This article provides guidance about Indico,  the open source conference booking tool developed and distributed by CERN.

This guide covers key Indico features for participating in and creating your own events as well as providing links to useful information.

For advanced queries please see the complete documentation for Indico or contact serviceline@soton.ac.uk.

Getting started

Gaining access to Indico

To use Indico you must first create an account which will allow you to register for existing events.

To do this, please:

1. Go to Indico at the University of Southampton 
2. Login by using the Login button
   
3. Login with university Single-Sign-On (SSO) by using your university email and password. You might need to confirm your identity through Multi-Factor Authentication (MFA).

The 'Create a new Indico profile' form will appear. You are now able to create your new profile and follows:

1. Enter your university email address in the form of username@soton.ac.uk (for example: ab1c25@soton.ac.uk) 
2. Enter your first and last name
3. Enter any affiliation (not mandatory)

Once your profile has been created, you will then see a message saying 'You have successfully registered your Indico profile. Check your your profile for further details and settings':

Getting permissions to create your own conferences

By default you will have a standard account that cannot create its own conferences.

If you wish to create your own conferences please raise a ticket in ServiceNow through this dedicated email. Please do so in advanced of any key dates for your event to allow us to process you request.

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Event types

The following will represent a quick overview of how to get started with creating your event. You may set up different event types depending on your needs, either a lecture, meeting or conference.

For information on event specific settings, please see the guides linked below.

Lecture

A lecture is the simplest kind of event, it requires very little up set up and can be set to re-occur at intervals over a desired period. If you need further guidance, see the full user guide on Indico lectures.

Meeting

A meeting is a more complex event, offering more options and the ability to upload the minutes of the event after the fact as part of its record. Read the full user guide on Indico meetings for reference.

Conference

A Conference is the most complex event available. It allows you to submit abstracts and papers, as well as allow multiple sessions across various locations (each with their own itinerary and arrangements). read the full user guide on Indico conferences for reference.

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Common event settings

Registration

To set up registration:

1. Go to the side panel
2. Under Organization, choose Registration
3. Go to Create Form and provide a title

This will create a form that is not yet open to responses and can be edited at any time.

Building the form

The default form requests basic information such as:

• First name
• Last name
• Email address
• Affiliation

The registration form includes additional fields that can be enabled, such as:

• Address
• Country
• Phone number
• Position
• Title
• Profile picture

In case you need other information not listed above:

1. Press the + Add section
2. Input your own custom fields in the new section created at the bottom of the page

You may choose from various survey style fields for your custom form:

• Text field
• Number
• Checkbox
• File
• Single / multiple choice
• Email
• Phone
• Address
• Country

The options above can also be used but also validate the data provided by the registering user.

It is possible to have multiple forms for different groups of users if needed.

Participant visibility

By default participants' details are hidden. However, if you need to make this public for your conference, then be cautious about how you collect and manage the data.

Through the registration form's Privacy Settings you can: 

• Change the visibility settings
• Change the retention period of participant data
• Upload a privacy policy 

Please note that Privacy settings are separate from the events' privacy settings as a whole.

General settings

You can find a host of useful options for configuring your registration process in General settings:

• Moderated: if enabled, registering users will need to be approved by the organiser
• Private: if enabled, the form will be hidden, and registration will be by invite only
• Limit registrations: if enabled you can define a maximum number of registrations
• Notifications for organizer: Indico will email organisers when registrations are made

Please note: that there are no payment facilities in our instance of Indico. To avoid unexpected behaviour, please do not set up registration fees or payment dependent settings.

Management of participants

Registration lists

When a user registers to your conference there are different interfaces for managing them.

New participants have no role, only appearing under the registration form they used to register. You can view a list of people who have registered using a particular form by going to its settings:

If you are moderating your registration form, this is where you can approve or reject requests to attend, as well as having the ability to remove applicants where needed.

If you are going to make a custom role for all users who registered using this form, you can export the list as a spreadsheet or CSV.

Importing participants

If you have a spreadsheet of participants you would like to upload you can do this via Import. Indico will tell you what the column headings should be but do not upload the headings as part of the CSV.

You can upload a CSV even if you have participants already who registered via Indico, however Indico will not upload the CSV if an email address matches an existing participant.

In case of duplication, Indico will let you know (through an error message like the one shown below) what line the duplicate is on. To cotinue, you will need to manually remove any duplicate.

Indico shows you which users have been uploaded by a manager with the icon of a person and tooltip next to the users name:

Creating custom participant roles

Custom participant roles can be created by:

1. Going to Organization
2. Selecting Roles Setup in the menu
3. Select + Add Role 
4. Use the fields to define a name, short code and colour from the available options. 

Groups can be created with the same name and colour, however the short code must be unique.

Assigning participants to roles

Participants can be grouped into roles either individually by selecting the + Add user button or in bulk by importing them from a TXT or CSV file:

When importing you only need to upload the email addresses of users to be assigned to a role.

With a text file, having one email address per line is all that is needed but for CSV files you will need to choose the field delimiter:

If the file is readable, you will receive a readout for how many users are imported but emails that are not associated with a user or participant will return an error:

Only check Remove existing members if you are looking to bulk remove users from roles.

Event sessions and timetable

In Indico, creating your events itinerary happens in two parts, firstly you create a list of sessions that people can attend including a time and place for them (talks, presentations, questions and answers (Q&As), etc.)

Event Protection

Event protection allows you to restrict who can see the event. By default the event will be set to inherit. If the event is in a category that is public, all users will be able to see it, otherwise it will only be visible to people who can see that category.

If you want to upload your own list of approved users who can view your event then put the event in a public category, set the event to protected and upload your curated list.

Event Privacy

Event privacy contains information about the data controller for the event and room to insert your own privacy notice that is suitable for the event.

Event details

Selecting an event will open up the details page which may include times, locations, timetables or abstract submission.

Please note the features and level of detail available will depend on event type and the specific way the conference is organised. Please find details below on each section and how to use them. If in doubt, or you feel something is important is missing please contact the organisers for guidance using details provided.

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Getting IT help

If you need help, please contact ServiceLine or visit one of our Tech Hubs.

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