Inviting speakers

This guide is for organizers. It shows how to invite someone to speak, how to follow what happens to the invitation, and what the speaker sees on their side. The speaker-facing version is in the speaker guide.

You need an organizer account (a staff or superuser account) and the speaker module has to be switched on for the edition. If you do not see Sessions and Presenters under Speakers in the Organize sidebar, ask the tech lead. Proposals only appears while the edition is taking proposals, see Speakers who propose.

Recording: an organizer creates a workshop, adds a presenter and sends the invitation. Watch it on YouTube.

The idea

An invitation ties a person (a presenter) to a session, or to the conference in general. You can do the whole thing from the presenter's page:

Create the session, if it does not exist yet.
Add the presenter, with their email address.
Send the invitation, with an optional personal note.

The speaker accepts from the email. Accepting is their confirmation: their checklist is created, they get a welcome email, and the session becomes Confirmed. If the session needs several presenters (a panel with a panelist and a moderator, for example), it becomes Confirmed once every required presenter has accepted. There is no separate confirmation step for you to chase.

Steps

1. Create the session

Sign in and open Organize.
Under Speakers, choose Sessions, then New session.
Choose the Type (Talk, Workshop, Panel, PyJam performance and so on). The type sets the default length and whether the session is live or pre-recorded, and decides which checklist template the speaker gets.
Give it a Title and a Summary. Everything else can wait: the speaker can fill in the outline, level and language themselves.
Choose Save. The session starts as a Draft.

If you only want to invite someone to the conference in general and decide on the session later, skip this step and choose The conference in general in step 3.

2. Add the presenter

On the session page, in the Presenters box, choose New presenter. (If the person is already in the portal as a presenter, pick them from the list and choose Add instead, then continue at step 3.)
Fill in:
- Display name and Email (both required). The email is where the invitation and reminders go, so double check it.
- Pronouns are optional. Timezone is required and starts as UTC, so set it if you know theirs: the speaker's due dates and reminders follow it. The speaker can change both.
- Liaison: the organizer or volunteer who looks after this speaker. Liaisons see the presenters they look after. Team items that are assigned to the liaison show their name on the speaker's checklist; the others say "not yet assigned" until someone takes them.
Choose Save. You land on the presenter's page, which says Not invited yet.

3. Send the invitation

On the presenter's page, under Send invitation, choose Invite to: either a session or The conference in general.
Role on a new session is only needed when you are adding them to a session they are not on yet, and you want a role other than the session type's default, which is usually Presenter. The list is the roles the edition offers, such as Panelist, Moderator, Host or Performer. Leave it blank otherwise.
Write a Personal message. It appears highlighted in the email. A line or two about why you are inviting them goes a long way.
Check the Email preview underneath. It is the exact email the speaker will receive, wrapper and all. The link in the preview is a placeholder; the real one is personal to the speaker.
Choose Send.

You stay on the presenter's page with a confirmation that the invitation was sent, and that the presenter was added to the session. Their status reads Invited on the date it went out, not yet accepted.

Following an invitation

The Invitations table at the bottom of the presenter's page shows, for each invitation:

Status	Meaning
Not sent	The invitation exists but has not gone out yet.
Sent	The email went out and has not been opened.
Opened	The speaker opened the invitation page.
Accepted	They accepted. The session is Confirmed and their checklist exists.
Declined	They declined. Nothing else happens; the session stays as it was.
Expired	The link is valid for 14 days and nobody used it.
Cancelled	You cancelled it.

Resend sends a fresh link and is offered on every invitation that has not been accepted, including expired, declined and cancelled ones. Cancel is only offered while the invitation is waiting, and makes its link stop working.

The same page also has Their to-dos and What we're preparing for them, one above the other: the speaker's checklist and the team's checklist for that speaker. They are empty until the speaker accepts. After that this is where you follow the speaker until the end of the conference. The Checklists board in the sidebar shows the same thing across every speaker.

What the speaker sees

After accepting, the speaker lands on a welcome page (username, name, Code of Conduct and Terms of Service agreement, optional password) and then their dashboard. See the speaker guide for the walkthrough, and share it with speakers who ask "what happens next?".

Speakers who propose

Some speakers reach us through the public Propose a session link instead of an invitation. Proposals only work while the edition has them switched on: in the Django admin, open the edition's Speaker settings and tick the proposals switch under Proposals. The intro text on the same form appears above the proposal form.

Proposals land in Proposals under Speakers, and a notice goes to the organizers' email address from the same settings. There you can:

Approve: the speaker is confirmed on the session and their checklist is created, as when an invitation is accepted. They get an email titled "Your session is in", with links to their session and checklist. They do not get the "Welcome aboard" email, which is sent only when an invitation is accepted.
Not this time: the proposer gets a short note without a reason, and sees the proposal as "Not accepted". You can still approve it later if a slot opens up.

Tips

Invite from the presenter page rather than typing addresses into the email yourself. The link is signed, personal and expires, and the portal records when it was sent, opened and answered.
One presenter can have several invitations, for example one for a workshop and a later one for a panel.
Speakers who have volunteered before already have an account. If the invitation goes to the address on that account and they have verified it, accepting signs them in to it instead of creating a second one. Invite the address they use in the portal.
When a speaker says nothing arrived, look at the Invitations table on their presenter page: it shows when each invitation was sent, opened and answered. Maintainers can also read every email the portal has sent under Maintenance, Emails; that page needs the maintainer permission, so a staff organizer may not see it.