If your Organization or Business Unit hosts a portal website you may want to create filters to pre-filter event/sessions that are displayed for an Event/Session Listing block (compatible with the list or card row layouts). Or you may wish to create filters to allow your audience to filter the events/sessions (compatible with the calendar or card row layouts). You set up filters by using metadata.
Set up your metadata
Metadata can be set up for an Organization or Business Unit (BU). Metadata allows you to tag certain assets within the Attendease platform with custom attributes. In this way, you can use the tags to pre-filter or filter events/sessions on the portal website. For example, you may want to create metadata so you can tag events by region. You would create a metadata set called "Region" with options like "North America", "EMEA", and "APAC". Then tag your events to indicate in which region they take place (ie. my upcoming webinar is for an audience in Asia so I'll tag it with "APAC").
If your Organization has multiple BUs and they each have portal websites, you must set up metadata for each BU. On the Organization or BU level, select the Organization tab on the left-hand side. To add or edit existing metadata, select the Metadata menu item.
There are several resource types of metadata available. For use with a portal website, you should consider both event metadata and session metadata.
Once added, the event metadata fields will appear on the Event Detail screen for all events within that Organization or BU.
The session metadata fields will appear on the Advanced tab of each session profile within an event project.
The filter will be applied to the event or session when the field is filled out by an event admin.
Follow these steps to complete the setup:
Select a field type
Select a resource type
Enter a label and key
Check the “Use as filter” checkbox
Set metadata option colors manually (optional)
Add instructions (optional)
Add options (only applicable for the “Select” field type)
Set a default value (optional)
Make the field required (optional)
Save
Tag events/sessions
Step 1: Select a field type
Begin by clicking the “Add metadata” button on the Metadata screen. In the modal that appears there are multiple fields, which will be described below. The first is “Field Type”. This determines what type of field that metadata will be.
There are three types of metadata field types that can be used as filters.
Text: Appears as a text field, where the metadata value is entered by the event admin.
Boolean: A true-or-false field, represented by a checkbox.
Select: Appears as a drop-down menu, where the event admin selects one option.
The field type you choose depends on the filter you want to implement. Below are some examples of types of filters appropriate for each field type.
Text
Use this field type if the entered value will be different for each event or is not determined far in advance.
As an example, let’s say my company runs a speaker series. During each event there is one featured speaker. On the Event Calendar I want the featured speaker’s name to be displayed. By using the “Text” field type on each Event Details screen the event admin will be prompted to enter the name of the featured speaker. Each entered name will appear as a filter option on the event calendar.
Examples of filters you may want to apply using the Text field type are:
“Featured speakers”
“City”
"Event topic"
Boolean
This field type is great for yes-no questions.
As an example, some of the events in my organization are live-streamed. To indicate this as a filter option I would add a “Boolean” field type. This field appears to the event admin as a checkbox. So if the event in question is live-streamed the event admin would check the box and if it is not, leave the box unchecked.
Examples of filters you may want to apply using the Boolean field type are:
“This event is live-streamed”
“Lunch is provided”
“Event is overnight”
Select
This is the most commonly used field type. Use this field type when you want to give event admins a set list of options they are able to choose from.
Tip: You are able to edit or add options at any time. Note that if an option is removed it will be removed from past, ongoing, and future events.
As an example, my organization hosts events in three different regions. By choosing the “Select” field type I am able to add those three regions as options. The field would appear to event admins as a drop-down list where they are able to select one option.
Examples of filters you may want to apply using the Select field type are:
“Region”
“Event Type”
“Product”
Step 2: Select a resource type
The “Resource Type” drop-down menu determines where the metadata field is added. When adding metadata for filters you will want to select “Event” or "Session" depending on whether the filter would be applied to events or sessions.
Step 3: Enter a label and key
The text entered in the “Label” field is the user-facing filter name. For “Text” and “Select” field types the label text will appear above the filter options. For “Boolean” field types the label text appears as the filter option.
The text entered into the “Key” field is the code that the computer processes. We suggest you enter a string that is similar to the label you entered. It is recommended to use all lowercase.
Note: Only alphanumeric characters and the symbol “_” (underscore) are accepted in this field.
As an example:
If the label is “Region” an appropriate key would be “region”
If the label is “This event is live-streamed” an appropriate key would be “live_streamed”
If the label is “Event Type” an appropriate key would be “event_type”
Step 4: Check the “Use as filter”
Ensure that the “Use as filter” checkbox is selected. If it is unchecked the metadata value will not appear as a filter in the Event/Session Listing block.
Step 5: Manually select filter colour (optional)
For Boolean and Select field types you are able to choose the colour of the filter if you want. Leave this unchecked if you want the system to colour the metadata options for you using a colour palette generator. Please note that if left unchecked, the assigned colours are re-generated each time a metadata option is added or removed.
Step 6: Add instructions (optional)
Instructions added in this field are internal and will appear next to the metadata field on the Event Details or session profile page (depending on the resource type). Adding instructions for admins can be useful in some cases. See below for an example of how instructions appear on the Event Details screen.
Step 7: Add options (only applicable for the “Select” field type)
If you are adding a “Select” field type you must add at least one option. You will need to add both a key and a value for each option. Add a key associated to the option in the “Option Key” field. As described above, this is a code that the computer will process. Likewise, add a value which will be the user-facing filter name. Add as many options as needed.
In this example, I have added a “Select” field type that is labelled “Event Type”. We have 3 types of events so I add the 3 following key-value pairs:
I enter the key “conference” and then type “Conference” in the value field then click the "+" icon to add it.
I enter the key “webinar”, and then type “Webinar” in the value field then click the "+" icon to add it.
I enter the key “roadshow”, and then type “Roadshow” in the value field then click the "+" icon to add it.
Step 8: Set a default value (optional)
Adding a default value means that a particular value will automatically be entered on the Event Details screen when a new event is created. This is useful if the majority of your events has a particular value that is often or always entered/selected.
For “Text” field types, you can enter any value
For “Boolean” type fields, type “true” if your want the checkbox to be selected
For “Select” field types, enter the key of the option you want to automatically be selected. Note that the entered value must be identical to the key of the option - so ensure that there is no additional spaces or differences in how the code is capitalized.
Step 9: Make the field required (optional)
Although added metadata filters will be available on every event or session, they are not necessarily applied to the event or session. If the event admin does not enter/select a value, the filter will not apply to that event. However, you are able to control whether a field must be filled out or not.
From the “Requirement” drop-down menu you are able to select whether the field will be:
Optional: Event admins can enter/select a value for this field or leave it blank.
Required: Event admins must enter/select a value for this field. Note that if the field is left blank the event cannot be published or republished.
Forced: This means that this metadata value will be applied automatically to every event in the Organization or BU and it cannot be removed. To make a metadata field forced you must have added a default value.
Step 10: Save
Complete the creation of your metadata by clicking the “Save” button. Once you have done this the metadata filter will be applied to all existing events or sessions and to every event or session created from then onward.
Step 11: Tag events/sessions
Once you've created the filters, you'll need to navigate to each relevant event or session and tag it with the appropriate attribute.
Once added, the event metadata fields will appear on the Event Detail screen for all events within that Organization or BU.
The session metadata fields will appear on the Advanced tab of each session profile within an event project.
Learn how to apply the metadata filters to the Event/Session Listing block for the card row layout.
Note! No additional setup is required if you are using the calendar layout. Any published event/session tagged with the filters will appear in the filter section on the calendar.