Announcing Backstage OnAir, our in-house virtual events solution

Announcing Backstage OnAir, our in-house virtual events solution

These past months have seen a huge rise in the number of virtual events with some of the biggest events of the year going online. Though there's little possibility for virtual events to completely replace in-person ones, COVID-19 has shown how flexible and feasible they can be. Considering all of this, it's likely organizations will continue hosting online events in the future if only for the sheer convenience of it.
 
At Backstage, we started work on our own virtual events solution back in March. Since then, we've steadily added on to our existing features so you can leverage virtual events as soon as possible. However, our ultimate goal has always been to build a virtual events solution that is just as intuitive and seamless as Backstage is for live events. Today, after a little more than four months, we're ready to introduce Backstage OnAir, our virtual events extension.



From webcasting sessions and engaging with attendees in real-time to getting detailed post-session analytics, Backstage OnAir's features will help you host virtual events that are just as good as in-person ones. The best part—you can host both your online and live events from a single platform. Convenient, right?
 
Here's a quick rundown of how the many features of Backstage OnAir—combined with tools Backstage already possesses—can benefit you before, during, and even after your online event.
 

Before the event 

Creating an online event on Backstage is pretty similar to creating a live event. Begin with the usual stuff—create your online event just as you would an in-person one or convert one of your existing events from in-person to virtual.
 
Then add event details like the agenda and speakers, onboard your team, and set up event registration. The next step is designing your event microsite. Here, you can use Backstage's 10 themes and various custom pages and sections to build an event microsite that's spot-on with your brand.
 

 
Other things you can do at this stage include promoting your event with promotional codes, affiliates, and social sharing, as well as sending emails to attendees and prospects to keep them updated with the latest event news.
 

During the event 

The difference between virtual and in-person events is mostly seen on the event day—from attendee check-in to session presentation, everything has to be done through online means, and this can lead to a lot of challenges. At Backstage, we've made all the options flexible so you have more choice and control over how things proceed.

Attendee check-in


 
Checking in to an online event is the attendee's responsibility in Backstage. On the event day, a banner will run on the event microsite to inform attendees about the status of the event—whether it has begun or not and if sessions are running. It will also prompt them to check in to the event. Once they've checked in, they can participate in the sessions, network with other attendees, and contribute to discussions. 

Session presentation


The next step is presenting your sessions remotely. We've got three options for broadcasting your sessions, and you can use any of them—Backstage OnAir, Zoho Meeting, and other third-party web-conferencing software.


 
The actual session experience depends largely on the tool you're using and the features it has to offer. We, of course, recommend Backstage OnAir for this. It comes with options like webcasting live sessions, detailed session analytics, and virtual engagement tools (polls, chat, whiteboard, and questions) to interact with attendees in real-time and make them feel like they're a part of the event. Currently, you can webcast your session to a maximum of 200 attendees though in the future, we will be increasing this number to accommodate more attendees. In addition, after each session ends, attendees can join the next session automatically. 
 

Networking


Most event organizers find networking to be a real challenge with virtual events. At Backstage, we've got a pretty handy feature to help you with this—discussion channels. You can create both public and private channels to help attendees network with others who share the same interests or even continue their discussions with speakers after the session is over.


 
You can also announce impromptu discussions or meets so everyone knows what's happening and they don't miss out on the opportunity to interact with others.
 

After the event

 

 
Once your event is over, you can post behind-the-scenes photos in the event gallery and give your attendees a peek into what really went on backstage. You can also ask your attendees to post photos. The gallery is a good place to bond with them over photos and memories. This is especially important with virtual events as a lot of things here happen over text and voice. Pictures can help make the experience more authentic, real, and personal.


 
The other important thing to do after the event is study the analytics so you know what went right and what went wrong. Backstage already offers two equally important types of analytics—sales analytics and session analytics—and the great thing about the OnAir extension is that your virtual event can still leverage all the Backstage features you normally use for in-person events. While the former tells you how interested people were in your event, the latter tells you how satisfying the experience was. You can also make use of our PageSense integration to step this up a little and get detailed website analytics.
 
Also, members subscribed to our Enterprise and Ultimate plans can use Backstage OnAir free of charge to present remote sessions and host virtual events until September 30, 2020.
 
Power your virtual events with Backstage OnAir and give your attendees an experience they won't forget any time soon! Let us know what you think in the comments below. For product-related questions or suggestions, write to us at support@zohobackstage.com.

Happy organizing!


    • Sticky Posts

    • Important notice: Changes in sender domains

      Hello Backstage users, This is a heads-up about a major change with sender domains in Zoho Backstage. In response to Google's new guidelines for email senders, Backstage won't be able to send emails with the sender domain "gmail.com" or "googlemail.com".

    • Announcing Backstage OnAir, our in-house virtual events solution

      These past months have seen a huge rise in the number of virtual events with some of the biggest events of the year going online. Though there's little possibility for virtual events to completely replace in-person ones, COVID-19 has shown how flexible

    • Introducing the mobile app for event organizers

      It doesn't matter if you're planning your first trade show or an annual executive retreat—organizing an event requires your undivided attention. This is especially true on event day, when things can quickly get out of hand. So how can you stay on top of everything happening at your event? Introducing the Zoho Backstage for Event Organizers mobile app, for Android and iOS—designed to improve and simplify your event management. Getting things started on time, checking in attendees on event day, following

    • Announcing Zoho Backstage: Your complete event management software

      With just a few months till the event, you're still racking your brain. Did you advertise to the right audience? Is your event website design appealing? How will you keep attendees engaged and interested during sessions? It doesn't matter if you're organizing

      • Recent Topics

      • iOS 10: Caller ID new feature?

        Hi, in the update history of the iOS App (for iOS10) - v.3.2 - i found the point "caller identification" has this feature been deactivated again? i cannot find anything on my iphone on how to activate this feature. or does it just work from the beginning?

      • Recommendations to store meeting notes for easy access from Contacts, Accounts & Deals module records?

        I would like your advice on how to achieve this use case for my organization. It’s related to where/how best to store meeting notes from a conversation with Contact(s) working at an Account (Company) in the context of a Deal. The ideal solution (from

      • Bank reconciliation. Match Transaction -filter

        When matching an imported bank statement file we only get a match if it is an excact match on both amount and date. Then a suggestions comes up with a very broad selection regarding amount, and no default "between" dates. I can then go an manually adjust the filter, and have to put in from-to amounts and dates. How do I set a default from-to date?  As an example, I would like the date to be +- 3 days, Thanks.

      • Added new staff but does not appear in other organization list

        Hi, I added the new staff under Sales Manager in the contacts, but it does not appear in the other organization list where I need to create a contact, and I can't select the newly added Sales Manager

      • Map fields from module X to a lookup field in subform in module Y

        Hi there In the 1st screenshot attached, you can see a subform in myLeads module. You can see that there is a number already filled there - that is the 'Property ID' and it is a single line field. It is the 'Property ID' of an entry I have in another

      • how to create a new line in string in Client Script?

        I want to show an alert using client script, I need to add a new line in String, I assume I can use \n\n inside a string, but unfortunately it doesnt work ZDK.Client.showAlert("First Line \n\nI expect this is in second line");

      • Surely it's time Inline editing from views

        I think the first request I found for in-line editing from grids was approximately 12 years ago - that post was locked because it was suggested Zoho sheetview solved the problem. However, it's now 2024, and in-line editing from grids is just a basic expectation.

      • Multi branding issue with sender addresses

        Hello, I'm currently working on a project involving two (seperate) brands. Named 'Windeck' and 'Prolance'. They've chosen CRM Plus and I'm currently working on CRM, SalesIQ, Social and Marketing Automation. So far, I'm able to make enough separations

      • Is there API Doc for Zoho Survey?

        Hi everyone, Is there API doc for Zoho Survey? Currently evaluating a solution - use case to automate survey administration especially for internal use. But after a brief search, I couldn't find API doc for this. So I thought I should ask here. Than

      • Email Campaigns overview page is missing SENT DATE and # people sent to!

        I would like to see the date the email campaign was sent, so I can understand and track when each email campaign was sent. Right now, unless you go to a contact who received a campaign, you cannot see when the campaign was sent (!!!!!!). So, if my boss

      • SEO recommendation of H1 tag for website tittle

        The exact words are “ It is good practice to place the page title inside the H1tag.” Now I already have one H1 tag on my website but it is not website tittle. In the SEO recommendation that is clear too that I have h1 tag on my page. Now I don’t know

      • How to choose other payment methodes than creditcards

        We have connected stripe as a payment provider in zoho books, booking, commerce and checkout. In stripe we selected al major payment methodes for Belgium (mainly bancontact). However, at checkout customers seems to have only the possibility to pay with

      • How to call a Creator function which is in a different Creator application?

        How to call a Creator function which is in a different Creator application?

      • Can the code in my "Successful form submission" WF be invoked from a function?

        Can "Successful form submission" be invoked from a function? Data gets into a form manually and programatically. My code in "successful form submission" is good and I want to reuse it/call it, from another function which does Insert Into How to achieve

      • Kaizen #169 - Serialization and Schema Management in Queries

        Hello everyone! Welcome back to another post in the Kaizen series! In Kaizen #166, we discussed handling Variables in Queries and associating the query in Kiosk. This week, we will discuss Serialization and Schema management in Queries. Business Scenario

      • Introducing Keyboard Shortcuts for Zoho CRM

        Dear Customers, We're happy to introduce keyboard shortcuts for Zoho CRM features! Until now, you might have been navigating to modules manually using the mouse, and at times, it could be tedious, especially when you had to search for specific modules

      • Feature Request: Notebooks within notebooks (Tree-like structure)

        Dear Zoho! I already migrated all my stuff from Google Keep, Im really fond of Zoho Notebook so far. One thing that could make the service much more powerful is multi-level notebooks (or tree like structure). For example, entering into Notebook named

      • Can't get authorization for Sandbox environment using the self client

        Hello, After creating a self client, and following the client-credentials method (as it's not optimat to manually generate a code for every 10 minutes), after inputting the sandbox org id for SOID parameter, im getting the error: "error": "no_org". For

      • Create landing pages from Zoho Marketing Plus

        Hey everyone, Over the last few months, we've introduced various features and enhancements to bolster the marketing capabilities of Zoho Marketing Plus and make it simpler for everyone. To that end, we're excited to announce that Zoho LandingPage is now

      • Custom service report or Zoho forms integration

        Hello, So far the experience with Zoho FSM and the integration with Books has been good, however there are limitations with service reports. As with my business, many organisations send technicians to different types of jobs that call for a different

      • Email tracking subdomain

        The Email Tracking configuration screen of the ZeptoMail asks for a subdomain. I have gone through the documentation but could not find more information about how that subdomain is used by ZeptoMail to track the emails. Can someone throw some light about

      • Chart View group X-axis values above a value

        I have a data set with X values ranging from 0 up to 300-400, the Y values are an AVG of the values for the given X. I am interested in the values at the low end of the scale, say 0-10 and want the X values 10 and greater to be grouped into a single category

      • How do I get the Text Account name instead of the Reference number?

        Good Morning everyone! I am very new to zoho analytics. I'm trying to create some pivot tables and when I add the Account or Division name it comes up as a reference number. From my research, I need to use a lookup. I'm having a really hard time understanding

      • Custom API - Need to create a string return value, not only MAP

        @Support: When creating a Custom API it only allows a return from a function of MAP type. The service I'm using requires a string return, how can this be achieved?

      • missing video-urgent

        hi..I have a problem regarding zoho meeting. I already record almost 2hrs for my interview session. After end my session, i'm stop the recording. Its happened when i didn't received any meeting recording at my email.But i received recording 7minutes after

      • Duplicate New Ticket Emails

        I am getting two Ticket emails when a ticket is created. The first one goes to me as the Admin helpdesk@ And because I am an Agent as well it also send to helpdesk@, support1@ and support2@ Is there any way to stop this?

      • Ticket Response Email Template

        Is there a way to have an email template automatically selected when I click on Reply for a ticket?

      • Unpublishing Job Post for LinkedIn

        Hi, We have experienced issue with the above. We did unpublish a job in Recruit but it still appear under Job section in our LinkedIn page. It did not remove from LinkedIn as it should be.  Please check and advise. Regards, Snyder 

      • Editor limitations to define screen types

        Guys I have noticed that even in version 2.0 of the editor (which is this new one we use) we still have a lot to improve... When I compare to some more global solutions like Wix, Zyro, Go Daddy, Squarespace and Weebly feel that we have some limitations

      • Dúvidas do Zoho Creator

        Pessoal, Estou colocando um tópico para dúvidas do Zoho Creator. Um abraço, Leandro

      • Automatic Sitemap Generation

        Guys are all right? Doesn't make sense for me to have to generate a map site and upload it... because it's not automatically generated just as it is done in WIX? where the customer doesn’t have to worry about this.

      • SEO improvements with ZIA

        Are you okay? I would like to bring an idea that would be amazing to improve the product that is the possibility of being able to improve the SEO of the pages (this of each page or each article on the blog) through ZIA so that it could create page Summary

      • Automatically updating field(s) of lookup module

        I have a lookup field, which also pulls through the Status field from the linked record. When the lookup is first done, the Status is pulled through - this works perfectly. If that Status is later updated, the lookup field does not update as well. As

      • Initiating a SalesIQ Zobot from a custom button on Zoho Sites

        I have created a Zobot set to initiate on a custom action called "Fast_Answers". On Zoho Sites, I created a code snippet button and set it to on-click run the event called "Fast_Answers". I installed the SalesIQ integration code into the Zoho Sites Page

      • Zoho Desk -> Zoho Analytics : Where is the field for "Layout" ?

        I have many different layouts on my helpdesks and I want to be able to identify the stats for each one, however I can not file the field in the raw data from the Zoho Desk datasource. I thought it might be under "Tickets" but there is nothing. There is

      • Set resolution mandatory field

        Hi,  i have 2 questions:) : - i want to set the resolution field mandatory before close the ticket. Because for now, i can close the ticket without writing how i solve it - how can i setup zoho desk to receive ticket by email(e.g. clients sent email to support@mydomain.com) and it create a ticket in zoho desk

      • Zoho Assist "Agree and Download" Button "Greyed Out" ("Light Blued" Out)

        Anyone else having issue where support clients are unable to click "Agree and Download" to access the client so that we can provide remote support? This is for "on demand" support via accessing the support page and entering the support key and name. This

      • Project Billing with the Staff Hours Method in Zoho Projects

        The Staff Hours Billing Method in Zoho Projects allows you to bill your clients based on the actual time spent by each team member on a project, at the rate set for each user. This is useful for projects where different skill sets are needed and service

      • custom fields not populating from deluge script into invoice

        Hello, I've created some Deluge script that is meant to take a few inputted invoice custom fields and calculate a few others. I can see when I execute the function that my inputted custom fields are being passed, yet im still ending up with all "null"

      • tax summation function - getting error

        Hello, I'm trying to create a function that adds all of individual tax rates from a few jurisdictions. I'm getting an error on line 9 - Value is empty and 'get' function cannot be applied. I've checked that I have data in each of the required fields,

      • Next Page