eWebinar Schedule + Chat Setup Guide (PICK A SCENARIO)

When deciding how to configure the Schedule and Chat of your eWebinar:

Pick one of the four scenarios below, the one that most closely fits with what you are trying to accomplish.
Configure the Schedule tab and Chat tab of your eWebinar to support your scenario. (Scroll down to see how.) Adapt or blend the scenarios as needed.
SCENARIO 1 ONLY: Decide whether to enable Replays in your Schedule.
Learn how to make that decision

Four common scheduling scenarios

Click the name of the scenario below for more details.

	Scenario 1	Scenario 2	Scenario 3	Scenario 4
Scenario	Recommended Default Best for most companies	Strict Chat Coverage High response accountability	Scheduled Sessions Only Event-style (simulive)	Self-Serve Library On-demand only (no chat)
Overall benefit	HIGHEST	High	Minimal	Moderate
Overview	Maximize reach, attendance, and engagement with scheduled, on-demand, and just-in-time webinars, and (optionally) replays. Expectations of chat response times are managed through your Housekeeping script and Auto response. Your actual response time is up to you.	Designed for teams with strict chat response time requirements (SLA). Sessions only happen when you’re actually staffed to respond, and expectations around chat match your coverage window.	Best for teams who want to have the same schedule they had with live webinars but remove the burden of presenting (aka simulive). This makes it easier on the presenter, but will not likely increase attendance because sessions are still limited to scheduled times.	Maximize availability by offering on- demand access at all times. Operationally simple, but eliminates real-time chat, and loses the feeling of a high-touch experience.
Chat response time	Flexible At your discretion	Immediate During hours of coverage	Immediate Only during scheduled	N/A Responses by email or never
Availabil-ity	Highest	Medium	Low	High

When in doubt, choose Scenario 1, the recommended default. It will maximize the availability of your webinar — which will improve your reach, attendance rate, and even level of engagement — while giving you the flexibility to respond to chat in whatever way you choose. (eWebinar was specifically designed to make this possible.)

Recommend configuration by scenario

Schedule tab

Feature	Scenario 1	Scenario 2	Scenario 3	Scenario 4
Event type	Recurring	Recurring	Recurring	On-demand only
Scheduled Recurrence	Yes (Weekly)	Yes (Weekly)	Yes (Weekly or less)	No (N/A)
Days	Mon–Fri	Up to 5 weekdays	At least 1 day	N/A
Session times	11am, 2pm, 6pm	Up to 4 per day within coverage	At least 1 time	N/A
Time zone	Attendee’s	Fixed (Yours)	Fixed (Yours)	N/A
On-demand	Yes	Yes	No	Yes
Just-in-time	Yes	Yes	No	No
Replays	Optional*	No*	No*	Yes
Hours of operation	Weekdays, 9am–6pm	Your coverage hours	N/A	No
Allow OD outside hours	Yes	N/A	N/A	N/A
Set hours in a fixed time zone	No (Attendee’s)	N/A (Already fixed)	N/A (Already fixed)	N/A

Chat tab

Feature	Scenario 1	Scenario 2	Scenario 3	Scenario 4
Chat preferences	Chat	Chat*	Chat*	Email form only, or disabled
Welcome messages	Yes	Yes*	Yes*	N/A
Auto response	Yes	Yes	Yes	N/A

* If Replays are disabled in your Schedule, but you want to keep replay links in your follow-up emails (recommended), you can use the replay welcome message to manage response-time expectations for Replays (recommended), switch Replays to Email form only in Chat preferences (good for Scenario 2), or disable chat altogether (generally not recommended.)