When you offer Online Support within your Event, it can be useful to create a Help Desk. Depending on your needs, you may choose to create a Help Desk Live Discussion or a Help Desk Booth.

Setting up a Help Desk Chat Room would allow Attendees to post questions and request assistance from selected members of the Organization in a group discussion setup. This Help Desk Chat Room, therefore, takes the form of a Live Discussion. All the messages are public and everyone can benefit from the conversations happening in the chat room.

On the other hand, creating a Help Desk Booth allows Attendees to connect with your Support Team through a private channel monitored by your own agents and/or Swapcard's.

1. Live Discussion setup

Go to the Studio → Content → Discussions and click on the New Discussion button. Pick a name and a description and click on Create.

2. Content Button (Discussion) setup

Create a Content Button using the Discussions button type. This Discussion Button will allow Attendees to reach the Live Discussion.

At Event level, Content Buttons can be created under Event builder → Content display → Content Buttons

In the list of Content Button types, select Discussion. Name it, pick a color and a picture, and hit Add Button. The newly created Content Button will appear on your Event's Home Page to all the Groups for which it's been enabled in the button's Visibility tab.

1. Custom field setup

When setting up a Help Desk Booth, technically speaking you are setting up an Exhibitor Booth that you use as a Help Desk. From a functionality perspective, it will therefore work exactly as such. However, to differentiate this Booth from the others in the system, it is required to set up a Custom field. This allows you to link that Exhibitor Booth (a.k.a. your Help Desk Booth) to a Content Button on the Event Homepage. The Custom field, only used for this Booth, allows you to "filter out" of the other Exhibitor Booths.

For this, in the Studio go to Content → Exhibitors, and click on Exhibitor Settings. In the Custom fields tab click on Create Custom Field label it as Help Desk to make it easy to find, select Single choice as the format.

To finalize the Custom field setup, go back to the Content → Exhibitors → Exhibitor Settings view with the Custom fields tab open, select the "Help Desk" Custom field, and add "Help Desk" in the Values field, as shown below:

2. Help Desk Booth creation

Go back to Content → Exhibitors and create your Help Desk Booth by clicking on the Create Exhibitors button.

On the next screen, you will have to pick among three setup methods. Help Desk Booths are most commonly set up manually (as opposed to a batch Excel import), but you can retrieve them for your Event if you have already created one at Community level, just like any other Exhibitor Booth. See Managing Exhibitors at Community level for more information.

For the purpose of this article, we will proceed with the manual option. Then, pick a name, click on Create, and voilà!

3. Help Desk Booth customization

Once the Help Desk Booth has been created, it will be displayed in the list of Exhibitors. Add all the essential information, documents, links, etc, as well as the necessary branding and images. Add the Team Members who will be in charge of supporting your Attendees, and finally, make sure you select the "Help Desk" Value within the "Help Desk" Custom field that you set up on step 1. See below:

4. Help Desk Button creation

In the Studio, at Event level, Content Buttons can be created under Event builder → Content display → Content Buttons

In the list of Content Button types, select Exhibitor. Name it ("Help Desk"), pick a color and a picture, and hit Add Button. The newly created Content Button will appear on your Event's Home Page to all the Groups for which it's been enabled in the button's Visibility tab.

Once the Content Button has been created, click on the pencil right next to its name. In the Data tab, you will have to Add a Condition and only enable Help Desk, the Custom field value that you previously set up. See below:

Likewise, it is good practice to exclude the Help Desk Booth from the main Exhibitors list of your Event, or any additional custom list with Premium Exhibitors or any other type of categorization.