8. Create Categories and Rooms

Rooms are the most engaging feature of Virtual Events! But to get there, you need to configure them and prepare them for your attendees. This chapter helps you set up your rooms and create categories.

You can create simple video call rooms, add a variety and number of embedded applications, and whiteboard or collaboration tools!

Create rooms

To create a room, you need to be inside your event (you can use the backdoor access if the event is not live yet). In the room's area, you can create a room via the “Create room” button or settings menu on the top of the room's pane.

When creating a room, you can set:

• Name of the room
• Description of the event can be rich text (formatting, images, videos, links, etc.); this description is shown to all participants before joining the room.
• Category, in which the room belongs too (you can select multiple categories or none, the latter will place the room on the main room's pane).
• Applications, embeddable applications that your attendees can use while being together on the same video call.
• Capacity of the room, under the advanced configuration, you can set the limit of attendees that can be connected in this room (please note that hosts can enter a room even if its capacity has been reached).
• Layout of the room card, which is visible on the main room pane. You can upload your own image or select one from pexels.com.
• Gradient color and text color of the title allow you to customize/adapt the colors based on your room's image.
• Video call settings, in which you can select Zoom as the tool or switch to webinar mode. Smaller settings can also be made outside of the video call application. 
• Maximum numbers of participants, to limit access to this room.
  
• Room URL, in case you want to have a custom link to your room instead of the default one.
• Tags that the users need to have in order to access this room.

Create categories

Like the rooms, you can create a category by being in the room's area and click the “Create category” button via the settings menu on the top of the room's pane.

When creating a category, you can set:

• Title of the category, which can be shown on the label of the category
• Category URL, in case you want to have a custom URL for the rooms inside this category
• Attendees can create rooms inside this category or not. In case the creation of rooms by attendees is disabled in the cockpit for this event, if this setting is enabled, attendees will still be able to create a room under this category. This allows you to control your event but still allows a free area for your attendees to define rooms.
• Picture of the category card, which is visible on the main room pane. You can upload your own image or select one from pexels.com.
• Gradient color and text color of the title allow you to customize/adapt the colors based on your category's image.

Once the category is created, it will be visible in the room's pane. By right-clicking on the category, you can edit the category, hide it to all participants, delete it or reorder the categories.

Add apps to rooms

You can add any web app that can be embeddable on a web page in a Veertly room. This allows you to extend your event much beyond video calls and engage with your audience!

You can create the following type of apps:

• Web app: any web page that can be embeddable in another web page. You need to configure the name and the URL of the app.
• Video player: this type of app allows you to embed any video from a video site (like youtube, Vimeo, Twitch, Facebook, etc.) or any live stream. You only need to provide the link to the video itself. This is using the same mechanism as the Main Stage, which allows you to have parallel live sessions in addition to the Main Stage.
• Image: If you want to add an image to your app, you can use this type of app.
• Contact Cards: These are like business cards that display information about specific people, such as speakers.
• Event Files: As with the Download Area, documents and folders can be made available for download here.
• Preview File: Documents or presentations can be provided here for viewing.
• Networking Circles (beta): Here, another type of networking space can be added. For more information watch this out: Networking circles in rooms
• Q&A: To have not only one Q&A function for the entire event but for a specific room or several rooms, the Q&A function can be used in Rooms.
• Rich Text:  This function can be used for texts and images. It is very suitable for instructions, for example.

Get inspired by possible room apps

App Marketplace

With Virtual Events, you can easily add nearly any page that you wish! 

Get a direct link to a room

In some specific cases, you may want to have your attendees join a specific room. Here is how you can customize and copy the direct room link.

Default view of a direct room link:

Customized view of the room link:

You can also customize the link to your room by editing the url on the edit page of your room (under configuration). You can as well edit the category url that is part of the link of your room on the edit page of the category.

To get the direct link to a room, click with the right-button of your mouse on a room and you will have an option to get the link to the room, or simply copy from the url bar once you are inside the room.

Limit number of attendees in rooms

If you want to limit the amount of people per room, in the advanced configuration you can set the number of attendees that are allowed to enter. By default, rooms are limited to 500 people because up to 500 participants are possible with the Meeting function but you can increase to any number.

To adjust the maximum number of participants, go to Configurations when creating or editing a room and adjust the number in question.

Next: 9. Networking