MEETINGS: Overview and Setup
What are Meetings?
Meetings let you run group events, workshops, webinars, classes and trainings natively in your own branded Portal, instead of bolting on an outside tool. Meetings are the group sibling of Appointments: where an Appointment is one person claiming one private slot, a Meeting is one scheduled session that many people can reserve a seat in.
Three things make it up:
- A Meeting Generator is the reusable event definition: its name and description, the host, how attendees join, the price, and its Automations.
- A Meeting is one scheduled session under that Generator, with its own date, time, timeframe and seats. One Generator can hold as many upcoming Meetings as you like.
- A Registration is one person's reserved spot, with its own status and a personal cancel link.
TIP: You publish a Meeting by placing its Generator on a Booking Form. That is the only place people sign up, so there is no separate public switch to remember.
How do I create a Meeting Generator?
Open Calendar > Meeting Generators and add one. The form has five sections.
Meeting Basics is the name, the Public Description and the host. The name and description appear on the sign-up. The host is the Staff member whose calendar the Meetings belong to.
TIP: Changing the host later applies to Meetings scheduled from then on. Meetings already on the calendar keep the host they were booked with, so nobody who registered is moved to a different person.
How Attendees Join is one choice, and every Meeting under the Generator uses it:
- Video meeting (Zoom or Google Meet). You pick the Video Service, and the meeting is created on the host's own connected account, with a fresh link for every session.
- A link I provide, where you paste your own Meeting Link.
- In person (venue address), where you fill in the Address.
If the host does not have the chosen video service connected, the form says so and names the service, so you can connect it on their profile, pick a different host, or choose another way for people to join.
IMPORTANT: How guests are admitted follows the host account's own settings. If that account uses a waiting room, or only lets signed-in people join, your registrants still have to be let in. Check those settings if you want everyone holding the link to walk straight in.
Pricing is where you keep the event free or charge for a seat. Availability holds the Active switch: turning it off closes sign-up for new registrations, while Meetings already scheduled still take place and their registrants keep their join details.
Meeting Automations run on their own as people come and go. Every Meeting under the Generator uses the same set, and you can trigger Automations when somebody registers, when a registrant cancels their own spot, when the host removes a registrant, when the host cancels a session, and when a session has finished.
How do I set up reminders?
Reminders are their own settings, reached from Calendar > Meeting Reminders, or from a Generator's own options menu. You can set an Account default that every Meeting uses, and override it for one Generator with Set reminders for this meeting.
Each reminder is a channel plus how long before the session it goes out, in minutes, hours, days or weeks. There is no send time to choose, because your registrants can be in any timezone, so every reminder is measured from the moment the session starts.
IMPORTANT: If no reminders are set up, registrants are not reminded about any Meeting. The settings page tells you so plainly rather than leaving you to assume.
Can I change the emails registrants receive?
Yes. A Generator's options menu has Email Templates, holding the messages Meetings send:
- Meeting Registration Confirmation
- Meeting Registration Cancelled
- Meeting Registration Removed by Host
- Meeting Session Rescheduled
- Meeting Session Reminder
- Meeting Session Cancelled by Host
CLICK HERE to learn how to schedule and manage your Meetings.