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Create and Manage FC Live Events 🎬

Overview
Create an Interview
Create Your Live Event
Add Live Event to an Activity
Invite Participants
Interview Preparation
Session Management
Event Notifications
Moderate an FC Live Session
Completed Sessions

Overview

Video in-depth interviews (IDIs) and focus groups are a cornerstone of qualitative research, ideally suited for detailed discussions exploring a variety of topics. Common topics include new concepts and customer experiences. Hold video IDIs and focus groups with FC Live.

These interactive interviews with a skilled interviewer where members respond to answers and interviewers probe for detail (laddering) produce rich data, often with a deeper understanding of respondents' motivations, beliefs, and tendencies.

This article covers the Moderator's process. Please take a look at this article on the participant experience for more perspective on the participant's view when joining by smartphone or tablet.

Live Events were developed in partnership with Discuss.io. Their comprehensive knowledge base articles provide troubleshooting and live event moderation points:

Create, edit, and manage all of your FC Live options in the Activities > Live Events tab.

Create an Interview

The first step is to create your interview. 

  1. Click on the Launch FC Live button to begin a new interview.
    Live_Events_Start_Interview.jpg

    Make sure your browser allows for pop-up windows from your Fuel Cycle page.

    You will not be able to log in to Discuss via SSO from Fuel Cycle Canadian or UK servers.

    During a scheduled session, any actions taken within a Personal Meeting Room will result in charges.

  2. The Discuss app will open in a new browser tab.
    Please see the Discuss knowledge base for their Help Center.
  3. Schedule all sessions separately. Each time slot will get its own interview session. In the new tab, select Schedule Interview in the All Upcoming Interviews section.
  4. Add the following information for your session:
    image-20221207-214930.jpg
    • Date & Time—When you want your session.
    • Respondent Location—Where are most of your respondents based?
    • Interview Name—This is for moderation purposes only and is referenced anywhere you manage FC Live.
    • Interview Duration—This is displayed to members so they are aware of the time commitment and can schedule accordingly. However, during the actual video session, the duration can be shorter or longer to allow flexibility based on how the conversation goes.
    • Interview Type—This is where you specify if you want to hold an IDI or Focus Group.
      1. When you select IDI, it costs 1 credit.
      2. Focus Groups can contain up to 8 member participants per session. It can support a total of 14 moderators and participants. Focus groups cost 2 credits. Create as many interviews as you need in timeslots.
  5. Click Create to finalize and save your interview.
    • Each session gets its own Discuss ID. You will eventually need this ID generated for this interview.
    • If you do not name your interview, the ID is part of the interview name.

      Live_Event_Interview_No_Name.jpg
    • If you do name your interview, you need to click on the Interview Name to see the ID.
      Live_Event_Interview_with_Name.jpg
    • Make note of your Discuss ID or copy the ID to your clipboard for pasting into Fuel Cycle later.
  6. Switch to your Fuel Cycle browser tab.

Create Your Live Event

The next step is to create Live Event activities in Fuel Cycle and link the Discuss interview to a scheduled activity.

  1. Click the + Create New button.
    Live_Events.jpg
  2. Complete the following fields:
    • Event Title—Same as your Interview Name.
    • Total Signups Allowed—This is the maximum number of members that can RSVP for a time slot. This allows you to over-recruit to ensure a full event. All members who sign up will be able to join until the Total Signups Allowed are reached. Once the maximum group size has been met, the remaining members will receive a message that the room is full and can reserve another session if any are available.
    • Session Duration in Minutes—Have this reflect your Interview Duration.
    • Event Full Message—This message is displayed to members who have signed up, but the event is full or the event has been closed for new attendance. If additional future sessions are available, members can sign up for another session.
  3. Click Save. You will switch to the Schedule tab automatically.
  4. Under Available Event Times, type in or paste in the Discuss ID you copied or recorded in Step 4 above.
    Live_Event_Schedule_Discuss_ID.jpg
  5. Assign the moderator for this interview using the Assign to Mod field, to the right of your Discuss ID. Your moderators display here using their Fuel Cycle username (in no particular order).
  6. Activity times may be marked as Public or Private dates.
    • Delete a session by clicking the X button at the right end of the session.

      Sessions may only be added or deleted. They cannot be edited to change the date and time.

  7. Add interview dates and times for that Discuss ID to the Schedule using the Add button. You will have to do this for every separate interview created in Discuss.

Add Live Event to an Activity

You must create an activity and add your Live Event to it so members can see it.

After creating a session you can add an Event block in an activity description. The member will reserve the session time on the actual activity page wherever you place the Event block.

Live_Events_Edit_Activity.jpg

In the Event box, type in the name of an event and it will auto-populate. The Block Title must be filled in (for internal reference only).

Live_Events_Block_Title.jpg

Add incentives through Actions and Points. Completing the event is defined as being in the session more than or equal to 50% of the full session runtime. Partial completion is defined as showing up for the session and being there for <50% of the total session run time. Incentives are only sent to users automatically when users have joined through the member login page.

Invite Participants

Invite participants to your interview at least one full week ahead of time. When community members book their time slots in Fuel Cycle, they will receive automated reminders and RSVP confirmations from the platform that are enabled by default. You can customize the language in each system email, but our recommended language is already set up for you.

  • FC Live Manual Assignment emails alert members one time that they have been added by a moderator to a specific session.
  • FC Live Reminder emails are sent to participants 24 hours before and 60 minutes before their session is set to begin.
  • FC Live RSVP Confirmation emails are sent to members right after they select their time slot to confirm that they are booked for the interview.
  • FC Live Session Cancelled emails are sent if a moderator deletes or cancels the time slot that the member booked.

If you are inviting participants who are not members of your community, you can send reminder emails to participants through the Respondent Hub in FC Live.

  1. Click on the Respondents tab at the top of the page.
  2. Select the Respondent Hub option. This is where you can see your list of scheduled interview participants.
  3. The Notify and Invite button allows you to send emails to these participants requesting a tech check, invite them to the interview if you have manually assigned them to it, and send reminders. These emails are sent manually by the moderator, unlike the Fuel Cycle system emails that are deployed automatically.
  4. When you select the Tech Check Requests option in the Notify and Invite drop-down menu, a default email template will display. The drop-down menu under the template name will show any other templates you have created for a tech check request. You can use the language here to request a quick tech check with the respondent, or you can create your own custom template using the plus sign button next to the name of the template at the top. You can duplicate an existing template, or you can create a new one from scratch.
  5. After selecting your template, the right pane will show the names and email addresses of participants who have signed up for upcoming interviews.
  6. Check the box to the left of their names to select which participants you would like to receive the email.
  7. You can also add filters to the list of respondents using the Filters button in the top right, where you can organize the list by completed or incomplete tech check status and by those who are assigned or not assigned to an upcoming interview.
  8. After you make a filter selection, click on Close Filters in the top right.
  9. Once your participants are selected, you can send the email using the send button at the bottom. You also have the option to “CC” yourself on the outgoing email.

The interview invite and interview reminders emails work the same way, where you select them from the notify and invite dropdown menu, select your template, select your recipients, and send.

Interview Preparation

Proper preparation and communication before your interview or focus group is crucial for ensuring an effective session with engaged participants.

Session Management

Under the Live Events tab, all interviews are listed in one place, so that you can view their status, create new events, and edit or archive existing events.

From the Actions dropdown, export the RSVP list for each Live Event. This will generate an Excel file that lists all session times and shows the status of each including the username and email for each reserved time.

image-20221207-215215.jpg

Manually assign a user to an event session. A Live Event element can be added to multiple activities. To assign a session to a user, select the activity and then type the member’s username.

You cannot manually assign a user to an event session if they have reserved another session at the same time.

Live_Events_Assign_Session.jpg

Join a Session

NOTE: If you possess an additional Discuss license, it is possible to inadvertently initiate and authenticate access to that license instead of launching a session from Fuel Cycle.

Log out of Discuss and manually launch Discuss from the Activities > Live Events tab [/mod/event/manage] in Fuel Cycle to ensure that you are directed to the appropriate FC-Owned Discuss account.

In Live Events > Upcoming a moderator can Launch Chat to start their interview up to 1 hour before the scheduled start time.

The Actions dropdown will provide copy links for Observers and Participants.

Observers will be able to view and listen to an interview without being visible to the participant. Moderators can admit and remove observers. See more about Observers joining here.

You can also send out a Reminder Email from here. This is similar to the automated reminder emails that go out 1 hour before the scheduled time slot but can be sent out ad hoc.

Event Notifications

Members receive automated system email notifications to ensure users attend the event at the correct times. The following messages are sent:

  • Event RSVP Confirmation—Sent to members after they select a time on the activity detail page. It includes the session date and time, the location, and a link to the activity detail page. You can customize the email messaging from Communication Center > System > Event RSVP Confirmation.
  • Event Manual Assignment—Sent to a member after being manually assigned by a moderator. It includes the session date and time, the location, and a link to the activity detail page. You can customize the email messaging from Communication Center > System > Event Manual Assignment.
  • Event Session Cancelled—Sent to a member after they cancel a session or if the moderator removes the member from the session. You can customize the email messaging from Communication Center > System > Event Cancelled.

  • Event Reminder—Sent to a member 24 hours and 60 minutes before the event start time. It includes the event start time details, the location, and a link to the activity detail page. You can customize the email messaging from Communication Center > System > Event Reminder.

    If a reminder email is sent manually from the Upcoming tab, it will provide details of the Event.

    In these reminder emails, a link directly to the interview does not go through the activity page (just the event location link). If you do not want members to see this email, please let your customer representative know and they can adjust the emails.

Session Cancellations

Discuss has a written cancellation policy in effect, with tiers defined by your account type. Please take a look at this article for more information.

Moderate an FC Live Session

To start a session...

  1. Go to Activities > Live Events > Upcoming
  2. Click the Launch Chat button to start the session. A new tab will open in the interview.
  3. The moderator controls who are admitted from the waiting room. They can be admitted before the official start time of the interview.

Completed Sessions

After the session, you may find the session video in the Completed Sessions tab. In this section, you may...

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