iChair for Hosts

Here are the key technical requirements for ensuring a smooth virtual event experience on iChair.

Technology Check. Please advise all users to check your technology here.

Google Chrome. Please advise all users to have the latest version of Google Chrome browser here.

Internet Speed. Please advise all users to secure an internet speed of at least 3.2 Mbps outbound and 3.2 Mbps inbound. Also, a PING of at least 4ms is advisable (check here).

Firewall Clearance. If your participants are attending the conference from a secured network or a firewall, please kindly ask them to ask their IT team to open the following ports:

Conference Server

• Host: 18.197.240.36
• UDP ports: 16384-32768
• TCP ports: 80, 443

TURN server (relay host):

• Host: 18.157.218.165
• UDP ports: 443, 3478, 49152-65535
• TCP ports: 3478, 443

YouTube/Vimeo. If you are livestreaming or embedding videos via YouTube/Vimeo, please advise your participants do not attend from a network where these websites are blocked.

If you are connecting sessions to external services, such as Zoom or Teams, you also need to make sure participants are aware that they should download these apps before the event’s date.

First things first, please refer to page 3 on our Quick Start Guide and watch this Participant Onboarding Tutorial.

Since we are launching new updates every week, somethings might be slightly changed, but, in general, this is where you will find the answers to all your questions. If you find a disconnection between what is written in the guide versus what is explained below, please reach to hello@ichair.org. 

To onboard a user as a Host, giving them full rights to edit/delete your event and to invite/remove users from your event, please use the manual invitation.

1. Click on “Edit Event” and go to the second tab “Registration”.
2. On the right, you will find a + sign to manually invite users. Click on it, type in the e-mail of the user you would like to invite as host, and select the option “Host”.
3. Click on “Invite”.

The platform will send out an automatic e-mail with instructions for how the user should proceed.

To onboard users as a Moderator, giving them moderator rights in the iChair video rooms, please use the pre-registration option.

1. Click on “Edit Event” and go to the second tab “Registration”.
2. Either upload a .csv (UTF-8 comma separated) file or type in the First Name, Last Name, and E-mail of your moderator and click “Submit”.
3. Now that your moderator is pre-registered, conclude the platform onboarding by sending out an e-mail (see example in iChair Resources). This e-mail is not managed by the platform.
4. Click on “Member Management” to monitor the status of the user you invited.
5. Once the status changes from “invited” to “registered” you will also see the option to change the role of the user. Click on the moderator icon to change the role of the user from participant to moderator and refresh your browser to confirm the role update. The user might need to log-out/log-in to view the role update.

To onboard a user as a Participant, giving the user access to your event, please use the pre-registration option.

1. Click on “Edit Event” and go to the second tab “Registration”.
2. Either upload a .csv (UTF-8 comma separated) file or type in the First Name, Last Name, and E-mail of your moderator and click “Submit”.
3. Now that your participant is pre-registered, conclude the platform onboarding by sending out an e-mail (see example in iChair Resources). This e-mail is not managed by the platform. Click on “Member Management” to monitor the status of the user you invited.

To onboard a user as an Exhibitor, making it possible to add their profile to an exhibition booth, please use the pre-registration option.

1. Click on “Edit Event” and go to the second tab “Registration”.
2. Either upload a .csv (UTF-8 comma separated) file or type in the First Name, Last Name, and E-mail of your moderator and click “Submit”.
3. Now that your moderator is pre-registered, conclude the platform onboarding by sending out an e-mail (see example in iChair Resources). This e-mail is not managed by the platform.
4. Click on “Member Management” to monitor the status of the user you invited.
5. Once the status changes from “invited” to “registered” you will also see the option to change the role of the user. Click on the exhibitor icon to change the role of the user from participant to exhibitor and refresh your browser to confirm the role update.

If you want to make a user part of a VIP group of participants that have exclusive access to specific sessions, follow the steps below.

1. Click on “Member Management” to monitor the status of the user you invited.
2. Once the status changes from “invited” to “registered” you will also see the option to change the role of the user to VIP by clicking on the star icon. Click on the VIP star icon to upgrade the user and refresh your browser to confirm the role update.
3. Next, make sure to select the option “Session available only to VIP attendees” for the sessions that you would like to make exclusive to VIP participants.

If you want to make a user part of a Viewers Only group of participants that have no participation rights, follow the steps below.

1. Click on “Member Management” to monitor the status of the user you invited.
2. Once the status changes from “invited” to “registered” you will also see the option to change the role of the user to Viewer Only by clicking on the eye icon.
3. Click on the Viewer Only eye icon to change the role of the user and refresh your browser to confirm the role update. The user will be able to view the event dashboard, but not be able to engage or participate in any way.

If you want to give a user both an Exhibitor and a Moderator role, follow the steps below.

1. Click on “Edit Event” and go to the second tab “Registration”.
2. Either upload a .csv (UTF-8 comma separated) file or type in the First Name, Last Name, and E-mail of your moderator and click “Submit”.
3. Now that your moderator is pre-registered, conclude the platform onboarding by sending out an e-mail (see example in iChair Resources). This e-mail is not managed by the platform.
4. Click on “Member Management” to monitor the status of the user you invited.
5. Once the status changes from “invited” to “registered” you will also see the option to change the user’s role. First, click on the moderator icon to upgrade the user from participant to moderator. Next, click on on the exhibitor icon to add the role of the exhibitor. You might need to refresh your browser to confirm the role update. The user might need to log-out/log-in to view the role update.

iChair users can have six roles. 

Hosts. Have full rights to edit/delete your event and to invite/remove users from your event. Also, have the ability to participate in all sessions of the event with moderator rights in iChair video rooms (i.e. share screen, upload presentation, conduct polls, activate whiteboard, make a participant a presenter, mute everyone except the presenter, share a video from YouTube, etc.).

Moderators. Have the ability to participate in all sessions of the event with moderation rights in the iChair video rooms (i.e. share screen, upload presentation, conduct polls, activate whiteboard, make a participant a presenter, mute everyone except the presenter, share a video from YouTube, etc.).

Participants. Have the right to join all sessions, excluding exclusive access to specific sessions.

Exhibitors. Have the option be associated to an exhibitor booth plus the right to join all sessions, excluding exclusive access to specific sessions.

VIPs. Have the right to join all sessions, including exclusive access to specific sessions.

Viewers. Have the ability to view the program of the event and the virtual environment, but cannot engage or participate in any way.

iChair users can have more than one role. In general, when you want to change the role of a user, this user should be pre-registered with the participant role.

1. Click on “Edit Event” and go to the second tab “Registration”.
2. Either upload a .csv (UTF-8 comma separated) file or type in the First Name, Last Name, and E-mail of your moderator and click “Submit”.
3. Now that your user is pre-registered, conclude the platform onboarding by sending out an e-mail (see example in iChair Resources). This e-mail is not managed by the platform.
4. Click on “Member Management” to monitor the status of the user you invited.
5. Once the status changes from “invited” to “registered” you will also see the option to change the role of the user. Hoover over the different icons to view the role options (host, moderator, exhibitor, VIP, or viewer only) and select the most appropriate one. You might need to refresh your browser to confirm the role update. The user might need to log-out/log-in to view the role update.

First things first, please refer to page 7 on our Quick Start Guide. and watch this Session Type Tutorial.

Since we are launching new updates every week, somethings might be slightly changed, but, in general, this is where you will find the answers to all your questions. If you find a disconnection between what is written in the guide versus what is explained below, please reach to hello@ichair.org. 

To select the best technology for your session type, first consider the following: how do you envision the session’s flow and the participants’ engagement?

[Workshop] Opening in external tab full functionality. This option refers to an external iChair video room, that can fit up to 100 participants (20 with camera on). 

[Workshob beta] Opening internally functionality limited. This option refers to an internal iChair video room, that can fit up to 100 participants (20 with camera on). In this option, the breakout room functionality is not present.

[Livestream/On demand] YouTube. This option refers to (a) a livestreamed session via YouTube or (b) a pre-recorded session via YouTube. 

[Livestream/On demand] Vimeo. This option refers to (a) a livestreamed session via Vimeo or (b) a pre-recorded session via Vimeo. 

[Livestream/On demand] iFrame. This option refers to (a) a livestreamed session via another service or (b) a pre-recorded session via another service. 

[On demand] iChair Hosted Video. This option refers to a pre-recorded session where the video is hosted on iChair’s server.

[External URL]. This option refers to a session that you wish to connect to a different service – e.g. Zoom, Teams, Mural, etc.

[Text content]. This option refers to a session where you only what to display text, images, and links.

First things first, please refer to page 10 on our  Quick Start Guide. Since we are launching new updates every week, somethings might be slightly changed, but, in general, this is where you will find the answers to all your questions. If you find a disconnection between what is written in the guide versus what is explained below, please reach to hello@ichair.org. 

No Q&A. There will be no chatbox on the platform for participants to share questions and comments about the session. This can make sense if the session is a video room, where you already have a chat within the video room.

Private Q&A. Anyone can share questions and comments, but only Hosts and Moderators will have access to these questions and comments. Also, Hosts and Moderators can only reply verbally to these questions, not through the channel. This can make sense if you are hosting a session with a very polemic personality and you prefer to maintain I high-level of control over every comment and question regarding the session.

Public Q&A. Anyone can share questions and comments and all participants will be able to read and reply to all questions and comments. Hosts always have the right to delete a question or comment they find inappropriate. In general, this is always our prefered option because it fosters audience engagement while allowing the host to stay in control.

The session tags are optional and the purpose is to function as a filter. If you have many sessions taking place on the same stage and on the same day the list can become quite long. By grouping these sessions under two or three different tags (not too many!) you can help participants to quickly filter which sessions to look into according to their interests.

When a session runs over time it is not closed. What happens is that the green “Join” button through which users can open the session disappears and no one who is outside the room can enter.

iChair allows you to run multiple sessions in the same stage/track, at the same time. There are two different display modes: stacked or hidden.

Stacked is the default mode, whereby all sessions that take place at the same time are stacked one on top of the other in the “Program Overview” timetable. If you only have two or three simultaneous sessions, this can look quite nice; if you have more than three simultaneous sessions you might want to consider the hidden mode.

Hidden means that you will create one “umbrella” session that describes all other sessions that will take place at the same time, and select the “hide session from timetable” option so that the multiple sessions that take place at the same time are hidden and only the main “umbrella” session is shown on the “Program Overview” timetable.

iChair does not upload or display PDFs, but you can add multiple files to the sessions and to the event as long as they are converted to URL format. 

First things first, please refer to page 10 on our Quick Start Guide and watch this User Engagement Tutorial.

Since we are launching new updates every week, somethings might be slightly changed, but, in general, this is where you will find the answers to all your questions. If you find a disconnection between what is written in the guide versus what is explained below, please reach to hello@ichair.org. 

Matchmaking. This is an algorithm the shows potential connection suggestions based on matching profile tags. To enable this, follow the steps below:

1. Go to “Edit Event” and click on the tab “Engagement”.
2. Click on “Enable Matchmaking”
3. Set 3 to 5 tags for event users to select from. They will still be allowed to create their own tags, but by having a list to select from you improve the algorithm’s performance.

Event Feed. This is an event-wide open channel where everyone can leave comments, questions, and pictures! It is excellent to foster participant engagement via picture challenges and polls.

Polls. Polls allow you to ask a question and provide given answers where each user can vote on one option. This is ideal if you have Public Chats and what to get the discussion going even before the session starts. To create a Poll in a chat on the platform (not in a video room) write the following string with your own questions and options: /poll Is this a question to test? ; Yes ; No ; Maybe

Match Roulette. This is a chat roulette that randomly matches event users in one private video room. This video room can only fit two people. If a user is sitting along in a room, it is because no one else has clicked to be matched. Try to encourage others to click through the “Event Feed”. By default this feature is active. To deactivate it, follow the steps below:

1. Go to “Edit Event”
2. Click on the tab “Engagement”.
3. Click on “Disable Match Roulette”

Participant List. Next to the “Activity” section and the “Event Feed” you will also find the “Chat”, where you can view all the users in the participant list, view their profiles, connect on social media and send private messages or schedule a 1-to-1 video chat call.