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Symphony - The What and How-to for Event Admins
Symphony - The What and How-to for Event Admins

An overview of creating an engaging virtual meeting for your audience

Ashlee Dudek avatar
Written by Ashlee Dudek
Updated over a week ago

Symphony provides an all-in-one virtual event experience that engages your audience to the fullest extent.

With Symphony being native to Cadence, you are able to immerse people into presentation content without sacrificing your already epic event experience. We've added everything you need to emphasize participation and feedback from participants.

Available to those with a Premium Pro or Enterprise License only.

The What

Symphony offers a modern blended meeting experience for multi-channel content.

Meeting Formats:

  • Live Streamed Video | Broadcast a live stream by embedding through Vimeo, Youtube Live, or Facebook Live.

  • Pre-Recorded Video | Confidently play a pre-recorded presentation that your audience can watch together as if it was live.

  • Slides & Materials | Upload presentations and navigate through the slides you want to show.

Audience Engagement:

  • Saved Notes | Your audience can take notes throughout a meeting which will then be stored within their profile. Additionally, the saved notes will link directly to the content it references.

  • Ask a Question | Gather audience insights by letting people ask questions and upvote the ones that resonate with them the most. The host can highlight a question on the screen and answer it live.

  • Live Polling | Break the ice, improve learning, and get immediate feedback by using live polling questions throughout the presentation. Preload your questions before the session and get a summary of everyone's answers after it ends.

Speaker & Moderator Controls:

  • Navigate Slides, Quick Jump, & Share Screen | Share your screen or upload presentation slides. You can navigate back and forth or skip to a specific slide.

  • Four Speaker Views | Choose between Full Screen, Gallery, Presenter, or Hide views to match your unique meeting format.

  • Breakout Rooms | Split your audience in up to 25 rooms for more personal interactions. You can assign people automatically or manually drag-and-drop them into their rooms.

Additional Features:

  • Countdown | Get a full attendance and get people hyped by clarifying the start time of a session.

  • Participants List | Easily see who is in each meeting. The host can mute participants and has control over their audio and video settings.

  • Messaging | Not just messaging. Attendees can continue their conversation beyond the meeting since all public and private channels are integrated with the platform.

  • Take Notes | Attendees can take contextual notes in the Symphony presentation slides. The notes are private, but organizers can see where attendees took the most notes.

Partnership Integrations with Symphony:

Note: Certain partnerships may be an additional service to secure.
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​Click here to learn more about our partnership integrations!


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How-Tos

Enabling Symphony for your Event

To enable Symphony in your event,

  • Visit your event on the administrative site

  • Click on "Event Setup" and select "Menu"

  • Click the blue (+) sign and select "Enable Menu Item"

  • Enable Symphony as a Menu Item from your list of available features and click "Save!"

  • From the Menu set-up screen next to Symphony tile, this is also where you can limit the access/visibility to your Symphony set-up screen on the user web interface.

Creating a Symphony Meeting

  • From your user web interface (not the administrative site), click Symphony from the menu

  • Select the (+) sign to begin building your Symphony Meeting

  • Begin configuring and filling in your Symphony Meeting information

    • Note: Full Symphony functionality is not yet supported on mobile devices.

      • To view if your desired Symphony settings are supported on mobile iOS devices, click on the blue "View Details" link at the top of the builder box.

Further information on the available settings

  • Image for Symphony | You may browse the available images from Unsplash by entering a keyword to search by or upload your own image. This image will only display within your list of Symphony sessions in the user web interface.

  • Title | This will be the name of the Symphony meeting displayed when attendees are joining the Symphony meeting

  • Host | The host's profile image and name will display to your audience when joining your Symphony Meeting. The host will have full control of the Symphony to administer the meeting.

  • Features | This is a list of audience-based features available to use within your Symphony meeting. You may also limit the visibility of these features to be accessible to everyone or to Host(s) & Moderators only.

    • Screen Share | Only available when audio & video is enabled. This allows the host(s) & Moderator(s) or participants (depending on your accessibility settings) to share their screen within the active Symphony

    • Overview (can be visible to just hosts & moderators or everyone) | A timeline of the presented content from any loaded resources within your Symphony meeting - this cannot be edited after the Symphony has gone live.

    • Participant List (can be visible to just hosts & moderators or everyone) | Displays the active hosts and participants in the Symphony - this cannot be edited after the Symphony has gone live.

    • Messaging (can be visible to just hosts & moderators or everyone) | Send photos, GIFs, @mention others, and text within the Symphony. If just visible to hosts and moderators, you cannot send a message as a host or moderator to everyone - this cannot be edited after the Symphony has gone live.

    • Breakouts | Create multiple rooms for separate discussions. Audio/Video does not need to be enabled for this, however, when put in breakout rooms, audio/video will be supported - this cannot be edited after the Symphony has gone live.

    • Ask a Question | Participants can submit and upvote questions here. You also have the below two options to enhance their experience - this cannot be edited after the Symphony has gone live.

      • Allow participants to view all submitted questions and allow upvote submitted questions (If you do not wish for other participants to see the questions being asked, do not enable this. This will allow hosts and moderators to only see the questions being asked from the participants)

      • Make submitted questions anonymous

    • Notes | Participants may capture and save personal notes which are saved to their profile and are accessible on their mobile device - this cannot be edited after the Symphony has gone live.

  • Co-hosts | Co-hosts is a space to include your additional presenters needed with audio & video (when audio & video is enabled). Co-hosts will also have the ability to administer the Symphony just like the main host. You are able to edit the co-host list after the Symphony has gone live.

  • Moderators | Moderators have full control over the Symphony like the host(s) and co-host(s). Someone included in the Moderator role will NOT appear in the Speaker area by default unless Participants' audio & video is enabled with less than 15 people in the meeting. You are able to edit the moderator list after the Symphony has gone live.

  • Beta Native Audio & Video | This controls the ability to have native audio & video within your Symphony meeting. If streaming into Symphony, this does not need to be enabled.

    • When using the native audio & video of Symphony (not streaming into Symphony), you may have up to 15 presenters/participants with audio & video on at one time.

      • The host/co-host/moderator can promote and demote anyone from the participant list to have audio & video during the Symphony but cannot exceed 15 presenters/participants at one time.

      • If you are streaming into Symphony, there is no limit to the number of attendees who can join the Symphony.

  • Add Content | You may pre-load any PDF, Video, or Embedded HTML (generally for embedding a live stream or video from a service like YouTube or Vimeo).

    • For PDF materials, you'll be able to select whether you'd like the aspect ratio to be 16:9 or 4:3.

    • If you have a presentation deck to load to the Symphony meeting, this is the space to do this! Convert your PPT file to PDF and load the PDF here! When loaded in this section during the initial set-up, each PDF page will be converted to a slide within your Symphony meeting like the below example.

    • Any loaded PDF or MP4 content in this section will be available from the Symphony Overview tab.

    • Any embedded HTML will automatically take over the main presentation space.

Adding the Symphony to a Schedule Item

Once your Symphony Meeting is created:

  • From your user web interface (not the administrative site), click Symphony from the menu

  • Click "Options" next to your desired Symphony

  • Select "Copy Share Link" and add the Symphony link to your Online Meeting URL field in the related Schedule Item.

IMPORTANT NOTES:

  • Only Hosts, Co-hosts, and Moderators will be able to access the Symphony session until "GO LIVE" is selected from within the Symphony Meeting.

  • Until the session is live, attendees will be waiting in the lobby and cannot join/view the meeting.

  • Your Symphony can stay open/live for any duration of time until "End Symphony" is selected. Once ended, you cannot return to the "Live" status and a new Symphony would need to be built.

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