How to set up and manage Live Q&A

You can increase viewer engagement during your virtual events by hosting Q&A sessions directly in your event. This is available alongside the live chat feature. If you embed the live chat on your website, the Q&A will be included.

Live Q&A allows you to accept questions, have viewers vote to order questions based on popularity, publish the question to the stream, and ultimately answer them live.

In this article, learn about: 

• Setting up Q&A
• Adding Q&A graphics to a scene
• Displaying and answering questions 
• Q&A tools
• Ending the Q&A session
• Exporting the event Q&A

Setting up Q&A

The character limit for questions in a Live Q&A is a maximum of 240 characters or 3 lines.

You can set up Live Q&A in both the browser studio and when you are streaming through an encoder for your live event. 

💡Tip: You can also manage and moderate Q&A from the engagement tools link.

To set up Q&A in the browser studio (‘Stream through your browser):

1. In the browser studio, select the Q&A button from the left panel. It is indicated by a speech bubble with a question mark in the center.
    
2. In the Q&A pane, you can set the following features as an Enterprise member:  
   • Moderate questions: Select which questions are shown to the audience. 
   • Allow anonymous: Allow viewers to hide their names when asking a question. 
3.  Select Start Q&A to begin the Q&A session.
   ⚠️Note: If you are adding Q&A while you Stream with ZenVideo, you will need to select Show on scene on the web-based production tool page to show the questions’ graphics overlays.
4. Select Export questions to export the questions from your event to a .csv file.
5.  

To set up Q&A when streaming with an encoder:

1.  Select the Q&A button from the left-side panel on the main event settings page.
2. Enterprise only: Toggle the options for Moderate questions and/or Allow anonymous.
3. Select Start Q&A to begin the Q&A session.

Once you have set up your virtual event, you can see a Q&A tab on the left side of the page, where you can click Start Q&A to open your event up to questions. You can do this before your stream or while you're live, although note that you cannot take action on a question until your event is broadcasting.

You can set up Q&A before your stream or while you're live, however, you cannot take action on a question until your event is broadcasting.

After you’ve selected Start Q&A, your viewers will be notified that they can begin to submit questions on the on-site ZenVideo event page or the embedded chat window. If you have enabled Anonymous Q&A, viewers can choose whether to submit questions anonymously or with their names attached. 

An indicator below the chat box shows the number of characters remaining to the question-askers while typing questions.

Questions viewers ask will be posted to the Q&A window immediately upon submission unless you have moderation enabled. Viewers can click the thumbs-up icon to vote on questions they like.

Under the Active tab, questions will populate, which you can sort either by Recent or Popular.

💡Tip: If you want to add Q&A to your venues, refer to How to open a Q&A in a virtual venue.

Adding Q&A graphics to a scene

⚠️Note: This section is only relevant if you stream to a recurring event or a webinar via our web-based production tool page.

If you are adding Q&A and selecting Stream with ZenVideo when setting up your recurring event, you will need to add it to a scene on the web-based production tool page to show the questions’ graphics overlays. 

1. Below the preview player, click on the scene with which you want the question graphics to appear.
2. Click the Q&A icon in the left navigation menu.
   
3. In the panel that opens, click Show on scene.
   
4. An icon will appear in the selected scene thumbnail indicating that the poll graphic is included.
   
5. The Q&A will be enabled for that scene, so when you display a question graphic (discussed below), it will appear when you click Show on scene for each question.

To disable the Q&A graphics, click Disable Q&A below the preview player.

Displaying and answering questions 

⚠️ Note: It’s only possible to display question graphic overlays when streaming via the web-based production tool page. If you are streaming via an external encoder, questions will only appear in the chat window.

You, or other admins and contributors on your team, can reply to questions within the Q&A panel if you wish. However, if you prefer to answer a question as part of your live broadcast:

1. A graphic overlay will appear as a lower third with the question. This is generally when you would be expected to address the question within the stream.
2. You can hide (and re-show) the graphic overlay by clicking the corresponding Hide (Show) in the Active tab.
3. When you’ve finished answering, go to the question in the Q&A panel and click Archive to remove the question from the list. You may also archive questions without answering them or publishing them to the stream.

If you've archived a question by mistake, you can switch over to the Archived tab, hover the cursor over the questions, and click Unarchive. This will put the question back in the Active tab.

Q&A tools

Pin a question

Event hosts and broadcasters can pin a specific question to the top of the questions list. Only one question can be pinned at a time. Pinned questions will be visible to all event attendees, including viewers, moderators, and presenters. Event hosts and broadcasters can unpin the current question and pin a new one.

To pin a question:

1. Open your Q&A panel, and select the question you would like to pin
2. Click on the pin icon beside the question to Pin to top. The question will now appear at the top of the list for all the viewers.
   
3. You can click on the pin icon again to unpin the question.

Ending the Q&A session

To end your Q&A session, click End Q&A or End session in the Q&A panel (depending on how you’re streaming).

Please note that ending Q&A does not end the live chat. Live chat will end as soon as the broadcast ends and will not be available afterwards.

Exporting the event Q&A

Once you end the Q&A, you can export a CSV log of the Q&A by clicking Export in the Q&A panel.

• If you streamed via an external encoder, this is at the top of the Q&A panel.
• If you streamed to a recurring event or webinar with ZenVideo (using the web-based production tool page), this is below the Start Q&A button.

If you're streaming to a recurring event, this button opens a drop-down menu with a list of the date/times of all streams in the last 30 days that you can archive; select Current event or Active Q&A session for the active event.

The Q&A CSV includes the following information:

• Name (person who asked it or "anonymous")

• The question

• Time submitted

• Number of upvotes

• Answered (yes/no)

• Archived (yes/no)

• Approved (yes/no/N/A – this only applies to Enterprise customers who have access to moderation features)

• Q&A number (if you held multiple Q&A sessions within one stream, i.e. you started a Q&A, then ended it, then started it again prior to ending your broadcast; this lets you know if the question was asked during which Q&A session during the course of the stream).