Participant Types
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      Participant Types

      What are participant types?

      Participant types are categories of participants set by the event organizers, used to group participants with common specific traits. The ability to group participants by a specific type gives the organizer the power to manage them more efficiently, to perform certain actions, to apply certain rules on them, and to address messages targeted for that specific group.

      All events created with b2match have a default participant type.

      Organizers are able to create participant types for their events according to the event's specificity. The participant type invitation link will be created automatically.

      Participant types in registration

      When participant types are defined, participants are prompted to choose their participant type during the event registration, immediately after they fill in their email address and password. 
      This is the first step after the participant has filled in their email address and password. There can only be one option per participant for the participation type.

      Only the enabled participation types are visible in registration. 

      A participation type is enabled when In registration is ticked when editing it.

      Main purposes for applying participation types

      1. Booking rules - determine which participants can be booked by which participants (examples: only buyers should be able to book sellers, local companies should only be able to book foreign companies) via Configuration - Booking Rules.
      2. Visibility rules - determine which participants can be seen by which participants (examples: visitors can only see the exhibitors, not other visitors) via Configuration - Event Information - Participants Visibility - Private Participants List. 
      3. Registration rules - related to agenda selection - which participants can select specific event sessions (examples: students should not see the Gala Dinner session and register for the matchmaking session) set in Configuration - Registration Settings - Registration Rules.
      4. Payment - if the payment is enabled for your event, ticket rules can be set based on participation types.

      Examples of typical participant types

      • Buyer and Seller
      • Investor and Start-Up
      • Exhibitor and Visitor
      • Local Company and Guest Company

      Participants groups empower participants to find suitable partners for meetings by giving them an effective way to filter the participants on the website.

      Furthermore, the participation groups can be used to adjust the registration process and payment fees by limiting which tickets are selectable by a certain participation type.

      The participation type is different from the attendance type (only present in hybrid events). 

      Creating participant types

      In order to create participation types, follow the steps below.

      • Click on Configuration in the navigation panel, go to Participant Types and click Add Participant Type.

      • Give your participant type a Name and optionally add a description.
      • In registration / Hidden - define whether the participant type will be visible in the registration form or not. Hidden Participant Types are used when you want to assign a participation type only to specific participants.
        • Only the participants with access to the invitation link will be able to see and pick the hidden participation type.

        • Alternatively, the organizer can use the Add participant feature to create the registration on the participant's behalf and assign the hidden participation type.
        • If only one participant type is enabled, the participants will not be prompted for the participant type during registration. It will be automatically assigned to each participant.
      • Visible in Participants Profiles - you can decide if the participant type will be visible in the participant list and on the participant's profile. If ticked, the participant type will be visible.
        • When the participation type is visible, it is displayed in the participants' profile on the event website.
        • When there are at least 2 participation types visible, then the participation type filter is displayed in the participant list on the website.

      If you define participant types for your event, participants will be prompted to choose their participation type during the first step of the registration. 

      When creating participant types, the participant types invitation links are automatically created.

      Participant type invitation links

      When you create a participant type, the invitation link will be created automatically.
      It will be displayed under each participant type, in Configuration - Participant Type.

      The organizers can use the link to invite participants to whom they want to attribute the hidden participation types.
      For example, if the Speaker participant type should not be a choice in registration, the organizers can set it to 'hidden'. Then, they can send the participants the invitation link displayed under Speaker. These participants will register by clicking on the link, which means that the Speaker participant type will be automatically applied to them and they won't have to choose the participant type during registration.
      Alternatively, the organizer can use the Add participant feature to create the registration on participant's behalf and assign the hidden participation type. In this case, the invitation link is not needed.