Tips and Tricks 11: Rehearsing for the event day

Tips and Tricks 11: Rehearsing for the event day



Hello everyone,

Hosting a successful and memorable event takes effort, and most of the time you only get one shot at doing it right. Getting a picture of how things will play out can make you confident to achieve the objectives you planned for your event. Preparing your event team members—like your staff, session hosts and co-hosts, and speakers—by rehearsing every session can help everyone get on the same page and give you an opportunity to work out any kinks.

When you create a location-based or an online event in Zoho Backstage, apart from adding speakers to their respective sessions in the Agenda tab, you can also configure hosts and co-hosts in the Hosts tab from the Manage Dashboard. Before event day begins, you can prepare your event team by conducting a dry-run for sessions in Backstage with everyone involved. To do this, you can invite up to 20 test participants for an event to join session rehearsals. This makes your practice runs secure and only accessible to the people you choose.



To invite test participants to your event for session rehearsals, go to the Test participants tab under the Rehearsal tab in the Conduct Dashboard. Here you can click the Add participants link and enter the email addresses of people who you want to invite.

To start a rehearsal, go to the Rehearsal tab in the Conduct Dashboard and click the Rehearse sessions tab. This tab will look similar to the Present sessions tab and this action will display all the sessions in your event. Here, click a session in the timeline on the left. On the right, you will see session details displayed. Next, click the Rehearse session button to start the practice session. Apart from the invited test participants, anyone from the list of event organizers, hosts, co-hosts, and staff can also be a part of session rehearsals by clicking the Join Rehearsal button in the Rehearse sessions tab. When they join the rehearsal, they will be listed according to their role in the event.



Speakers who are added to a session will be sent an invitation email to join the rehearsal through the event microsite. They can click the Join Rehearsal button against a session on the Agenda page and join as speakers. Once the session begins, they can go through their material, refine content, plan transitions, time their sessions, and coordinate with the hosts or co-hosts about session flow. Speakers who are new to the event scene can also get used to talking on stage or an online platform and understand how to use in-session engagement tools like, chat, polls, or Q&A in order to be ready for the event day. Any equipment or integration used for audio or video streaming can also be put to the test at this time to get on top of any unanticipated technical issues. Speakers can also join rehearsals conducted for sessions that they're not added to but will be listed as an attendee in that rehearsal.



Test participants will also receive an email when they are invited to take part in session rehearsals for an event. This email will include a link to easily sign in to the event microsite. Once signed in, they can click the Join Rehearsal button for a particular session on the Agenda page in the event microsite and will be listed as attendees in that rehearsal. However, if you invite an event member such as an event organizer, staff, host, or co-hosts, as a test participant, they will not be listed as an attendee but will be listed according to their respective roles. If you would like to send reminders to all the test participants at the time of the rehearsal, click the Inform participants to join event link in the Test participants tab.

You can also conduct multiple rehearsals, however, sessions that are happening in the same hall or track can't be started parallelly. In addition, make sure that you invite a different set of test participants when you are planning on conducting rehearsals that run parallelly.

Just like with a live session, after the rehearsal is complete, you will find a session summary and detailed analytics in the Sessions tab. Click the View details button for any session to do this.

We hope this tip will be useful for you. Feel free to share your thoughts in the comments below.

You can also visit our help center or send us an email at support@zohobackstage.com if you have any questions.

Stay tuned for more useful tips to help you craft exceptional events with Zoho Backstage!

Happy organizing!


Found this helpful? Subscribe to the Backstage Community for more tips and tricks.

    • Recent Topics

    • Kaizen #152 - Client Script Support for the new Canvas Record Forms

      Hello everyone! Have you ever wanted to trigger actions on click of a canvas button, icon, or text mandatory forms in Create/Edit and Clone Pages? Have you ever wanted to control how elements behave on the new Canvas Record Forms? This can be achieved

    • Adding hyperlinks in CRM emails time automatically

      It may just be me, but when I am writing an email to a lead, I find inserting a hyperlink very time consuming. Granted, I can use templates but there are a ton of scenarios where I might want to put a link in to an website that wouldnt require me to go though the effort of creating a template.  Ideally, the crm would identify that I that a string of text is a URL and insert the hyperlink automatically, just like microsoft outlook or gmail. Has anyone else had this same experience and found a way

    • Enhance "Applications Usage" with Date Filters, Historical Analytics & App-Level Breakdown

      Hello Zoho Creator Team, We are writing to request a critical enhancement to the Applications Usage section to improve our ability to monitor, analyze, and manage our platform consumption over time. While the current view of today’s usage is helpful for

    • External File Share - Allow delete

      Hi Team, when I share an external link and give it edit rights the external user can add but not delete files and folders. what am i doing wrong?

    • Cliq iOS can't see shared screen

      Hello, I had this morning a video call with a colleague. She is using Cliq Desktop MacOS and wanted to share her screen with me. I'm on iPad. I noticed, while she shared her screen, I could only see her video, but not the shared screen... Does Cliq iOS is able to display shared screen, or is it somewhere else to be found ? Regards

    • Tables from ZohoSheets remove images when updated from source

      I have a few tables from a ZohoSheet in a ZohoWriter document that will remove the images in the cells when I refresh from the source. The source still has the images in the table when I go to refresh. After updating from the source, as you can see the

    • Empowered Custom Views: Cross-Module Criteria Now Supported in Zoho CRM

      Hello everyone, We’re excited to introduce cross-module criteria support in custom views! Custom views provide personalized perspectives on your data and that you can save for future use. You can share these views with all users or specific individuals

    • Where is the Global Search field?

      I am looking for an alternative to SF.com. Zoho CRM seems to be work fine, and be customizable in terms of the fields and reports. But there's one big thing missing and it's going to prevent us from using it: there's no global search box at the top of

    • Enhancements to finance suite integrations

      Update: Based on your feedback, we’ve updated the capabilities for integration users. In addition to the Estimates module, they can now create, view, and edit records in all the finance modules including Sales Order, Invoices, Purchase Order. We're also

    • How to notify all members on any updates to zoho crm?

      Hi, I am using the free version of zoho CRM and currently seeing this will work for our company. We are a small company and wanted to be more informed about all the changes in zoho. 1. How do I s et notifications that go to the team for any and all changes

    • How to change the format for phone numbers?

      Mobile phone numbers are currently formatted (###) ###-####.  How can I change this to a more appropriate forms for Australia being either #### ### ### or (#)### ### ###?

    • Unattended Access on Android without Play Store

      I'm testing Zoho Assist for remote config and maintenance of our IoT devices. The devices are running Android 8.1 and do NOT have Google Play Store installed, nor can it be installed. I've been able to install Zoho Assist on the devices and load the enrollment

    • How can I bold text on Zoho Forms submit buttons?

      In the old theme builder, I could bold the text on a form's submit button. With the new theme builder, I can only change the text of the header or fields in the form, and not the button itself.

    • Open Sans Font in Zoho Books is not Open Sans.

      Font choice in customising PDF Templates is very limited, we cannot upload custom fonts, and to make things worse, the font names are not accurate. I selected Open Sans, and thought the system was bugging, but no, Open Sans is not Open Sans. The real

    • Is it possible to embed Zoho Bookmarks in the Cliq sidebar?

      Is there any way that each Zoho user can access their bookmarks (that live in https://bookmarks.zoho.eu/ which is technically a part of Zoho Mail) directly within Cliq? As a widget, or an item in the sidebar? My team does not use Mail, it uses Cliq all

    • Show Attachments in the customer portal

      Hi, is it possible to show the Attachments list in the portal for the particular module? Bests.

    • Kaizen #142: How to Navigate to Another Page in Zoho CRM using Client Script

      Hello everyone! Welcome back to another exciting Kaizen post. In this post, let us see how you can you navigate to different Pages using Client Script. In this Kaizen post, Need to Navigate to different Pages Client Script ZDKs related to navigation A.

    • Navigate with Ease: Announcing Improvements to Your Zoho CRM for Everyone's Setup Experience

      Hello Everyone, We’re thrilled to announce new enhancements to the Setup Menu in our Zoho CRM for Everyone system, designed to simplify your workday and streamline your overall experience. What's New? Addition of a Setup Homepage Faster Search in Setup

    • Zoho Projects Webhook fails with HTTP Error 0

      Hello Zoho Community, I am pulling my hair out over this one. I have setup a very basic http(s) server that always responds "ok" and code 200 to incoming GET requests. It will accept any parameters, and any path. Really, all it does is say "ok," and log

    • API 500 Error

      Hello amazing ZOHO Projects Community, I get this message. How can we solve this? { "error": { "status_code": "500", "method": "GET", "instance": "/api/v3/portal/2010147XXXX/projects/2679160000003XXXX/timesheet", "title": "INTERNAL_SERVER_ERROR", "error_type":

    • ZOHO Campaignで表のカラムの幅を調整したい。

      表を作成した際、個々のカラムの幅を調整したいのですが、方法が分かりません。 どなたかご存じの方ご教示ください。

    • Currency abbreviations

      Hello, Im stuck, and need help. I need the currency fields for example, opportunity value, or total revenue, to be abbreviated, lets say for 1,000 - 1K, 1,000,000 - 1M, and so on, how should I do this?

    • Unable to use Sign "You have entereed some invalid characters"

      Unable to use Sign "You have entered some invalid characters" I do not see any invalid characters. The text in "Leave a Note" is plain text which I entered directly into the field. See attached screenshot

    • Auto-upload Creator Files to WorkDrive

      Hi everyone, I’m working on a workflow that uploads files from Zoho Creator to specific subfolders in Zoho WorkDrive, as illustrated in the attached diagram. My Creator application form has two multi-file upload fields, and I want—on successful form submission—to

    • Tables for Europe Datacenter customers?

      It's been over a year now for the launch of Zoho Tables - and still not available für EU DC customers. When will it be available?

    • Creator Change History: Ways to improve

      Hi Everyone, Recently been working in developing this change history(an idea from Zoho Forms) - unlike forms that you can this with a click but using Creator, we can use "old" keyword. The concept I come up with is to put the result in a table however,

    • Cannot connect to 365 business calendar and Teams, says personal but it is not.

      hi I have a number of users connected to their 365 business accounts. Adding a new user and it thinks hes got 365 personal edition. He does not.... Anyone know what's going on. Trying for days now. Bookings go into his MS calendar but as its thinks its

    • Exciting Updates to the Kiosk Studio Feature in Zoho CRM!

      Hello Everyone, We are here again with a series of new enhancements to Kiosk Studio, designed to elevate your experience and bring even greater efficiency to your business processes. These updates build upon our ongoing commitment to making Kiosk a powerful

    • Kaizen #129 : Client Script Support for Blueprints

      Hello everyone! Welcome to another week of Kaizen. Today, let us discuss about how you can use Client Script during a Blueprint transtion to meet your requirements. This Kaizen post will provide solution for the post - Need non-mandatory fields in blueprint

    • Search Bar Improvement for Zoho Commerce

      Hey everyone, I've been using Zoho Commerce for a bit now, and I think the search bar could really use an upgrade. Right now, it doesn't show products in a dropdown as you type, which would make finding items a lot faster. On Shopify, for example, you

    • Making digital signatures accessible to all: Introducing accessibility controls in Zoho Sign

      Hi there! At Zoho Sign, we are committed to building an inclusive digital experience for all our users. As part of our ongoing efforts to align with Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG), we’re updating the application with support that will go

    • Account Owner Field From Accounts Module to be Displayed in Contacts module

      I have a field in the Accounts Module in the CRM called "Account Owner" i want that field to be also mapped into the Contacts Module custom single line field called "Account Manager".

    • Update a field in the ZOHO Form, basis numeric value in another field in the same form

      I am trying to create a questionnaire in ZOHO, where clients need to answer 10 questions, and basis response, values are assigned. I have created a total score field where the sum of the values is stored. But i am unable to create a rule whereby another

    • Default Sorting on Related Lists

      Is it possible to set the default sorting options on the related lists. For example on the Contact Details view I have related lists for activities, emails, products cases, notes etc... currently: Activities 'created date' newest first Emails - 'created

    • How to update "Lead Status" to more than 100 records

      Hello Zoho CRM, How do I update "Lead Status" to more than 100 records at once? To give you a background, these leads were uploaded or Imported at once but the lead status record was incorrectly chosen. So since there was a way to quickly add records in the system no matter how many they are, we are also wondering if there is a quicker way to update these records to the correct "Lead Status". I hope our concern makes sense and that there will be a fix for it. All the best, Jonathan

    • Meet up de Zoho en Bilbao

      Buenos días comunidad! Estamos estudiando hacer un Meet up en Bilbao desde zoho y varios Partners. Para que la experiencia sea excelente, queremos saber cuantas pesonas se vendrían a Bilbao al evento. Y para que sea lo mas útil posible, que temas dentro

    • Option to Customize Career Site URL Without “/jobs/Careers”

      Dear Zoho Recruit Team, I hope you are doing well. We would like to request an enhancement to the Career Site URL structure in Zoho Recruit. In the old version of the career site, our URL was simply: 👉 https://jobs.domain.com However, after moving to

    • In Zoho inventory Converting sales return to cerdit note from using Api from Creator Error details: {"code":-1,"message":"Invalid Sales Return ID."}

      In Zoho inventory Converting sales return to cerdit note from using Api from Creator Error details: {"code":-1,"message":"Invalid Sales Return ID."} this is button Function used in the Creator map Inventory.Create_Credit_note(int CRE_ID) { return_value

    • Marketing Tip #2: Recover lost sales with abandoned cart emails

      Did you know most online shoppers don’t complete checkout? Automated cart recovery emails are an easy way to bring them back. A simple reminder can recover sales you’d otherwise lose. Try this today: Enable abandoned cart emails in Zoho Commerce and set

    • Billing Management: #9 Usage Billing in IoTs

      We live in a world where connectivity has become a lifestyle rather than a luxury. From smart thermostats that adjust your home's temperature to GPS trackers monitoring end-to-end fleets and sensors that optimize energy grids, the Internet of Things has

    • Next Page