Manage sessions, speakers, and sponsorships
Typically, the core attractions of your event offering are its sessions and speakers. A simple event might have only one session, whereas a conference usually has multiple sessions that are spread over several days with various speakers presenting.
Your events might also have sponsors that you want to associate with your event record.
Set up sessions
After you have the initial details set up for your event, you might be ready to start planning the schedule for the event. You can manage the schedule through sessions and session tracks.
Typically, a session is a seminar or a keynote. The concept is flexible, so you can adapt it as needed. For example, if your event is a trade show rather than a conference, you can use a session to represent booths. A large conference might have several sessions that run concurrently and might feature several session tracks, which organize multiple related and non-conflicting sessions by audience.
Each session is associated with a specific event and speaker. The session includes scheduling details, such as session title, start and end date, format of session (on-site, webinar, or hybrid), and the maximum capacity for the session.
You can view and edit a list of sessions that are associated with a specific event by opening the appropriate event, going to the Agenda tab, and then reviewing the Sessions section.
Note
The system generates a warning if you set the session time to finish outside the event times.
For more information, see Set up event sessions and tracks.
Set up session tracks
Session tracks are collections of sessions that are related by theme or audience. Tracks provide a convenient way for attendees to register for several related sessions at once. For each track, you can assign an audience and a few other descriptive details, and then you can add member sessions one at a time. All sessions in a track must be from the same event.
The two types of tracks are:
Internal - Use these tracks during the planning phase to group sessions along organization lines, such as according to team resources or required equipment.
External - Use these tracks to group sessions by content or audience and to enable ticketing and registration. External tracks are published on customer-facing platforms, such as event websites and mobile apps.
You can view and edit a list of session tracks that are associated with a specific event. Open the appropriate event and then review the Session tracks section of the Agenda tab.
For more information, see Set up event sessions and tracks.
Set up speakers and speaker engagements
Events allow you to track information that's related to the speakers of your events. Additionally, you can track the cost of your speakers. Speakers have two key components: speakers and speaker engagements.
Each speaker record can include a photo, contact details, and biographical details that you can eventually publish to the event website for attendees to review. It also includes a record of all speaking engagements and sessions where the speaker has presented or will present. You can choose to link a speaker to a contact record, but it's not required. The contact, photo, and biographical information in the speaker record is independent of the contact record, so you can safely keep private contact information (possibly stored in the contact record) away from the public speaker information (stored in the speaker record).
A speaking engagement is a session where the speaker has presented or will present. When setting up a speaker engagement, you need to map a speaker to a specific session for the event record that you're working with, so a speaker record and session record must already exist.
For more information, see Set up and assign session speakers.
Manage event sponsorship
Sponsors are people or organizations who contribute funds, equipment, or services in return for having their logos and messages placed in your event materials or at the actual event.
Make sure that you associate each sponsorship record with an event record and that you store each sponsoring company in Dynamics 365 Customer Insights - Journeys. Included with the record can be information about the sponsorship, its type (money, services, or equipment), its value, and other details. Go to the Events work area and then go to Sponsorship Management > Sponsorships to view, edit, and create these records.
Sponsorable articles are items that are visibly present at the event and feature a sponsor's logo or message. Typically, these articles include small giveaways for event attendees, and they could also be some type of infrastructure or facility that's provided to event attendees. Go to the Events work area and then go to Sponsorship Management > Sponsorable Articles to view, edit, and create these records. Each sponsorable article must relate to a parent sponsorship record and include price and quantity information.
For more information, see Record and publicize sponsorship details.