About

Kaltura's Chat & Collaboration widget (C&C) is a built-in engagement panel used in live sessions that lets participants, speakers, and moderators interact with each other in real time and manage session activity. It's essentially the central hub for communication and interactive tools during a session. 

The Interaction settings page allows organizers to set how the C&C widget functions and what users are allowed to do within it during a session. Here organizers can:

• Enable or disable participants' ability to send emoticon reactions during the session.
• Control specific chat functionality including private chat, page group chat, and session group chat.
• Enable or disable Q&A chat. If Q&A chat is enabled, organizers can also set the sessions' live moderation schedule and define an automatic response for the Q&A chats.

Access the Interaction settings page

Navigate to the Interaction settings page; from the Event page, choose Interaction settings from the Interactions tab pull-down menu.

The Interaction settings page displays.

Enable or disable reactions

Choose whether to allow attendees to send emoticon reactions during the session. Move the blue toggle button next to Reactions to the left to disable or to the right to enable.

If the setting is enabled, attendees will be able to simulate applause, laughter, and much more during the session. Reactions initiated by attendees will be displayed to everyone in the session. 

If the setting is disabled, attendees will not be able to send reactions during the session.

Enable or disable conversations

Three types of conversations are available: 

• Private chat - Allow 1:1 chat conversations and search between attendees.

Depending on your account settings, Private Chat may be restricted to Admins only. 

• Page group chat - Allow attendees to participate in a group chats on event pages (event homepage, etc.).
• Session group chat - Allow attendees to participate in session group chats.

Choose to enable or disable conversations for your event by sliding the button next to the specific conversation type to the left to disable or to the right to enable. In the example below, we are disabling Session group chat. Notice once Session group chat is disabled, the button turns gray.

Choose whether to enable Q&A chat

During the event, other than connecting with each other, attendees can engage and ask speakers or event moderators questions via the Q&A tab of the Live stage. This functionality improves interaction and exchange of information among speakers and attendees, thus encouraging discussions and boosting attendee engagement. 

Q&A chat is enabled by default. As shown below, the feature is enabled when the blue toggle button is the "On" position.

If the setting is "On", the Q&A tab will be activated in the session when there are moderators assigned to the session and the moderation will be set according to the live moderation schedule. 

You may disable Q&A chat by moving the blue toggle button to the "Off" position. 

When the setting is "Off", the Q&A tab will not be displayed in the session.

Define your sessions' live moderation schedule 

If you chose to enable Q&A chat, additional settings are available to define your sessions' live moderation schedule. 

Set when you would like moderation to start and end for your live session. In the example below, we are starting moderation 10 minutes before the session start time and ending moderation 10 minutes after the session end time.

Enable Auto reply and define an automatic response for Q&A chats

Automated reply messages are predefined responses used to communicate with attendees. Prior to the moderator’s response, an automatic message that was pre-configured displays. Use it to:  

• Provide reassurance - Attendees who reach out to the moderator or your sponsors booth expect to hear back from them quickly. 

• Provide further direction - You can use auto reply to offer additional resources and communicate accurate information or redirect attendees to specific pages. 

• Increase engagement - Attendees are open to information when they see an automatic reply. The engagement increases because personalized timing is as important as personalized content. 

Auto reply is enabled by default and a default reply message is displayed in the text box.

If you would like to change the default reply message, type the desired text in the text box. In the example below, we are setting the auto reply as "Hello! Thank you for your message! Our team will respond in just a few minutes."

Save your work

Once you've finished making all your changes to the Interaction settings page, be sure to click the Save button.