Automated and on demand webinars give you the option to configure simulated chat messages. These are ‘fake’ chat messages that give your viewers the idea they’re watching a live webinar. They’re played alongside the real chat messages that are sent live. Everything about them can be configured, such as the sender and the content.
Webinar team members can tell simulated messages apart from real messages with the robot icon that displays next to the sender’s name.
Please note! Simulated chat messages for automated webinars are not included in "Yesterday's replay".
If you want to add simulated chat messages, you can follow the steps below.
Select the webinar you want to edit.
Click on 'Edit webinar'.
Navigate to the 'Webinar' section.
Click on 'Simulated chat'.
You can insert simulated chat messages in 3 different ways.
You can copy the chat messages from a live webinar.
You can import a CSV file.
You can manually add chat messages.
Discover more tips to automate with WebinarGeek here!
Copy chat messages from a live webinar
If you want to copy chat messages from a live webinar you can select a live webinar under 'Copy messages from live recording'. The existing messages from the live webinar will be played in the automated or on demand webinar.
Import via CSV
You can import simulated messages with a CSV-file. When you want to upload a CSV-file, choose 'Import'. Then select and upload your file.
The CSV-file requires four columns:
First name: First name of the (fictive) person sending the chat message.
Surname: Surname of the (fictive) person who sends the chat message.
Chat relative time: The timestamp the message should appear in chat. It will appear both in the broadcast as well as in the replay at this timestamp. ‘00:00:00’ would be the start of the webinar.
Chat message: The message that comes up in the chat. Here you fill in the message you'd like to send.
You can add an optional column to show an avatar with the simulated chat message. You can leave it blank if you don't want to show avatars:
Email: The email address of the (fictive) person. If this email address has an avatar configured on Gravatar, the avatar will be shown. You can read more about Gravatar here.
Please note! The ‘Email’ column is optional. You can leave it blank if you don't want to show avatars.
Role: The role of the (fictive) person sending the chat message. This could be a viewer, presenter, moderator or custom team member. The following values can be entered: 'Viewer', 'Presenter', 'Moderator' or 'Custom'. If a cell is left blank, the simulated chat message will be sent by a viewer.
Please note! The ‘Role’ column is optional. You can leave it blank if you don't want assign roles besides 'Viewer' to chat messages.
Your CSV file needs to look like the screenshot below. You can download an example file here.
Tip! Exported chat messages (CSV) of other webinars can be uploaded directly. It is not necessary to change the format or the order of columns.
Add chats manually
If you want to manually add a chat, enter the chat name, message and role of the person. You also choose the moment when the chat should be displayed by setting a time at 'Starting at'. The time is shown as HH:MM:SS.
Do you want to display an avatar for the (fictive) person sending the chat message? Enter an email address with a configured Gravatar in the ‘Email for Gravatar’ field. An explanation of how this works can be found here.
Please note! A chat message can have a maximum of 500 characters.