the number of tickets available in each ticket type, and provide a description that will populate on the front end for users to get a better idea of what the ticket includes.

Here is an example of what users will see on the front end:

'Standard Ticket' and 'Full Table' are the ticket type Names and the descriptive text below them are the Descriptions added in the dashboard.

If you are setting up a ticket type that has a cost associated with it, a payment gateway will need to be set up by the Gradual team to collect payments. Reach out to your community admin, or our team to set that up.

Set parameters around the access to events or tickets using invitation-only ticketing. Keep your events visible to the community or public, but restrict who can register through this feature. Lastly, a native form is included in this flow to collect interest from those who are interested in registering, but are not on the invitation list. Invitations can be offered by providing a specific list of email addresses or you can generate access codes to send to potential attendees, that they enter during registration.

Learn more about Invitation Only tickets here.

Virtual tickets are a great way to encourage attendees to market your event on social media and drive referrals through link shares. Once enabled, these tickets create a virtual ticket graphic and a personalized page for each registrant that encourages them to share their participation in the event and allows you as the event administrator to track referrals.

Learn more about Virtual Tickets here.

Here you can see all other event collaborators and their roles.

If you need to add other collaborators and collaborators to your event, contact your community administrator to add them.

Event Managers have all access and permissions listed above under Event Editor plus the ability to publish or unpublish an event, and export event attendees' information.

Published events are visible, and searchable on the front end of the community.

Once you have built out the event and are ready for it to 'go live' for registrations and have the event populate on the front end of the community, you must Publish it.

You can publish an event in two ways:

Unpublished events are hidden from members on the front end and the community home page or event page. Keep an event unpublished while it is in draft form, or if you want it hidden from community members, and unsearchable from the community homepage.

All events remain hidden and unpublished until an admin or collaborator takes action to publish them. If you need to unpublish an event, select the Actions button in the upper right, and select Unpublish.

If you would like preview an event detail page, or invite certain members to register and attend an event, but don't want that event visible to all members, keep it unpublished and share the event link with only the people you'd like to register and attend!

In addition to all the capabilities and access listed above, you are able to export all attendees of the event.

Learn more about how to export attendees here.

As the Manager, you will not see the members' email addresses in the dashboard or in the export reports, and cannot add or remove attendees from the event.

Event Admins have all access and permissions listed above under Event Editor AND Event Manager, plus the ability to export event attendees' information (including email addresses), add or remove event registrants, enable automated email reminders, and delete events entirely.

If you would like to delete an event entirely, you can do that as an Event Admin.

From the Overview page, select the Actions button in the upper right and select Delete. Confirm this action by typing delete in the open field and selecting Delete.

Deleting the event will remove all instances of the event including registrations, calendar invites and analytics associated with the event. Any attendees registered for this event will be automatically unregistered.

If you'd like an event to be hidden from the front end, but not deleted entirely, you can simply unpublish it by selecting the Actions button in the upper right, and selecting Unpublish.

If there is an external website where you are collecting registrations for an event, you can list the webpage URL and when a user selects 'register' for that event in Gradual, they will be directed to the URL to complete registration.

Add this URL by navigating to the event dashboard, 'Event Setup', and to 'General Info'. Under 'Registration Method' select 'Custom Webpage' and enter the URL to the form, registration page, etc.

Any users who leave Gradual to register for an event will not populate as Attendees in the event dashboard and must be manually added or bulk-uploaded at a later date.

Gradual makes event communication easy by providing standard email templates sent out by the platform. While these templates are not editable, some can be turned on and off, and be customized with your community name, logo, and email sender name and address.

As an Event Admin you are able to enable or disable four automated event emails: Registration confirmation email, 24 hour and 30 minute Reminder emails and the post-event survey email.

Learn more about what these emails look like and when they are delivered here.

In addition to all the capabilities and access listed above, you have access to members' profiles (including email addresses), can make edits to profiles, export all attendees of the event and cancel registrations.

In the Attendees tab, you can access members' profiles and make edits to their sign up profile information (name, title, company, LinkedIn URL and headshot). Any additional profile information (onboarding and profile question answers) must be completed by the member.

Learn more about how to export attendees here.

Learn more about manually registering attendees here.

Learn more about canceling an attendee's registration here.