Category: Trade Show Planning

Your trade shows, exhibit booths, travel plans, shipments, event sponsorships and budgets — all managed in one place.

Event Attendee Double-book Warning

The event Attendee Double-book Warning is a visual indicator (a warning icon) that is displayed next to the attendee’s name (under the Event Staff tab) in case they are tagged as an attendee of another overlapping event – an event with at least one overlapping day based on the event start/end dates. This indicator helps you identify potential scheduling conflicts for attendees who may have accidentally been tagged in more than one event during the same period.

Event Attendee Double-book Warning

When you click on the warning icon next to an attendee’s name, a tooltip dialog will pop open and display the event(s) causing the conflict.

Customizing the Double-book Warning Behavior

You can customize the way you’d like to have Attendee Double-book Warnings work by going to Workspace Settings > “Attendee Double-book Warning Mode”.

Smart Mode (default setting)

When Smart mode is enabled, the system considers the event’s Participation Type to determine if double-book warnings should be displayed in case of attendee scheduling conflicts.

Specifically:

When viewing the event Staff tab, if a given attendee is also tagged in another event with at least one overlapping day (based on the event start/end dates), a warning icon is displayed next to the attendee’s name. This warning is only displayed if:

1) The event you are viewing is NOT marked as “Not Going”, and,

2) The other event that causes the conflict is marked as “Committed” (or marked with a custom event Participation Type).

Consider the following example:

John Doe is tagged as an attendee of Event A (which is marked as “Committed”). You create a new event, Event B, that has overlapping days with Event A. You go to Event B and mark it as “Considering” and you tag John Doe as an Attendee. The system will display a double-book warning icon next to John’s name when viewing the Staff tab of Event B (because John is already tagged in another event that is marked as “Committed”). Note: in this scenario, if you view the Staff tab of Event A, the system will not display a double-book warning icon next to John’s name (because the other overlapping event that John is tagged in, Event B, is marked as “Considering”). Let’s say you proceed to mark Event B as “Committed”; now, the system will display a double-book warning next to John Doe’s name when viewing the Staff tab of either Event A or Event B (because no matter which event you view, the other overlapping event John is tagged in is marked as “Committed”).

Strict Mode

When Strict Mode is enabled, the system displays double-book warnings for all event staff scheduling conflicts — regardless of the event’s Participation Type. Under any given event’s Staff tab, if any given attendee is also tagged as an attendee of another event with at least one overlapping day (based on the event start/end dates), a warning icon is displayed next to that attendee’s name.

Disabled

If Disabled is selected, the system will never display a double-book warning icon next to attendee names under the event Staff tab.

Metrics & Analytics

You can view metrics and analytics for your events using the Workspace Metrics & Analytics page. To view the Workspace Metrics & Analytics page, click on the “Metrics & Analytics” link in the dropdown menu of the top navigation bar.

Metrics and Analytics for Trade Shows and Exhibits

Categorizing Event Tasks Using Sections

Task Sections help you categorize tasks (under a given event’s Tasks tab) by grouping them together. For example, you can create a “High Priority” section for urgent tasks or an “In-progress” section for tasks currently being worked on.

Adding a Task Section to an Event

You can add sections to an event’s tasks tab using the dropdown menu of the “Add Task” button.

Note: Task sections are event-specific. When you add/rename/reorder/delete task sections for a given event, the task sections for other events are not affected.

Add a task section

Once you add your first section to an event’s Tasks tab, the system automatically adds a section called “Uncategorized”. This section is used for tasks that haven’t been categorized yet.

Configurating Task Sections for an Event

After you create task sections for an event, you can rename, reorder, or delete the sections using the “Configure Task Sections” popup dialog. To open the “Configure Task Sections” dialog, click the pencil icon next to any of the task section names on the board.

Edit Task Sections

Once the “Configure Task Sections” dialog appears, make your changes to the list of sections and simply close the dialog.

Configure Task Sections for an Event

You can reorder the task sections by grab-and-dragging the handle to the right of each section. The “Uncategorized Tasks” section can only be placed either at the top or at the bottom of the list.

Creating Default Task Sections (sections that automatically get created whenever you add a new event).

Default Event Task Sections are task sections that automatically get created whenever you add a new event to your workspace. You can configure default task sections for your workspace under: Workspace Settings > Workspace Customizations > Configure Default Event Task Sections.

Applying Default Task Sections to Existing Events

Once you have created default task sections for new events in your workspace, you can also apply them to existing events using the “Apply to all existing events” button at the bottom of the default sections list.

What happens when you apply the default task sections to all existing events

When you click the “Apply to all existing events” button, this is how the default task sections get applied to each existing event: 

  • If the existing event has no task sections, all of the default task sections will be added to it (in the same order as listed on the workspace settings page).
  • If the event already has at least one task section:
    • The default task sections will be added to top of the list of sections for the event.
    • To avoid duplicate sections, if the event already has a task section that matches the name of one of the default sections, that section will not get added to the event.
    • The position of the Uncategorized section for the event will be updated to match the position of the Uncategorized tasks in the default task sections (i.e. if the Uncategorized section in the default task sections is at the top, the Uncategorized tasks for the event will be moved to the top; if the Uncategorized section is at the bottom, the Uncategorized tasks for the event will be moved to the bottom).

Note: Once you apply the default task sections to your existing events, you won’t be able to rename or delete them in bulk (you’d have to go to each event’s Tasks tab in order to make changes to the task sections for that event).

Shareable Event Boards

A Shareable Event Board is an automatically generated page that displays a list of events in your workspace based on the predetermined filter criteria that you select.

Each Event Board has a unique URL (web address) that can be used to view the board without having to log into ExhibitDay. You can share this URL with people interested in the events you’re attending, or publish it on your organization’s website to inform your customers about your upcoming shows.

Configuring Event Boards

You can get to the Event Board Management Area from the dropdown menu of the Events tab.

Manage Event Boards

Once you create a board, you can configure it to be filtered down based on various criteria. You can also select the information you would like to have displayed on the board about each event.

Filtering the Board Based on a Value of a Custom Dropdown Field

Under the “Advanced Filtering” section of the “Board Settings” tab, you can configure your event board to be filtered down based on the value of any Custom Dropdown field.

Advanced Filtering

Example:
You can add a custom dropdown field to your events and name it “Publish this event to the Event Board?” (with the available options: ‘Yes’ and ‘No’). Then, you can configure your board to be filtered down to events that have the value ‘Yes’ selected for that dropdown.

Previewing the Board

Once you’re done making configuration changes to your event board, you can click the “Preview Board” button to see what your event board looks like when you share its URL with someone or embed it in a web page.

Preview Event Board

Note: If you don’t see a particular event listed on the board, it’s because that event does not match the filter criteria (configured under the Board Settings tab) or it has been excluded from the board (under the Exclusion List tab).

Sharing the Board (outside of ExhibitDay)

You can obtain the board’s shareable URL (unique web address) by clicking the “Share” button.

Share, Embed, Export Event Board

Note: The board’s shareable URL will never change (i.e., the event board is always accessible via this URL). Also, an ExhibitDay account is not required when viewing the event board using this URL. Anyone you share this URL with can view the board without having to log into ExhibitDay.

Embedding the Board on Your Organization’s Website, Blog, or Intranet

You can obtain the HTML markup for embedding the event board on a website from the “Embed Code” tab.

Event Board Embed Code

Note: if you are using the WordPress as your CMS, insert the embed code as a “Custom HTML” block.

Exporting the Board (.csv, JSON, XML)

The board can be exported in 3 formats: .csv (spreadsheet download), JSON, and XML. The unique URLs for exporting the board can be obtained from the “Export URLs” tab.

Export Event Board

Note: An ExhibitDay account is not required for exporting the event board using the export URLs. Anyone you share the export URLs with can export the board without having to log into ExhibitDay.

Changing the Event Board’s Look and Feel (using Custom CSS)

If you would like to change the look and feel of an event board, use the “Custom CSS” field under the “Advanced Settings” tab to override the default styles.

Note: The Custom CSS setting is an advanced/technical setting that requires familiarity with Cascading Style Sheets (a design language used by programmers and web developers).

As an example, if you add the CSS styles below into the “Custom CSS” field, the board’s font size will be smaller, the background color will change to purple, the board name will be purple, and the background color of each event on the board will be light yellow.

#event-board { font-size: 12px; }
.event-item { background-color: lightyellow; }  
#event-board-name { color: purple; }    
body { background-color: pink; }

You can obtain a full list of default styles from following css file (which is referenced when viewing an event board): https://www.exhibitday.com/content/eventboard/eventboard.css

Deleting an Event Board

You can delete an event board by clicking the “Delete Board” option under the extended menu of the event board tab strip.

Delete Event Board

Event Board Limitations (for Lower Tier Plans)

While the ExhibitDay Enterprise plan offers unrestricted access to all the features of Sharable Event Boards, the Lite, Professional, and Premium plans come with the following restrictions:

  • Only one Event Board can be created.
  • A maximum of 3 events can be displayed on the board.
  • The board’s advanced settings cannot be modified.

ExhibitDay Awarded Badge of 2023 “Best Ease of Use” in Event Management

We are honored to be awarded the badge of 2023 “Best Ease of Use” in the Event Management Software category by Capterra, a subsidiary Gartner Digital Markets.

Gartner Digital Markets, the provider of Capterra, Software Advice, and GetApp, evaluates software solutions based on customer reviews in several key areas, including functionality, user experience, customer satisfaction, and overall performance. ExhibitDay has emerged as 2023’s top choice for “Ease of Use” in the Event Management software category.

This recognition is a testament to ExhibitDay’s user-friendly interface, intuitive features, and robust capabilities.

We are most thankful to our users. Many of the features and enhancements in ExhibitDay are built based on direct feedback from customers.  As always, we welcome all your comments and feedback as we strive to create the best trade show planning platform known to humankind. 🙏🎉🚀