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

    • Execution Trace & Root Cause Analyzer in Zia

      Integrating this capability into Zia would significantly enhance debugging and transparency. 1. Execution Trace Timeline A visual, step-by-step timeline of system activity for any event (e.g., form submission), including: Sequence of triggered workflows

    • Has anyone integrated Zoho with Go High Level (GHL)? Looking for guidance

      Hi everyone, I’m exploring the possibility of integrating Zoho applications with Go High Level (GHL) and wanted to check if anyone in the community has experience with this. Specifically, I’m interested in understanding: Whether a direct integration is

    • Add Ability to Reset Help Center User MFA in Zoho Desk

      Hello Zoho Desk Team, First of all, thank you for recently adding support for Multi-Factor Authentication (MFA) in the Zoho Desk Help Center. We’re very happy to see this enhancement go live, especially since this was a highly requested security feature.

    • Allow 2 logos for Branding, one for Light Mode and one for Dark Mode?

      Our logo has a lot of black text on it. If we leave the background transparent, per recommendation of Zoho, when a user is viewing a file and turns on dark mode, our logo is not really visible and looks really weird. It would be really great if we could

    • Account Unblock Request

      Dear Sir/Madam, I hope you are doing well. I noticed that my account has been blocked for violation of the usage policy which I believe comes from it being associated with sending spam. I have since then removed the old keys which were compromised in

    • Very limited support for MCP

      Has anyone else noticed how limited the MCP support for Zoho People currently is? Right now only a small set of read-only actions (exactly 15) seem to be available. At the same time Zoho CRM supports over 700+ functions. It makes it almost impossible

    • ZOHO Desk attachments support

      Hi I just setup MCP with claude, it works well, but it can't read attachments... which makes it kind of useless... Will you be adding attachment capabilities anytime soon?

    • HOW I CAN GET BETA VERSION FOT TESTING

      HI. ZOHO I AM INTERESTED IN YOUR BETA SOFTWARE TO EXPERIENCE NEW FEATURES.

    • How to Generate Separate Labels for Each Invoice SKU Line Item in Zoho Books?

      Hi everyone, I’m trying to implement a requirement in Zoho Books where separate labels need to be generated for each SKU/item from an invoice. Scenario: One invoice can contain multiple products/SKU items Each item/box should have its own separate label

    • Direct Integration Between Zoho Cliq Meetings and Google Calendar

      Dear Zoho Team, We’d like to submit the following feature request based on our current use case and the challenges we’re facing: 🎯 Feature Request: Enable meetings scheduled in Zoho Cliq to be automatically added to the host's Google Calendar, not just

    • billable_expense_id in Invoice API does not set invoiced=true on bill line items — causes duplicates in Projects > Create Invoice

      Hi Zoho Community, We are running an automated batch invoicing system using the Zoho Books API and have hit two critical bugs that are causing duplicate invoice risk in production. Raising this here for visibility alongside a support ticket already filed.

    • New fields : radio button

      Hi, when customizing a module (eg: Candidates), we are able to select different types of fields (check box, currency, list, ...). However there is no "radio-button" component. This type of fields is often used in Web pages and will be certainly a plus-value

    • Choice Availability Reset

      If an entry is deleted which included a response to a field with choice availability enabled does that increase the number of remaining times the choice can be selected?

    • [Heads Up] Upcoming update to field values in Zoho Books - Zoho Analytics integration

      Hello Users, We'd like to inform you of an upcoming update to the Account Type field values in the Zoho Books integration for Zoho Analytics from June 1, 2026. What's Changing? The following values under the Account Type field are being renamed to align

    • Important update: Migrate to the new SalesIQ live chat widget before May 15, 2026

      The old SalesIQ live chat widget will be deprecated on May 15, 2026. This is a final reminder to migrate to the new SalesIQ live chat widget before this date. After May 15, 2026, the old widget will no longer be maintained, which can lead to slower performance

    • Zia Agent built in ChatKit UI does not render markdown

      Hi, You have a major shortcoming in the Zia Agent UI. The test UI that is embedded in agents.zoho.com allows you to test the agent has full support for rendering markdown, but your ChatKit UI does not have support for rendering markdown. If I embed it

    • Team folder not created when creating project using zoho flow

      When I try to automate project creation using zoho flow, and I have enabled workdrive integration to automatically create team folders to attach to the project, this only works when I create a new project through the UI. But I am trying to automate project

    • Zoho Projects - Email notification relabelling of modules not present on default templates

      Hi Projects Team, I noticed that in the default email template notification, the word "bug" was not renamed to the lable I am using in my system. As many users may used the Bugs modules for various purposes including Changes, Revisions, Issues, etc...

    • Kaizen #241: Automating Deal risk escalation using Workflow APIs, Connected Workflows, and Functions

      Hello everyone! Welcome to another Kaizen week. In many organizations, sales teams work in Zoho CRM, finance teams manage invoices in Zoho Books, and support teams handle customer issues in Zoho Desk. Now consider this scenario: A sales representative

    • Upload own Background Image and set Camera to 16:9

      Hi, in all known online meeting tools, I can set up a background image reflecting our corporate design. This doesn't work in Cliq. Additionally, Cliq detects our cameras as 4:3, showing black bars on the right and left sides during the meeting. Where

    • Allow Super Admins to Edit Task “Created By” and Issue “Reporter” Fields

      Hello Zoho Projects Team, We hope you are doing well. We would like to submit a feature request regarding the ability to manage and correct system ownership fields in Zoho Projects, specifically: Task → Created By Issue → Reporter / Reported By Current

    • The Social Wall: April 2026

      Hello everyone, This month, we’re excited to bring you a set of new updates for Threads in Zoho Social, designed to make publishing, monitoring, and managing your content much easier Threads updates You’ll now see a few useful improvements in the compose

    • Sort or filter CRM report by count value

      Hi there, I'm trying to create a report that will show me high frequency bookings (leads) coming through within a time period for any particular account - this is so we can proactively reach out to these accounts. I have a report that shows the information

    • Marketing Tip #30: Promote your brand differently on each social platform

      Not all social platforms work the same way. Posting the same content in the same way across every channel can limit your reach. Each platform has its own discovery system, and understanding what it prioritizes can dramatically improve how your brand is

    • Whatsapp Limitation Questions

      Good day, I would like to find out about the functionality or possibility of all the below points within the Zoho/WhatsApp integration. Will WhatsApp buttons ever be possible in the future? Will WhatsApp Re-directs to different users be possible based

    • **Building Role-Appropriate Accountability Layers in Zoho Projects - Looking for Real-World Experience**

      We're a small ISP/telecom operator on Zoho One and I'm trying to solve what I think is a common organizational problem. Would love to hear from others who've tackled it. **The Core Problem** Staff will only consistently use a project management system

    • Duplicate entries for contacts birthdays

      Good morning I have recently started to use my Zoho calendar and noticed that there are multiple birthday events showing for some of my contacts. I have checked my contacts and there were duplicates for some contacts which I have now rectified but the

    • Using IMAP configuration for shared email inboxes

      Our customer service team utilizes shared email boxes to allow multiple people to view and handle incoming customer requests. For example, the customer sends an email to info@xxxx.com and multiple people can view it and handle the request. How can I configure

    • What's New in Zoho Billing | March 2026

      March is here with a fresh wave of updates to Zoho Billing. From making compliance easier, reporting more flexible, to making day-to-day workflows smoother across the board. Here's everything that's new this month. Introducing Usage-Based Billing Reports

    • Subforms in Creator-Lookup Price

      I've got a modular called Price List with items and prices. Ive got another module called Estimates with a subform that looks up that Price List. I am trying to get the "Price" to auto-enter based on the Lookup field of the item name. Anyone know how

    • Feature request - pin or flag note

      Hi, It would be great if you could either pin or flag one or more notes so that they remain visible when there are a bunch of notes and some get hidden in the list. Sometimes you are looking for a particular name that gets lost in a bunch of less important

    • Tip #20 - Three things you probably didn't know you can do with picklists

      Hello Zoho Sheet users! We’re back with another quick tip to help you make your spreadsheets smarter. Picklists are a great tool to maintain consistency in your spreadsheet. Manually entering data is time-consuming and often leaves typos and irregular

    • Map Dependency Upgrades in Zoho CRM

      Map Dependency Fields enhancements are available in CA, SA, JP, CN, UAE, AU and EU DCs. Latest update: Also available in IN and US DCs. Hello everyone, We’ve introduced a set of enhancements to Map Dependency Fields to make setup simpler, faster, and

    • CRM to FSM Setup

      Good Afternoon, I am trying to connect CMS to FSM. My current field mapping is: Companies ↔ Accounts Contacts ↔ Contacts Service And Parts ↔ Products I'm setting this up for an elevator service company. The idea is that: Accounts represent Companies.

    • All new Address Field in Zoho CRM: maintain structured and accurate address inputs

      Availability Update: 29 September 2025: It's currently available for all new sign-ups and for existing Zoho CRM orgs which are in the Professional edition exclusively for IN DC users. 2 March 2026: Available to users in all DCs except US and EU DC. 24

    • Collapsible Sections & Section Navigation Needed

      The flexibility of Zoho CRM has expanded greatly in the last few years, to the point that a leads module is now permissible to contain up to 350 fields. We don't use that many, but we are using 168 fields which are broken apart into 18 different sections.

    • Create custom rollup summary fields in Zoho CRM

      Hello everyone, In Zoho CRM, rollup summary fields have been essential tools for summarizing data across related records and enabling users to gain quick insights without having to jump across modules. Previously, only predefined summary functions were

    • How do I edit the Calendar Invite notifications for Interviews in Recruit?

      I'm setting up the Zoho Recruit Interview Calendar system but there's some notifications I don't have any control over. I've turned off all Workflows and Automations related to the Calendar Scheduling and it seems that it's the notification that is sent

    • Unable to send emails from iPhone and iPad

      Curious, all of a sudden I'm unable to send emails from iPhone and iPad. I keeps asking for my password again and again. No problems from my MacBook Pro.

    • Journal Entries Do Not Show Multiple Entries to the Same Account

      Another basic accounting function that Books ... Accountants sometimes write journal entries, debiting and/or crediting the same account in the same entry. This is due to the need to record specific activity in an account when we pull reports especially

    • Next Page