How to Create and Manage a Conference

Conference Quick Tips

This guide shares the steps to create and manage a multi-session conference within TECPDS to award certificates for virtual, hybrid, or face-to-face events. The conference tool is an extension of the TECPDS certificate generation tool and is currently only available to organizations on TECPDS. To begin, review our recommendations for using the TECPDS conference tool, then scroll down for step-by-step instructions.

Before the Conference

Your conference registration:

• Require your attendees and trainers to have active TECPDS accounts and provide their TECPDS ID with registration (a required field in your form)
  • Share our guides on how to create an account and how to find your TECPDS ID
• Require Texas Core Competencies aligned to each session
• Recommended for session titles to have fewer than 100 characters (limit in TECPDS) so you don’t have to make modifications later

Conference set-up on TECPDS:

• Create your conference and all sessions prior to the start of your conference, preferably once your conference schedule is finalized
• For easier management, enter your sessions chronologically by date/time or alphabetically into the conference tool

Pre-conference confirmation/reminder emails:

• Share TECPDS how-to guides:
  • How to scan QR code to register attendance in a session
  • Login help
• What to have ready at the conference:
  • Phone (camera-ready) to scan QR codes in their sessions
  • Users need to test logging in on their phone/device that they will use at the conference
  • TECPDS login information: email and password
• Instruct attendees to try and log in to their TECPDS accounts before the conference
  • Users need to know their email and password they use to create their TECPDS account.
  • If they have trouble logging in, they should submit a help ticket

During the conference

Arriving at the conference and check-in process:

• Recommend conference organizers make wi-fi available and attendees can connect
• Recommend attendees try to log in to their TECPDS, so they don’t have issues in sessions later

Using the QR codes to register session attendance (preferred method):

• Provide steps for the QR code process at an opening session and/or include high-level information in your conference program
  • Reach out to TECPDS for sample slides to show attendees how to scan QR codes
• Send session QR codes to trainers/presenters to include in their presentation at the end of each session (best practice)
• Provide printed QR codes to be posted in the room by trainers or facilitators at the end of each session
• If virtual, plan to show the QR code and/or post the equivalent QR link in the chat for each session (both can be downloaded from TECPDS)
• Conference organizers can also upload session attendance to award certificates, but this is not recommended

What to do if a session or trainer changes after you’ve entered the information into TECPDS:

• We recommend updating the session information before the start of the session. Another option is to delete the existing session and create a new one with the updated information

Assistance during the conference:

• Use sign-in sheets as a backup option to record the attendee’s first, last name, email, and TECPDS ID (needed to award the certificates)
• Attendees’ information can be manually entered into each session in TECPDS to award their certificates

After the Conference

Awarding certificates:

• Decide when conference organizers will send certificates to attendees (after each session, at end of each day, after conference conclusion, etc.)
• Inform attendees when they will receive their certificates and where they can be accessed in TECPDS accounts (their profile’s conference section)
  • Conference organizers can choose to email and sent to TECPDS accounts (recommended) and/or print certificates
• Set a deadline/window for attendees to register session attendance (ex: allow attendees to register until the end of presentation/training, or give them till the end of the day, etc.)

How to Create and Manage a Conference

Step 1: Log in to your TECPDS account. To create conferences, you will have to switch to your “Organization Admin Account” by clicking the button from your dashboard. Once you click on it, your dashboard will change to your organization’s.

Please note, this feature is only available to organizations on TECPDS. For more information, please contact us.

Step 2: Once you are switched to your organization’s dashboard, scroll down the page until you reach the tile labeled “Create a Conference” and click on it.

Step 3: After clicking on the “Create a Conference” tile, you will be taken to a new page with a list of your organization’s past conferences. To create a new conference, click on the “add conference” button.

Step 4: After clicking the button, you will be taken to the “Conference Organizer” page. On this page, you will fill out the information for your conference and when done, click “submit.”

Step 5: Once you click submit, your conference will be processed and created. You will be able to find it in your list of existing conferences. To view conference and sessions already created, select SEARCH button. To create sessions for your conference, click on the green “+” button at the right side of your conference entry.

Step 6: After clicking the green “+” button, the “Manage Sessions” window should appear as shown below. To enter or add a session, click the blue “Add Session” button at the top right.

Step 7: After clicking “Add Session,” a new window will appear called “New Conference Session,” where you can enter the details of the session for the conference you are creating. The areas marked with red asterisks indicated the boxes that require information before submitting.

Step 8: Your list of sessions will appear on the screen, and to the right are action items. They are from left to right:

• Edit the session
• Add/manage attendees and print or send their certificates
• Print the QR code to allow attendees to scan and register their attendance in each session
• Delete the session

Step 9: Use the “Manage Attendee” screen to see and edit a list of the session’s attendees, preview this session’s certificate, and upload a roster.

How attendees are added to this page:

• Attendees who scan the QR code will appear here automatically
• You can upload a list of attendees using the “Bulk Upload” feature (be sure to download the spreadsheet linked on the screen)
• Manually add attendees individually with the “ADD ATTENDEE” button

To print individual certificates, use the Action buttons on each row. It is highly recommended to use the “EMAIL CERTS/UPDATE REGISTRY” feature to send all certificates at once.

• PREVIEW CERTIFICATE: Download a preview of the certificate that will be awarded for this session
• UPLOAD FINAL SIGN IN SHEET: Upload a final sign in sheet or document of all attendees to send certificates
• PRINT CERTS/SIGN IN SHEET: Download a file containing all certificates to print and a sign-in sheet
• EMAIL CERTS/UPDATE REGISTRY: Email all certificates to attendees and automatically update their TECPDS accounts (if TECPDS IDs are known or entered)
• BULK UPLOAD: Upload all attendees using a pre-formatted spreadsheet with required information
• VIEW USERS WITH CERTIFICATES: View all attendees that have certificates for the session in their account
• DOWNLOAD ATTENDEES: Click to generate and download a spreadsheet of all users that attended the session and the conference details

PRINT