Topic: Enter discussants for conference agenda  (Read 31632 times)

For our Finance Meeting we want to enter a discussant for each presentation.
They will discuss the papers presented and stimulate a lively discussion among the sessions' presenters and between the presenters and the audience.
We want to enter the discussants' names for each session individually in order for the discussants' names to appear in the conference agenda.
How can we do that?

You can enter discussants depending on your prerequisites. The first answer will show you how to enter discussants if the same discussant is assigned to one whole session. The second answer will give you a guide for discussants if there are several papers to be presented in one session and discussants prepare their questions for individual papers in the session only.

Discussants for a whole session:
To enter one discussant per session, simply use the session chair function and change the label for one of the session chairs.

To be able to enter the discussants name, you might have to change the maximum number of chairs first, as per default, it is limited to two session chairs. Please go to:
Overview => Scheduling => Main Settings for Conference Session Overview
In the section "Settings for Session Chairs, Moderators and/or Discussants" define for the option "Max No. of Chairs" the maximum number of session chairs / discussants.

Continue by clicking on e.g. "Edit Phrase: "Third Session Chair", "Session Chair", "Chair"."
Make the necessary changes to fit your needs, for instance enter "First Session Discussant", "Session Discussant" and "Discussant" as a new phrases/labels for the 3 definitions.

To assign one person from the list of users as a discussant to a session, please go to:
Overview => Scheduling => Create, Configure and Delete Sessions
... and edit the session.
From the drop-down field - which is now labelled "Discussant" - choose a person from the list of users.

Please test your settings!

One discussant per presentation within a session with several presentations:
Some events also require you to assign discussants to single papers only.

To be able to do so, please go to:
Overview => Settings => Main Settings for Paper and Abstract Submission
... and enable the expert settings by clicking on "Expert Settings Disabled" or the cogwheel icon on the bottom of the page.
In the section “Form Settings for all Submissions” activate the option “Enable Discussant”. Choose one of the options, with text field only or additionally with a list of users, which can be ordered in a variety of ways. Save your changes  (see image 1).

To assign a discussant to a paper, please go to:
Overview => Submissions & Reviews => List of Submissions
And click on “Edit Paper” for each of the submissions. Go to the section “Input Field for Chairs” and further to the subsection “Discussants”. Either select a discussant from the list of users (if enabled) or directly enter the discussant’s details into the corresponding fields.
Please note: If you select a discussant from the list, the data in the fields below the list will be replaced (see image 2).