Mobile App/Branded App Version: 23.0.0

Agenda/Calendar View Update

Your community calendar and event agenda just got a whole lot better! Two awesome new features are now available for both the Web App and Mobile App. 🎉

First, we've introduced Month and Year views. It's now very simple for community members or multi-week event attendees to browse the Agenda/Calendar and find upcoming or past sessions quickly. 

Selecting a month in the Year view takes you to the Month view. Selecting a day in the Month view takes you to the Day view, which is the same view you and your members and attendees are used to. 

When you edit the settings for the Agenda/Calendar feature, you can choose a Default View to suit your needs. 

The default Day view also got some love! Your attendees will now see the Happening Now carousel when there are sessions in progress. Users can scroll the carousel to the side to reveal additional sessions if there are lots happening at once.

⭐ Keep in mind, to take advantage of these new features in your Branded Mobile App, you'll need to update your app using this process.

For a complete look at using either the Agenda feature in Event Apps or the Calendar feature in Communities, check this out.

Custom Refund Policy

Sometimes life happens, and people can't make it to your event. Socio Registration gives you the power to issue refunds, and you could previously select from a list of 3 preset refund policies to present in the registration form. We've now added a 4th option that puts the stated policy in your hands! 

When editing your Refund Policy, select the Custom Refund Policy option from the drop-down, enter your own refund policy, and click Save Changes. It's that easy. 😀

For a complete look at how to set your Refund Policy, check this out.

Promo Code entry update

Don't discount the value of this update! 🥁🥁 🐍 Registrants no longer have to click the Enter Code link to reveal the Enter Code field. The field is now always visible at the top of the Tickets list in the registration form and in Ticket widgets.

To learn more about using Promo Codes in your registation, check this out.

Lead Retrieval Export

If you've ever wanted to see specific data on each lead captured by your Lead Retrieval exhibitors, you're in luck! 🍀

We've added the new Export Scan Data button to the Metrics page of your Lead Retrieval event. Click it, and you'll get an xlsx file with the following data goodies:

• Attendee Id 
• First Name 
• Last Name 
• Attendee Email 
• Title 
• Company 
• Scanned by Exhibitor Name 
• Exhibitor User Id 
• Scanned by User First Name 
• Scanned by User Last Name 
• Scanned by Title 
• Lead Quality 
• Lead Status 
• Scan Date 
• Scan Time 

This is great for when you want to summarize how Lead Retrieval performed for your stakeholders, and to prove value to future exhibitors who may want to use LR at your next event.

To learn all about setting up and using Lead Retrieval, check this out.

Croatian Language Support

Zdravo! We're pleased to announce that we now support Croatian in the Web App and Mobile Apps. For our full list of supported languages, check this out.

That's all for today, folks! Hop over to the Socio Platform and take a look at these new changes for yourself. 

Platform Knowledge Base Localization

We're proud to announce that the Socio Platform Knowledge Base at help.socio.events has now been translated into 26 languages! When you visit the help center, look for the language drop-down at the top of any page across from the Socio logo.

Please note that these translations were generated using Machine Translation.

Go see the full list of languages at help.socio.events! 

App Knowledge Base Retirement

As previously announced, we officially retired the attendee-facing App Knowledge Base today. We've also removed the App Guide feature from the Socio Platform. Anyone who clicks a link to the App KB will now be redirected to the socio.events website.

That's all for today! 

More Languages

• Bulgarian
• Catalan (Spain)
• Croatian
• English (UK)
• French (France)
• Indonesian
• Norwegian
• Spanish (Spain) 

App Guide and Attendee Knowledge Base Retirement

On February 23, 2022, we’re retiring the Attendee App Knowledge Base at help.ea.socio.events.

We launched the App Knowledge Base to help answer attendee questions. However, it receives very little traffic — <1% of total feature clicks on average. Turns out, our products are pretty intuitive for end users! Instead of maintaining articles that few are using, we’ve opted to double down on the content that you are using, and empower you to create custom guidance for your attendees.

We encourage you to check out our article about creating an awesome Attendee Walkthrough and use it as inspiration for creating your own guides, whether a video, FAQ, or PDF. Using the examples from other organizers, you can create awesome content tailored to your brand, event, and attendees.

We've taken measures to ensure that anyone who happens to find a link to the App KB will be redirected after February 23.

Term Change: Branded App Custom App

"What's in a name? That which we call a Branded App by any other name would smell just as sweet." - William Shakespeare (sort of)

When you create a Socio Event or Community, your attendees on mobile devices can access it via the Socio App at no additional cost. If you want your mobile experience tailored more to your brand, we offer the add-on Custom App, formerly referred to as the Branded App. 

These great options remain unchanged! We simply wanted to let you know that we've changed how we talk about this custom version of the Socio App from "Branded App" to "Custom App". You'll see this change reflected in the Socio Platform, the Socio Platform Knowledge Base, and future communications from our team.

To learn all about making your own Custom App, check this out.

That's all for today! Hop over to the Socio Platform and take a look at these new changes for yourself.

Email Draft Mode

Socio Registration comes with the ability to easily send emails to people who have registered for your event or community. Until now, there wasn't any way to save an email without sending it or scheduling it. Now, if you start an email and want to finish it later, you can! When creating an email, simply click the new Save as Draft button. ✉

With this change, we've introduced a couple small changes to the Emails page of your Registration event.

• Email statuses now include Draft, Scheduled, In Progress, and Sent.
• When you click the Settings (⚙️) icon next to a scheduled email, you can now select Cancel Scheduled Email. Canceling an email puts it in Draft mode.

For a complete look at using the Email feature in your Registration event, check this out!

Registration Dark Mode

🌑 Hey, who turned out the lights? You did! 

You asked for it, and now you've got it — dark mode in Registration. Turning it on is as simple as visiting the Appearance page of your Registration event settings, clicking the Enable Dark Mode toggle, and saving.

Once enabled, anyone using your Registration forms or widgets will experience the dark side.

Before you turn on Dark Mode for your registration, here are a couple things to keep in mind:

• Dark Mode can't be turned off by registrants, only you have that power. ⚡
• Be sure to select a Registration Theme Color that contrasts well with a dark background. 🌈

To learn all about setting up and using Socio Registration, check this out!

And More...

In addition to the above registration improvements, we've also made a couple small changes:

🧾 Registration receipts now show the purchaser's name.

🚫 When an attendee removes another attendee from their Connections, the person they removed can no longer send them messages. 

That's all for today, folks! Hop over to the Socio Platform and take a look at these new changes for yourself. 

Grid View for Speakers and Custom List features

We're pleased to announce that we've added the Grid View option to the Speakers and Custom List features' settings. Grid View introduces the Booth Size, Booth Cover, Content Provider, and Chat options to profiles you add to these features, and we can't wait to see what you'll do with them!

Anyone who's used our Sponsors or Exhibitors features before knows what's possible with Grid View's additional features. For those that haven't, here's a brief explanation:

• Grid View - An alternate layout to List View where each item in the feature can have its own Cover image and Content Provider.
• Booth Size - This setting determines the Booth Cover image size for a feature item. Change the size to highlight headline speakers or important items.
• Booth Cover - This is an image you can add to each item that attendees see when they visit the feature. Upload pictures of your speakers or provide images that help inform attendees of what the item contains.
• Content Provider - Link to a website, upload a PDF, or select from a list of video providers, including the new Socio Video on Demand. 
• Chat - Add a Chat tab to the sidebar of the Web App or a Chat button in the Socio mobile app. 

Here's an example of how the Speakers feature might look in the Web App with the new Grid View options in place! 

When you create a new Custom List feature, the default view is still List View. For the Speakers feature, the default is now Grid View, and new items default to the Small Booth Size.

For a complete look at how to set up and use the Speakers feature, check this out. For Custom List, click here.

Onsite Badge Custom Questions

When you're designing a badge in Socio Onsite, all Custom questions you've added to your linked Socio Registration event's checkout forms now appear as User Info fields that you can add to the badge. This could be useful for indicating an attendee's selected meal plan, adding their LinkedIn handle to their badge, or indicating which group(s) they belong to, among many, many others. Let your imagination run wild!

In the badge designer, simply go to the User Info tab, and scroll down to find your Custom Questions. When you add a question, a placeholder appears in the Badge Preview. The placeholder is replaced with the actual question answer when the badge is printed. 

For a complete look at creating badges in Socio Onsite, check this out!

Lead Retrieval Purchase Form UTM Parameters

We just released our new Lead Retrieval Purchase Forms so your exhibitors can purchase licenses themselves, and we're already improving them with the addition of UTM parameter support!

Now you can append the Purchase Form Link with your UTM parameters (using the ad provider's URL builder) before you send it out to exhibitors. After exhibitors have purchased licenses, head over to the Exhibitors tab of your Lead Retrieval event to export the UTM data. 

For a complete look at exporting UTM data for Lead Retrieval Purchase Forms, check this out.

Hop over to the Socio Platform and take a look at these new changes for yourself. 

Video Center

If you've ever wished it was easier to embed a video in your Socio event or been frustrated by juggling multiple software platforms to produce, host, and share pre-recorded video, you're going to like Socio's Video Center! 😃

With the new Video Center, you can import an unlimited number of video files up to 8GB with no length restrictions! These video files can be used in the Agenda, Live Stream, and Sponsors features as Simulive and Video on Demand content. 

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Simulive is a mashup of the words "simulated" and "live". Simply put, it means pre-recorded video presented at a specific time as if it were live content. Attendees must start watching at the right time to see the whole video.

Video on Demand is pre-recorded video that's available at any time, and viewers can access it at their leisure.  

Simulive and Socio

When you make a new Agenda session or Live Stream feature, you can now select Socio Simulive as a live stream provider if you have a Socio Streaming credit. You can then select a video file you uploaded to the Video Center and set a Stream Time. Just like with Socio Streaming, the Join Live Stream button appears in the Agenda 15 minutes before the Stream Time. When the time comes, the video will start playing as if it were live! 

Video on Demand and Socio

When a live stream ends, you may want to make the recording available for attendees to watch if they missed the session or simply want a refresher. You can now select Socio Video on Demand as a recording provider in Agenda sessions or as a Live Stream provider in the Live Stream feature.

Video on Demand is now an option for Sponsor content, too! When the Sponsors feature is set to Grid View, you can choose a Content Provider and then paste in a link to sponsor content. Or, you can select Socio Video on Demand to show a video you've uploaded to the Video Center.

We're really excited about how Video Center will simplify the recorded content experience for you! Check this out for a complete look at these new changes.

Lead Retrieval Purchase Forms

Socio's powerful, intuitive Lead Retrieval app has been a tremendous hit with exhibitors and organizers alike for quite a while. Inviting exhibitors to Lead Retrieval has always involved pre-purchasing a number of licenses that can then be used to create exhibitor profiles and invite admins to the Lead Retrieval app. Without knowing exactly how many exhibitors would be interested in purchasing Lead Retrieval, you might end up buying more licenses than you need. 

That's all changed now with the introduction of Lead Retrieval Purchase Forms! Now you can set the price for licenses, connect your Stripe account, and then send a link to the form out to exhibitors so they can purchase the licenses themselves. Simply sit back and watch the exhibitors come in. You get a small cut from each Lead Retrieval license purchased. 💸

It's not all or nothing with Purchase Forms — you can still add and invite exhibitors like before and use the form, too.

Want to learn more? Read all about Lead Retrieval Purchase Forms here!

Registration Promo Email Export

When you use Socio Registration's Promo Emails, we show Delivered, Sent, Opened, and Link Click counts on the Emails page. Until now, there was never a way to export this data.

With this change, you can click the Settings (⚙️) icon next to an email and then click Export to download a spreadsheet with the above information and some new goodies! 😍

The export file contains three sheets: Email Metrics, Recipient Metrics, and Appendix. The Appendix contains information to help you understand the information in the other two sheets. 

The Email Metrics sheet shows counts for:

• Delivered
• Sent
• Opened
• Link Clicks
• Unsubscribed
• Blocked

The Recipient Metrics sheet shows recipient-specific counts for:

• Delivery Status
• Opened
• Link Clicks
• Failure Message

For complete details about Promo Emails and email export files, check this out.

New Supported Providers: Webex and Vidcast 

When you select a Live Stream Provider in an Agenda session or Live Stream feature, Webex and Vidcast now appear as selectable options. Selecting either lets you paste in a meeting link or video URL which will open externally when attendees click the Join Live Stream button.  

You can now also select Vidcast as a Recording Provider for your Agenda Session or Live Stream recordings, or as a Content Provider for your Sponsors and Exhibitors. We're looking forward to integrating even more closely with Webex and Vidcast in the future! 🎉

For a complete look at the Agenda, Live Stream, or Sponsors and Exhibitors features, check out the links below:

• Agenda feature guide
• Live Stream feature guide
• Sponsors and Exhibitors feature guide

That was a lot of reading! Have a cookie. 🍪 

Now, hop over to the Socio Platform and take a look at these new changes for yourself. 

If you thought we'd rest on our laurels for a bit after releasing the new Socio Onsite product last week, then you don't know us very well yet. 😉 We're pleased to announce several improvements to the Socio Platform and some quality of life improvements for attendees, too! Let's take a look. 👀 

UTM Parameters

If you purchase online ads to drive your Socio Registration sales, this update is for you! Urchin Tracking Module (UTM) parameters – sometimes called URL parameters – can help you understand the effectiveness of your ads. 

In your Socio Registration event under Promote, you'll see the Marketing option. When you click this option, a modal launches where you can enable UTM parameters. Enabling these lets Socio track users through the registration process and capture the UTM data you configured with your ad provider. 

For a complete look at how to use UTM parameters in your Socio Registration event, check this out.

Event Code Improvements

When you set up your Socio Event App, one of the first things you do is select a Privacy Setting that determines the security level of your event. Previously, the minimum number of characters you could enter was 3. We've now increased this to 4 to improve security. 

With the new minimum character requirement, we've also added new behavior when attendees enter an Event Code to access an event. To prevent brute force entry into your event, attendees must now wait 5 minutes to try again after 5 failed Event Code entries. 

After 5 minutes is over, each subsequent incorrect try increases the timeout by 5 minutes. To learn more about Privacy Settings, check this out. After 6 incorrect tries, the wait is 10 minutes. After 7, the wait is 15 minutes, and so on.

Interactive Attendee Names/Images on Mobile

We're always looking for ways to increase Attendee engagement and make it easier to connect. In the Mobile App, attendees can now tap on another attendee's name or profile image within an Agenda session or Live Stream chat to open their profile. If the attendee isn't yet a connection, the user can send a connection request. 🤝 

Draggable Picture-in-Picture

When attendees are watching a live stream on the Web App and click away to a different feature, the live stream continues to play in a smaller frame at the bottom right corner of the screen. Previously, this Picture-in-Picture (PiP) display was static and couldn't be moved by the user. 

Now, attendees can click and drag the PiP frame anywhere they like! For more on live streaming with Socio, check this out.

We're happy to keep rolling out new features and updates. As always, keep the feedback coming, and we'll keep listening! 👂

Hop over to the Socio Platform and take a look for yourself.

Socio's induction into the Webex brand was a big moment for us in 2021, and big changes are on the horizon. Our vision and mission, however, remain the same as ever: to build an end-to-end event management solution that delights organizers and attendees with powerful yet simple tools, unparalleled customer support, and incredible customization. 

Socio Onsite is the newest addition to the Socio product lineup, giving you a fully-customizable attendee check-in and on-demand badge printing solution that's truly all-inclusive. From the Onsite App experience to custom badge design to hardware rental and badge stock supply, Socio has everything you need to start your attendees off with a 'wow' experience.

Now let's take a closer look.

Planning and putting on an event has countless considerations and pressures, each one as important as the next. Every little detail matters, and time is precious. We want to empower you to invest as little time as possible while building a world-class check-in and badge printing experience. We did our homework, and we think we nailed it.

Create your Socio Onsite event in mere minutes, and link it to Socio Registration so attendee data flows seamlessly. Customize the Socio Onsite iPad app your way with graphics, button labels, icons, and more. Your event's branding won't skip a beat.

Badge design is also simple and intuitive, yet incredibly robust. Use Onsite's drag-and-drop badge design interface to make a basic one-size-fits-all badge for every attendee, or apply visibility rules to tailor badges or even individual elements on badges to specific people using Attendee Types and Socio Registration data. Customization can be as simple or as complex as you need it to be.

What about the hardware? We've got you covered there, too! Never worry about identifying and sourcing from multiple vendors again. Socio's rental kits include everything you need to do check-in and badge printing, including printers, iPads and stands, routers, and badge stock. 

Ready to learn more about Socio Onsite? Reach out to us for a live demo, or check out our other articles here!

Hop over to the Socio Platform and take a look for yourself.

Wait, two What's New articles in a single week?! What can we say? We ❤️ improving, and we're not afraid to show it. We're pumped to share two amazing enhancements to your streaming and attendee engagement experiences - Socio Streaming Brands, and Custom Tab. We've also added an Analytics Tracking Alert and Dark Mode for the Web App, plus a couple bonus updates. Have a look.

Socio Streaming Brands

Live streams are a fantastic way to engage remote attendees and enrich their experience while adding value for your sponsors, speakers, and organization by weaving in custom branding assets like Overlays, Logos, and Video Clips.

What if you have a lot of custom content, and not all of it is useful for every stream though? You shouldn't have to spend precious seconds during a live stream feverishly hunting through your own content to find what's useful for a given sponsor or session. That's why we've partnered with Restream to bring you Brand folders!

When you visit the Socio Streaming studio, you'll see the new Brand button. Click the button to add a new Brand or switch between up to 5 existing ones. Captions and everything on the Graphics tab — Theme, Primary Color, Logos, etc. — are unique to each brand. Just like before, all assets in one studio are shared with every other studio in your event.

There are tons of applications for switching between sets of branding assets, so let your imagination run wild!

For a complete look at using the Socio Streaming studio and Brands, check this out.

Custom Tab

Socio's own Chat, Q&A, and Polling features have been a mainstay for attendee engagement in Agenda sessions and Live Stream features for a while now. That family just got bigger with an awesome new sibling - the Custom Tab!

Now, when you edit an Agenda session or Live Stream feature, you'll see a new toggle under the Attendee Engagement section. Toggle Custom Tab on, name it, and enter a URL for an embeddable, mobile responsive site that appears as another engagement tab for your live stream!

Websites like Sli.do work well, but there are many more possibilities. Simply remember that the custom tab content has to be responsive - able to resize itself automatically - to fit inside the engagement panel on the Web App and to be usable on mobile devices. Websites' privacy settings may also prevent embedding. Simply remember to test any site you use before showing it to attendees. 👍 

We're excited to see all the ways you'll dream up to engage your attendees with this new feature, so if you think of an awesome use case, let us know! 

Analytics Tracking Alert

Informing your attendees about data privacy and honoring their preferences are more important than ever. Show your security-conscious attendees you value their privacy choices, and equip them with knowledge about your security and data practices. 

When attendees join your Socio Event or Community, we track their actions so you have the insight you need to improve your events, show sponsorship ROI, award Continuing Education credits, and understand how people interacted with your content. Some attendees can't be tracked for metrics because they're using an ad blocker or private browser session.

We've added a new option to the Web App Settings page. When someone logs into your Web App, and the Socio Platform detects that they can't be tracked, they'll see a pop-up.

If the pop-up is set to "Warning", they can close the message and go about using the event. If it's set to "Prevent Access", the message will keep appearing until the Socio Platform detects that they can be tracked. The Show Me How button leads to this article that helps them allow Socio through their ad blocker.

This new setting is set to No Warning by default for all active and upcoming events and communities, but you can customize the message to suit your situation.

For details on controlling this new feature in your event, check this out!

Metrics

Along with this release, there's a new Tracked Users sheet in the Metrics export. Check out our Metrics article for more information on interpreting and exporting data.

Web App Dark Mode

When you visit the Web App page of your Event App, you'll notice a new toggle for Dark Mode. When the toggle is turned on, all attendees who join your event via a web browser will see the event in Dark Mode. 

⭐ Keep in mind, attendees can't turn dark mode on or off themselves — only you can do that. Dark Mode isn't available for Branded Apps or the Socio App.

Make sure to hop into your Web App as an attendee and test things out for yourself to make sure your branding and color choices all jive well.

And more...

• We've added support for 3 new languages - Danish, Slovak, and Romanian.
• All live streams through Socio Streaming by Restream and the Socio RTMP player now stream at 1080p by default on web and mobile. 
• Socio now passes attendee language selections to Slido when a Slido link is opened externally and the Pass data to URL box is checked! In a Custom Tab, Slido will update with the selected language.

That was a lot of reading. Have some pie. 🥧 

As always, keep the feedback coming, and we'll keep working to make Socio the best in the biz.

Hop over to the Socio Platform and take a look for yourself.