What are filters? How do I add metatags? Can I create prefiltered lists?

Modified on Fri, 19 Jul at 3:27 PM

Understanding Filters

What is a filter?

Filters allow your attendees to limit what they see of your program and basically hide what they are not interested in. For example, the user only wants to see

sessions happening on Tuesday afternoon or
sessions about Catheter Ablation or
exhibitors that sell defibrillation systems or
attendees from Germany or
poster sessions on Monday morning about AFib that offer credits and are held at the convention center

Filters allow attendees to view a smaller portion of your large educational program based on their personal needs. Filters have meta tags or keywords that describe or help structure your data.

For example, you may have a filter called "Educational Level" and the keywords within that filter are Beginner, Intermediate, and Advanced. So you would tag your basic entry level sessions with the keyword Beginner. This tagging is either done by your speakers who choose keywords from a list you provide for their session, or by your educational team when structuring your program data.

3 Tips for Useful Filter Keywords

Short list - under 7-10 keywords per filter is ideal. 15 display without scrolling. 30 is max.
Short keywords - each keyword should be under 30 characters, the rest is ellipsized.
If you have a lot of keywords, add them into the session description instead of using a filter.

Where do filter keywords (meta tags) show?

Each list view (sessions, speakers, exhibitors, media items, attendees) displays Filters using the Filter button on the top right of the view in the native apps and on the left in the desktop planner. When the user clicks that button, a all available filters for that list are displayed. The user then chooses a filter which displays all the available keywords (meta tags) for the filter. The user can select multiple

Users select one or more filter keywords and can also combine multiple filters together. The data in the list immediately updates while users choose filters. Users can also search a filtered list and with one tap remove the filter from the list.

The individual keywords also appear in the session, speaker, attendee, and exhibitor detail views as buttons. Users can select a button to see all items in the list associated with that keyword.

Which filters are automatically available for attendees?

There are default filters built into the platform. This means, you do not need to manually keywords for the following:

Agenda Sessions

Now - any sessions that are currently going on
Future - any sessions that have not yet started
On Demand - any sessions that do not have a date/time
Bookmark - sessions that the user bookmarked
Notes - sessions where the user added a note
Scheduled - sessions the user added to their schedule
Credit (you can change the label) - sessions that the user flagged for credit (only projects that use the Credit API)
Day - any dates within the event. This filter also includes generic keywords for Morning, Afternoon, Evening
Location - keywords are any of the venues and the individual floors within the venues
Type - session type

Speakers, Attendees, Media, and Exhibitors

Bookmark - sessions that the user bookmarked
Notes - sessions where the user added a note

In addition to the automatic filters, you can add up to 4 custom filters for each list.

Note: In the Agenda Sessions data:

Filter 3 is reserved for credit sessions if you use the credit API.
Filter 4 is reserved for Zoom sessions if you use the EventPilot Zoom integration.

Where can filters be added?

You can add custom filters to Agenda Sessions, Speakers, Attendees, Exhibitors, and Media.

How many keywords can a filter have?

While there is no technical limit on the number of keywords (or meta tags) in a filter, more than a couple of dozen keywords becomes overwhelming to users to browse. Anywhere from 10-30 within a filter is useful.

Are there any character or symbol limitations?

If you import your data from a spreadsheet or external data source, use commas to list multiple keyword for an item. For example, if you are using educational level as a filter, a session may be suitable for Beginner and also Intermediate. This means, you have two keywords in the Level filter. In your data, you add both keywords with a comma between the two: Beginner,Intermediate
About 30 characters display on the screen (max possible up to 90 characters but will appear ellipsized)
Do not use symbolsin keywords, such as:
- commas (commas are considered delimiters = separators to distinguish between two different keywords)
- double quotes
- colons
- semi-colons

What happens if you have keywords that have commas within the keyword?

Imagine you have a Color filter with two keywords:

Keyword 1: Blue, Green, and Turquoise

Keyword 2: Red, Yellow, and Orange

Notice how these keywords themselves have commas in them. Commas are used to distinguish individual keywords. Instead of two keywords to select from, the system would generate the following individual keywords:

and Orange

and Turquoise

Blue

Green

Red

Yellow

Instead of using an actual comma, use a replacement symbol that just looks like a comma in your data, which is not treated by the database as a delimiter. Using the "single low quotation mark" instead of an actual comma character will display:

Blue, Green, and Turquoise

Red, Yellow, and Orange

Adding and labeling filters

Displaying filters and customizing labels

In the Conference App Builder data pages (Agenda > Sessions, Agenda > Speakers, Media, Expo > Exhibitors, Attendees), expand the Filter card. If data has been imported or was manually added, some sample keywords appear on the right for reference. The Metadata source is the data field in EventPilot, the field name where you are storing the data in EventPilot. This is not shown to your attendees but for your own reference. Think of it as the column in a spreadsheet.

Enter the label for the filter on the left.
Remove a filter by clicking X on the right (this will not delete the data, only hide the filter from attendees seeing that filter)
Use the drag symbol on the left to change the order of your filters.
Add Filters

Adding keywords to records

The data tables display how many keywords are added to a records. Notice the number 3 below the filter icon for the session on March 22. If you are using manual data entry, add your keywords manually. If you are using data import, add the keywords in your data source to include them as part of your import.

Manual Data Entry

Ensure you first have added filters in the filter card (see above) and labeled them.

When entering a new record, use the + symbol to the right of the filters to add keywords. In the screenshot below, the first 3 filters have keywords applied.

Data Import

If you generate CSV files, add a column for each of the 4 filters. Within each column, add the appropriate data. Remember that a comma within the keywords separates each individual keyword.

Learn more about setting up CSV files for import.

Setting up Pre-filtered lists

Imagine you are live streaming some sessions at your event and you have already tagged those sessions with a keyword such as Live Streaming. Now you may want to make it easy for your remote attendees to quickly find a list of all the sessions that will stream live. On the desktop planner Home Screen, you could add a button with a play icon and the label Live Stream and set up the button to show the list of sessions that are tagged with the keyword Live Streaming.

In the custom view editor where you create pages (e.g. Design > Home Screens or Design > Custom Views), drag a button object Into position (or if you want to add a tab, use the Design > Tab Layouts)
Click the pencil icon to edit
Select the ActionBuilder
1. Select Action > List of Items > select the appropriate table (e.g. Sessions) > Add Filter > select your filter you want to use > select one or more keywords > Save