Let portal users add speakers to their session

After the call for papers closes, an accepted speaker often needs to bring in a co-presenter. Three ways to allow it, from most to least self-service.

Option 1: Let them add participants in the portal

The portal has a built-in control for this.

1. Open Program → Portals and edit the portal your speakers use.
2. On the Configuration step, under Settings, turn on Manage Related Submissions and Participants. Speakers can now edit their submissions and the people on them. On sessions with subsessions, turn on Subsessions Only underneath if people who are only on a subsession should not edit the parent session.
3. Turn on Add Participants to Submissions. Use Selectable Participant Roles to limit which roles they may assign — for example Speaker only, so nobody makes themselves a chairperson.
4. Save.

In the portal, the speaker opens their session, goes to its Participants tab and clicks Add Participant. They enter a first name, last name and email, pick a role, and the new person is created as a contact, attached to the session and given portal login access on the spot. Nothing waits on your team.

Add Participants to Submissions needs the Sessions 2.0 feature on the event, which supplies the participant roles the option assigns; the switch is disabled until it is on. Portals that show sessions read-only cannot add participants.

Option 2: Re-open the submission form

Use this when you also want speakers to revise the rest of their proposal.

1. Open the submission form from Program → Forms (under Collect & Review) and go to Form Settings.
2. Move the Close Date into the future. Submissions become editable again until the new date.
3. Make sure View Submission Form is on in the portal’s Configuration, so each speaker has a link from their session back into the form.
4. Add a portal task telling speakers what to do — “Add co-presenters by editing your original submission” — and link the view and edit your submission article for them.

The form’s participants step then lets them add speakers the same way they did when they first submitted.

Option 3: Collect requests with a portal form

Use this if every new speaker should be reviewed before they touch the program.

1. In the Portals section of the Program sidebar, open Portal forms (not Forms under Collect & Review, which holds submission forms) and create a Session portal form. Add the fields you need: first name, last name, email, and anything else your team wants such as company, bio or headshot. See create and assign portal forms.
2. Assign the form to the portal on its Assign Items step. If only some sessions may add speakers, set Assign By Filter on the item.
3. Watch Submissions on the form. When a request arrives, create the contact and add them to the session yourself.

Tip

Include the session Title field on the form so the speaker sees which session the request is for.

Portal users get a simple request form; your team keeps control of who is added.