Navigating Hopin

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The Networking area allows attendees to be automatically placed in speed video networking chat sessions. The Networking area is simple and straightforward but there are some rules, concepts, and tips that are vital to know — all of which we cover below.

How Networking works on Hopin

The Networking area on Hopin is the place for automated one-on-one meetings and is Hopin’s way of facilitating connection discovery at an event. Similar to an experience that feels like FaceTime or Hangouts, Hopin pairs two people over a direct video call.

In Networking, when someone clicks the Ready button, the system searches for someone else who has also clicked the Ready button. If someone else is available, the two are matched instantly and the video chat begins and lasts for a preset amount of time.

The minimum and maximum amount of time for individual meetings is set by the organiser. Attendees see a timer countdown on the top side of the screen. When the time expires, the meeting ends.

In a Networking meeting, the blue Connect button shows up at the top right corner of the screen. The purpose of this button is to give users the ability to quickly and easily exchange contact information, similar to exchanging business cards at a physical event.

If both people click Connect, a connection registers. When a connection registers, both people will be notified.  Attendees will not know if the other person clicked Connect until the end of the event. The purpose is to allow users to unawkwardly avoid giving out their contact information if they do not wish to. 

Ticket Matching

By default, Hopin networking is like a professional chatroulette embedded in your event, but you can configure the Networking area so that it’s not so random. You can program Hopin to match certain ticket holders (e.g., “Job seekers”) with other certain ticket holders (e.g., “Employers”) only.

Important Networking rules to know

• Once you meet someone in the Networking area at an event, you will not be matched with that person in the Networking area again at that event. You will never meet the same person twice in the Networking area.
• Networking defaults to letting everyone meet everyone. This can be changed to incorporate ticket matching.
• Intentional networking is possible via the People tab of the event venue. You can also use Sessions for these meetings.
• Networking meetings are not recorded or recordable.
• If two people are searching in the Networking area but not meeting, it’s probably because their tickets are not matched up in Ticket Matching, they already met before, and/or they are in a meeting currently.
• Users can turn off their camera in the Networking area.
• Report any users using the three dot menu. Indicate the reason and we will investigate and ban any users who violated our terms of use.
• Screen sharing is not possible in Networking.
• In order to begin networking, an attendee must have a camera and microphone connected to their device and allowed in their browser.
• Any changes made to the Networking settings during a live event will affect only those who navigate away and back to networking after the changes were saved.

Session Rooms are virtual chat rooms that can be used for presentations, networking, meeting rooms and more.  There is no limit to how many session rooms can be created, and there are several options available when setting up a session room.

Who can watch

Session Rooms can be setup as open, or with restrictions as to who can find and view the session on the Sessions tab.

Anyone: All attendees can find and watch the Session during the event

Private (invitation only) This option allows you to invite specific attendees to a session room.  Private Sessions will only be visable on the Sessions tab to invited attendees.  This may be a good option for things like comittee meetings.

Specific ticket holders: Another form of Private Session Rooms, with access/visability limited to one or more ticket types.

Unlisted: Only attendees who have the Session URL sent to them by the Organizer can find and watch the Session during the event)

Who can participate

Aside form restricting who can find and view a session, we can also restrict attendee permission to participate with Video/Audio on during the Session.  Participating in a session room is very similar to participating in a zoom meeting, including giving speakers the option to share their screen.  Non-participants can still watch, as well as communicate with other viewers/particpants in the session room’s text chat.

Anyone: Any event attendee can participate with Video/Audio any time.  To participate, viewers just need to hit the “share audio/video” button in the session room.

Invite only: Only selected attendees will be able to participate with Video/Audio.  This is often a good choice when using a session room to hold a presentation, or some other speaker content.

Moderated: Only Organizers and specified Moderators will control which attendees will have permission to participate with Video/Audio.  This can be a good option for comittee meetings, or other situations in which you want the ability to control who can speak on the fly.

Session Chat

Each session has its own group chat, separate from the event-wide chat. As a viewer, you can interact with the people who are in the session via chat using the Session chat. This is a great place to ask questions and engage with people on-camera when you don’t want to be on-camera yourself.

Moderators

Optionally, you can assign one or more moderators to any session.

When a moderator is in a session, other attendees can click the button that says Request to Share Audio and Video. Clicking this button will open the moderation panel for the moderator to view who’s requesting and click to add them to the video stream.

Once allowed, the person will choose their audio/video devices and then appear on camera. The moderator can one-click remove the person by clicking Remove on the person’s video.

Room Limits

Session rooms have limits on the number of participants that can be on screen at the same time:

Non-recorded Session: 1-20

Recorded Session: 1-9

Depending on the number of participants on screen, the number of people who can watch the Session will also change.

1 speaker: 3000 viewers maximum
2 speakers: 1500 viewers maximum (this would include 1 speaker and 1 screenshare)
3 speakers: 1000 viewers maximum
4 speakers: 750 viewers maximum
5 speakers: 600 viewers maximum
10 speakers: 300 viewers maximum
20 speakers: 150 viewers maximum