🎙 The Conferences area

Create a conference

The Conferences area allows you to document events taking place over one or more days (congress, conference, symposium, festival, etc.) by filling in the event programme, centralising registrations on the Decidim platform and benefiting from all the functionalities present in the other participative areas.

By default, this space is not enabled on distribution centers. If you wish to use it, you can contact us and we will deploy it on your instance.

In order to guide you through the configuration of a conference, we show you step-by-step what the different fields on the back office correspond to, and which elements they refer to on the presentation pages of a conference. Those that require an explanation are described.

To create a conference, you must go to the "Conferences" tab. You will then access the conference management page. Press "New conference". The conference configuration window opens.

You can then set the Title of your conference, its Slogan, URL, a hashtag, a brief description, and a description for your conference. By clicking on "promote", you can also choose to highlight your conference on the conference index.

Concerning the brief description, it is important to write a fairly short text and to take into account its presence on the home page. This is the second piece of information that the user will see after the title of the conference. It is therefore important to ensure that the content is relevant and fairly general.

The description is the main content for presenting the context, objectives and modalities of your conference. It must therefore be made as clear and attractive as possible. As the text editor is still limited on Decidim, here are some tips to achieve this:

You can put titles to make the text more structured and therefore more readable for the platform users.
You can also put hyperlinks to make references to resources of your choice. These can be platform pages/content such as a charter, FAQ, or direct link to the proposal submission or survey response form.
You can embed an image by dragging and dropping it from your desktop or from any web page. Warning: it is not possible to choose the size and the centering of the image (consult us if you have any questions).

You can also enter the objectives of the Conference if needed.

You must then fill in several other fields:

Location of the Conference
The image of the home page
The header image
Enable Sectors: Allows you to link the conference to a sector previously set up in Settings>Sectors
Show Statistics: displays Conference statistics at the bottom of the Conference overview page
Start and end dates of the Conference
Activate registrations: if you want users to be able to register directly via Decidim
The total number of places available
Conference registration requirements
The Processes, assemblies or votes related to the conference, if applicable

To finalize the creation of the Conference, click on "Create". Below, you can see the different texts set up on the conference presentation page.

Once you have set up your Conference and its features, don't forget to Publish it. Here we only show you the elements that are different from Processes. We won't cover setting up Categories, adding attachments and folders, or moderating contributions (see section 4.6). For more information on the features available on Decidim, please refer to section 5. of this documentation.

Once you have created your Conference, you can access the sub-menu for your Conference. In the sub-menu

Documenting a Conference

Add media links

To add external links to your Conference, click on "Media Links". These links will then be available in the "Media" menu of your Conference. You can also find there the attachments and folders you set up (see below).

By clicking on "New" in the "Media Links" tab of the conference administration, the window for creating a media link will open. In this window, enter :

The Title of the link
The URL of the link
The date the link was added
The link display rank

Then click on "Create".

Informing Conference Partners

To inform the partners of your Conference, go to the "Partners" tab of the sub-menu.

Click on "New". In the newly opened window, you will be prompted to fill in several fields.

The name of the partner
Partner type: Main promoter (organizer) or Collaborator (partner)
The display rank
A link to the partner's site
Partner's logo

To finalize the process, click on "Create".

Informing the Conference Speakers

To inform the speakers of your Conference, go to the "Speakers" tab of the sub-menu and click on "New".

To begin, indicate whether or not the speaker is a user of the platform in the "User type" field. If he or she already has an account, click on "Existing User" in the drop-down menu. You will then be able to select the desired user by entering the first three letters of their nickname in the search bar that appears. If the speaker does not have an account on the platform, click on "Non-user" and enter his first and last name.

You can then link this speaker to the various Meetings (workshops, round tables) of the Conference in which he or she participates. Then indicate his Profession as well as the organization (company, association, administration) to which he is attached.

If you wish, add a short biography of the speaker in the "Brief biography" field, as well as his Twitter ID (in @pseudo format) and the URL of his personal site. You can also import an avatar image (portrait or logo of the organization).

Click on "Create" to finalize the creation of the speaker.

Setting up Conference Registration

Types of registration

In order for users to register directly for your Conference, you must have previously authorized the Registrations on the Conference Information page. It is also necessary to set up at least one registration type before users can register. To do so, go to the "Registration Types" tab of the Conference sub-menu and click on "New".

On this window, enter :

the Title of the type of registration
the Display Rank
description of the type of registration
the registration fee
Those to Meetings whom this type of registration gives access

Then click on "Create".

In the registration type management window, you can publish and unpublish registration types by clicking on the icons ✔ or ✖. You can also edit an entry type by clicking on the "Pencil" icon, or delete it by clicking on the ❌ icon. On this index, you can also follow the evolution of the number of registrations.

8.3.2. Managing registrations

To access the list of registrants, go to the "Registrations" tab of the Conference sub-menu. After registering, the user will receive a notification that his registration is pending confirmation. To confirm the registration, click on "Confirm". You can also export the list of registrants in CSV, JSON or EXCEL format by clicking on "Export".

8.3.3. Inviting participants

To invite a person to participate in the Conference, go to the "Invitations" tab of the Conference sub-menu and click on "Invite a participant".

After selecting the Participant Type, enter the participant's name and email or enter the participant's nickname in the search bar and select the desired registration type.

Finally, click on "Invite".

8.3.4. Creating a certificate of participation

To create a certificate of attendance, go to the "Certificate of Attendance" tab in the Conference sub-menu. You will then be able to set up a certificate that allows participants to obtain a document attesting to their participation in the conference.