Adding existing contacts to a new event

Speakers come back. A contact created for one event belongs to your whole organization, so when the same person is invited to the next event you add the existing record rather than creating a new one — their profile, headshot, bio and history come with them, and you never end up with two of the same person.

Training video · 6:41Finding your way: the new sidebar, the dashboard, and the five things people ask where they wentThe event Dashboard as a map (the countdown, the Need attention pill and Ask's Attention list, the Ask box, Top picks, stat cards that open filtered lists), the sidebar's five zones, where each old row lives now (Program for the old Sessions row, CRM for Contacts, Sponsors and Exhibitors, Settings → Library for fields, tags and personas), Rooms under Program Settings and on the Agenda's Rooms tab, where campaigns live (Send), finding who hasn't finished a task or a headshot, Export .CSV versus Download files bundle, Add Contact's in event / in organization search and the "already exists" message, pinning a page, and typing an old name into Find or ask.

1. 0:02The dashboard
2. 0:47Numbers that are links
3. 1:10The five zones
4. 1:45Program
5. 2:21CRM
6. 2:43Where Library went
7. 3:12Rooms
8. 3:42Where campaigns live
9. 3:58Who hasn't finished
10. 4:28Export or download
11. 5:01Adding someone who exists
12. 5:46Pin what you use
13. 6:09Find or ask

From the event: one or a few contacts

1. In the event, open CRM > All Contacts and click Add Contact.
2. Search by name or email. Results are split into contacts already in event and contacts elsewhere in organization.
3. Tick the contacts you want under in organization and click Add to Event at the bottom of the panel. The button shows how many you have selected.

They appear in All Contacts at once, with their organization-level profile — bio, photo, company, social links — already filled in. Event-specific fields (their session, portal tasks, this event’s custom fields) start empty, because those belong to the new event.

Note

Only create a new contact when the search comes back empty. Add new contact creates a second record even if the person already exists under a different email address; if that has happened, merge the duplicates.

From the organization: many contacts at once

The organization’s CRM > Contacts directory lists every contact across all your events. Use it when you are bringing a whole cohort forward — every speaker from last year’s program, or everyone in a segment.

1. Open the organization (your organization’s name at the top of the sidebar, then CRM > Contacts).
2. Filter or search the directory down to the people you want — for example Events = last year’s event — and tick them, or tick Select all.
3. In the bulk bar, click Add To Event and pick the event from the list — the footer confirms how many contacts you are adding.

The same bar offers two ways to email the selection without adding them to anything: Communicate opens a blank email, and Invite To Event opens the same composer pre-filled with an Invitation To Apply — a short note that speaker applications are open, which you edit and send. Neither changes who is in an event.

Tip

Segments and curated lists in Speaker CRM are a good way to keep a “next year” shortlist through the year, then add the whole list to the event in one step when programming starts.

Related

• Add & delete a contact
• Speaker CRM: your organization’s contacts
• Importing data — when the people are in a spreadsheet rather than in Sessionboard