Managing Participants

You can add any number of participants to be invited to a Forsta Discussions project. This article discusses how to add, edit and delete participants, and how to optionally, send invitation emails to them.

Adding Participants to a Forsta Discussions project

To add participants to an existing Forsta Discussions project, follow these steps:

1. Scroll to the Manage Participants pane on the Project Detail page and click the Add Participants drop-down button.
   

2. A small drop-down list appears allowing you to add participants using two different methods: individually, or by pasting a list of email addresses.

   • Adding participants individually (Add Individually) - This option allows you to add the participants one-by-one, and has the advantage of being able to add additional information about the participant, such as name, display name and timezone that the participant is in. Because of this, however, it is a slower method of adding participants.
     
     
     
     When you have completed the pop-up, click Create & Add Another to add another participant, or Create & Done to add the participant and close the pop-up.
     

   • Adding participants by pasting a list of email address (Paste Email List) - This option allows you to paste a list of email participant addresses, separated with a comma or new line.
     
     
     
     When finished, click the Add Participants button.

3. A notification banner appears at the top of the screen to confirm successful addition of the participants. The Manage Participants section is also updated with the newly added participants.
   

Note: At this point, no invitations have been sent out to the participants. These can be sent from within Forsta Discussions, or you can copy the invite for each participant and paste it into a preferred communication medium. See the section, Sending Invitations to Participants, below for further information.

Editing Participants

All participant information can be edited once added to Discussions, with the exception of their email address.

To edit the details for a participant:

• Locate the participant in the list of participants and click the pencil icon to display the Edit Participant window.
  
  
  

• Make changes as required. Note that if you need to modify their email address, then you should first delete the participant (see Deleting Participants below) and then recreate them.

• Click the Save button to commit the changes.

Deleting Participants

To delete a participant:

1. Locate the row for the person to be removed from the Manage Participants section, and click the overflow icon (three dots). Then select Delete from the drop-down menu.
   

2. A confirmation overlay appears asking for confirmation. Click the Delete Participant button to delete the person from the Discussion project.
   

Note: A participant cannot be deleted if they have already accepted a meeting invite in a project.

Sending Invitations to Participants

There are two ways to send invitations to take part in a Forsta Discussions session from within the Manage Participants section of the Project Details page:

• Manually, using a link that can be copied to the clipboard. To manually send a link via whatever communications channel you'd prefer (email, social media, etc), perform the following steps:

  1. In the list of participants, locate the participant. Click the overflow icon (three dots) to reveal a drop-down menu, and click the Copy Invite item. An individual link for that participant is copied into the clipboard. The link is unique for each participant.
     

  2. Paste the contents of the clipboard into an email, or social media message to the participant. This way, you can tailor your invitation for the survey, using any templates or styling you prefer, using any communications channel you prefer. The participant can then, when following the link, choose the session that is most convenient for them.

  3. If the participant has previously accepted a session, you can also copy the link that will allow them to join the meeting. If you wish to copy this link, select the Copy Session Link item from the drop-down menu instead. This may be useful if they are having trouble joining the meeting, or have deleted their confirmation email containing the session link.

• Via Forsta Discussions. To have Discussions send the email for you, perform the following steps:

  1. Check the box next to the participant(s) you'd like to send invitations to (or the checkbox in the table header row to select all), and then click the Send Invites to Selected button to proceed.
     

  2. To confirm you wish to send the emails, click the Send Invitations button to immediately send the emails to the selected participants. The content of the invite is minimal, so you may prefer to use the other option to send invitations to participants.
     

  3. The Status column for the participants you've selected to send invitations to changes to Invite Sent. The participant will receive an email with the Discussions project title and a link allowing them to book a session date and time that is convenient for them. When they have chosen a session, the Status column changes to Accepted.
     

Whichever of the two methods of sending the invitation, when the participant receives their unique link they can book their session for the date and time that they wish to attend. To see how they do this, refer to Choosing a session.