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

      • Canvas View in Zoho Recruit

        Is it possible or would it be possible to have the new 'Canvas View' in Zoho Recruit?

      • Adding Reports to Portals

        Is there a way to add Reports to portals so only the user can see report templates relevant to them?

      • Update on the client portal URL for Guest users

        We’re updating the way Guest users access their Connect network. As part of this change, all client organization portals used by Guest users will now be accessible through a dedicated domain specific to each data center. The access URLs mentioned here

      • Preserve Ticket Issue Mapping When Migrating from Jira to Zoho Projects

        Hello Zoho Projects Team, We hope you are doing well. We are currently exploring a full migration from Jira to Zoho Projects, and we identified a critical limitation during the migration process involving Zoho Desk integration. Current Situation: We use

      • Enhancements to Zoho Maps integration tasks

        Hello everyone, We're excited to announce enhancements to the Zoho Maps integration tasks in Deluge, which will boost its performance. This post will walk you through the upcoming changes, explain why we're making them, and detail the steps you need to

      • Unable to see Zoho contacts in Zoho app on ios

        Hi Support Team, I am a new user, I have created my account and installed zohomail app on iOS 16 which works. I was also able to import my Gmail contacts into Zoho Contacts, which I can see. The problem is that I can’t see these imported cobalts in Zohomail

      • Task Due Date greater than 10 years.

        We use recurring tasks in Projects where every week, month, year etc Some of our projects are greater than 10 years and we are unable to set a new due date because the difference between start date and due date is greater than 10 years. As an example

      • External User onboarding for zoho connect is not really intuitive.

        So the external user is sent an invite, which has a button that directs them to login to zoho to view the invite, but if they don't have a zoho account, they cannot access that invite, which seems kinda silly, as there is not real way on for them to create

      • Hosting external websites on Zoho?

        How can I host my external website on zoho? Do we have that option? I am currently with hostinger and am looking to switch to zoho. Kindly help. Thanks.

      • How to Add Time Formula Duration (hh:mm)

        Hi everyone — I’m trying to create a formula field in Zoho CRM that calculates the difference between a “Call Start Time” and “Call End Time” and displays the duration in HH:MM format (for example: 1:04 for one hour and four minutes). My current setup

      • How can I calculate the physical stock available for sale?

        Hey Zoho Team,  I've tried to calculate the physical stock on hand in various ways - but always receive a mismatch between what's displayed in Zoho Inventory & analytics.  Can you please let me know how the physical stock available for sale is calculated?

      • Set Custom Icon for Custom Modules in new Zoho CRM UI

      • Live Webinar: Getting Started with Zoho WorkDrive - A Complete Overview

        Hello everyone, We’re excited to invite you to our upcoming live webinar! Discover how to set up your team, bring in your data, and make the most of WorkDrive’s collaboration, organization, AI, and security capabilities. This session is perfect for anyone

      • Marketing Tip #4: Build your email list early

        Email marketing has one of the highest returns on investment. Don’t wait until later; start collecting subscribers now. When you've got their attention, you can send them emails about offers, new product launches, seasonal greetings, and more. Try this

      • Is anyone else having trouble saving a custom image in their email signature, or is it just me?

        When I try to save the image I get an error that says "Operation Failed" I opened a support ticket two weeks ago and received a response that it would be debugged, but it still isn’t working

      • Unify Overlapping Functionalities Across Zoho Products

        Hi Zoho One Team, We would like to raise a concern about the current overlap of core functionalities across various Zoho applications. While Zoho offers a rich suite of tools, many applications include similar or identical features—such as shift management,

      • Zoho Desk Domain mapping / Cloudflare CNAME not recognized

        Hello, my website is behind Cloudflare and SSL. From the Cloudflare control panel I added a CNAME record such as support.mydomain.com pointing to desk.cs.zohohost.com but I'm stuck with the message "Make sure you've mapped the CNAME entry..."

      • Power of Automation :: Quick way to associate your Projects with Zoho CRM

        A custom function is a software code that can be used to automate a process and this allows you to automate a notification, call a webhook, or perform logic immediately after a workflow rule is triggered. This feature helps to automate complex tasks and

      • Create an Eye-Catching Announcement Widget for Your Help Center

        Hello Everyone! In this week’s edition, let’s explore how to keep your customers updated with exciting news in the Help Center. See how ZylkerMobile wowed their customers by bringing updates right to their portal. ZylkerMobile, the renowned brand for

      • I want to add my other zoho account in same pc

        why does zoho restrict me doing many things as i also want to add my second mail account bit its not allowing me to do that

      • Search in Zoho Community Not Working

        I realize this is a bit of a meta topic, but the search for the various Zoho Communities appears to not be working. I'm under the impression that they run on some version of the Zoho Desk platform, so I'm posting this here.

      • Capture Stripe’s Customer ID

        Does anyone know of a way to capture Stripe’s customer ID that is created when the form/payment is processed? I would like to have the customer ID stored in our CRM so we could utilize in some custom functions down the road.

      • Custom Modules - Where are Comments??

        In the standard ticket module and in the tasks module, we have an interactive comment box that we can post important details/notes and can tag others if needed. Where is this functionality for Custom Modules? Ideally, custom modules would have very similar,

      • Dynamic Signature - Record owner

        Hi everyone, I’m using Zoho Writer merge templates from Zoho CRM and have two questions: Owner signature: How can I automatically insert the CRM record owner’s signature in the merged document? I’m not sure where this signature is stored or how to reference

      • PUNJAB NATIONAL BANK (CORPORATE) INDIA - NOT AVAILABLE IN BANKING

        Dear sir, Kindly fix it. PUNJAB NATIONAL BANK (INDIA) is available but PUNJAB NATIONAL BANK (CORPORATE) is not available. Kindly enable this banking since we need to categorize the entries. Regards, Sanjay Jena email id/ user id : travewithmerchant@

      • Amazon invoice in Zoho Books

        I have just made my first few sales on Amazon India. Amazon Seller account generates invoices for the sales made on Amazon. These invoices are sent to customers also. Now when I was only making offline sales, I used to create Invoices in Zoho Book. Now

      • CUSTOM FUNCTION GIVE ERROR #EVAL!

        CUSTEM FUNCTION CREATE KYA ZOHOSHEET ME US FUNCTION KO USE KIYA LEKIN DATA TO SAHI HAI LAKIN DATA SHEET ME NAHI LAG LAHA HAI KRUPYA SOLVE KARE MY CODE IS float ADDTWO_TWO(float NO1, float NO2) { ADD = NO1 + NO2; return ADD; }

      • Zoho ShowTime: Certificates of Completion - Award your learners with a sense of achievement

        In our increasingly competitive market, professional trainers need to differentiate themselves if they are to survive. One way to do this is to focus on innovation and deliver an ideal learning experience. By developing a renowned certificate program that provides learners with a specialized skill set for a particular industry, both trainees and future prospects will recognize the trainer's leadership in that field. This can help with long-term growth, revenue generation, and even marketing and branding.

      • IMAP Migration from Gmail

        I have been trying to import my email from a Gmail server and keep receiving the following error. I have reduced the security, activated imap and no improvement. The link to the Google support item has not helped. Unable to connect to your account. Please

      • Your Incoming has been blocked and the emails will not be fetched in your Zoho account and POP Accounts Click here to get unblocked.

        When entering my account, this error is thrown at me, and I deleted a good part of my deleted messages, but I still can not unblock it, I would appreciate your help. reservas@lineasperutravel.com

      • Request for Creating Multiple Email Accounts on One Mobile Number

        Dear Zoho Team, I am planning to shift all my work-related communication to Zoho Mail because of its reliability and features. For my work, I need to create 3–4 separate email accounts for different purposes. Could you please confirm if it is possible

      • Signature issue

        Problem: The signature does not appear when replying or forwarding an email. solve issue: settintgs/Signature Check option place a signature above the content with quotation marks

      • mail admin not loading

        i am trying to login to mailadmin ... gears keeps rotating forever... its not a password issue whats so ever ... not cookies issues whatsoever from android app i can login but there so few things to do from there .. i changed ip address the same... i

      • Unify All Zoho Video Meeting Experiences into One Standardized Platform

        Hi Zoho Team, We would like to share an important user experience concern regarding the current state of video meeting functionality across the Zoho ecosystem. The Problem Within Zoho, there are multiple ways to initiate or schedule a video meeting: Zoho

      • Changing Account in Quote form does not update address information.

        I am trying to update the address information in a quote I've created. I corrected the address in the "Account" but that did not change in the quote. If I re-enter the Account Name in the Quote form, nothing updates. How do I fix this?

      • Zoho One Backup of entire account

        Hello, When using Zoho one is there a way to backup your entire account of all apps that you are using \ activively using in a single step or do you have to backup each applications data individually? Thanks,

      • ZIA in Zoho Cliq

        Is It possible to use the ZIA feature from Zoho Analytics in the Zoho Cliq?

      • Issue with “CC” and “Subject Details” of the initial mail when reply / replied all / forward using Zoho Mail Client (Desktop / Web Mail / Mobile App)

        It is observed that when I reply / reply all / forward a mail using Zoho Mail Client (Desktop / Web Mail / Mobile App), the “CC” and “Subject Details” are omitted from the mail which was replied/forwarded. However this is not the case with outlook mail

      • Unable to send Emails - 452 4.3.1 Temporary System Error

        Whene ever i request smtp server to send the email (without attachment). i recieve error "452 4.3.1 Temporary System Error"

      • I can't receive email

        I cannot receive any email sent to my Zoho email after the free upgrade plan trial is finished.

      • Next Page