Inviting participants

There are three ways to get people into a session, and you can mix them:

• Invite them by email from the invitee list. They register, get a confirmation, and join from a personal link.
• Share a login link. One link per roster group that anyone can open. Good for calendar invites and chat messages.
• Show a join code. A six-character code and QR code on a screen in the room, for in-person groups.

Roster groups first

Every session starts with one roster group. A group is a set of people who go through the session together at a given date and time. Add more groups when you want to run the same session guide for several cohorts, regions, or time slots. Results roll up across groups, and you can filter by group when you review them.

Groups live in the Session Groups/Access Links card on the session settings page. Add Group asks for:

• Group Name, Timezone, Start Time, and End Time.
• When can participants join: at start time, 15 or 30 minutes before, or a custom time.
• Under Additional Options: Participant Count Limit (leave blank for no limit, or set 1 to 5,000) and Grant existing participants access to this group.

Each group’s row shows whether it’s active, its dates, timezone, and registered count. From the row menu you can Edit, Activate Group or Deactivate Group, Clear Participant Data, and Delete. You can’t delete the last group, and a group with participants assigned has to be emptied by reassigning them first.

Capacity

When a group has a limit and reaches it, anyone else who tries to register or join sees a message that the session is at capacity. Raise the limit, or reassign people to another group, and they can get in.

Inviting by email

The Registration Settings card holds the invitee list.

1. Add people. Add Invitee opens a form with Email, First Name, Last Name, User Type (Participant, Observer, or Reviewer), Language Preference, and a checkbox per roster group under Target Groups. To add many at once, Upload Invitees List accepts an Excel file whose first three columns are exactly email, firstname, lastname in that order. Tick Show Session Roster to add people who already have accounts in your account groups without emailing them.

2. Optionally shape the email. Above the list you can set the Invite Sender Email and the Registration Contact Email/Reply-to Email, and Add Invite Description/Context opens an editor for text that appears in the invitation.

3. Send. Nothing is emailed when you add someone. Click Send Invites and confirm. Only people whose status is Not Sent receive an email, and the send is scoped to whichever group and user-type filter you have selected.

4. Watch the statuses. Each row shows Registered, Email Sent, Declined, Removed, or Not Sent, along with their target and registered group and how many activities they’ve completed.

What the participant receives

The invitation greets them by first name, thanks them for their interest in the session, and shows a button for each roster group they’re eligible for, with its date and time. There’s also an I’m not able to attend link that marks them declined. Clicking a group button opens a confirmation page with your cover image and session name, then Confirm or Change Date. Once confirmed, they see Successfully Registered! with an Add to Calendar button, and receive a confirmation email containing their personal join link.

A reminder goes out automatically the morning of the session, to anyone registered for a group that starts within the next fifteen hours.

Row and bulk actions

From a row: Send Invite, Register (skip the email and register them yourself), Re-send Confirmation, Copy Login Link, Edit Invitee, Mark as Declined, Remove, and Make Active. Registering or re-sending offers an Include Message box for a personal note.

Select several rows for Register, Send Invites, Re-send Confirmation, or Reassign Group. Reassign only moves people who are already registered.

Access links

On the agenda page, Access Links opens a modal with every link for the session. Each row has Copy, and most have Show QR and Download QR.

Participant Login Links

One per roster group. Opening it takes a person straight to the join page for that group, where they enter their first name, last name, and email, or tap Join Anonymously if the session is set up that way. Share it in a calendar invite or a chat. It’s the link recruited participants receive too.

Observer Link

One for the whole session. It grants view-only access to all groups. Send it to clients and colleagues who want to watch.

In-Person Join

The join code for a room. Present opens a full-screen page, meant for a projector or second monitor, showing the web address, the six-character Join Code in large type, a QR code, and a live count of how many people have joined. With more than one group you pick which group to present.

Invite Links

Invite links register people rather than logging them in. The SESSION Invite Link lets the person pick a group and time. A GROUP Invite Link locks them to that group. Both appear on the settings page under the group tables.

Links keep working for the life of the session. They stop with a message that the link is invalid or has expired if the session is archived or removed.

Only let invited people in

Two settings on the session, Require Email Upload for Login Links and Require Email Upload for Invite Links, turn the join form into an email-only check. Anyone whose email isn’t on the invitee list is turned away.

Observers and reviewers

Add observers and reviewers on the invitee list by choosing their User Type. Observers watch the session without being counted as participants and can talk to the session team in the observer chat, which the moderator opens from the live room with Add Observers and Manage Observers. Reviewers can open the session and its results afterwards.

Good to know

• Access links aren’t created until the session has been saved once. They’re blank on the create form.
• Deleting a group is blocked while it still has participants. Reassign them first.
• If someone opens a join link on a different web address than your account’s own, Converge redirects them to the right one automatically, so links shared on the short join address work fine.
• Recruited participants arrive through the same login link with an identifier appended, which is how their completion is reported back to the panel. Don’t hand-edit those links.