Testing your Virtual Labs Live Event

Live Events has a handy feature that allows " time-spoofing." This enables you to test your Live Event setup ahead of time, to ensure everything is ready to go for the big day. This article assumes you've already fully set up your event, class, and session. (If you haven't done so, see our article on Creating a Live Event in Virtual Labs.)

A few facts about the Learner Dashboard:

  • It's the unique URL accessed by learners to launch a container.
  • Both the URL and the title at the top of the page will reflect the name of the Event.
  • A link to the Leaner Dashboard can be included in all event materials, and people can click simply click the link and start containers right from this page.
  • No matter how many classes or sessions are added, the Learner Dashboard URL will always be the same.

Testing your Live Event with 'Time-Spoofing'

For the following example, the event session is happening on August 1, 2019 at 9:00 AM EST, and has a duration of 4 hours. To test the event, you will click to launch the Learner Dashboard.

  1. Go to the Events view.
  2. On the tab for the event you want to test, click Learner Dashboard. 

  3. This will take you to the page for the unique event URL.

Spoofing the event time

If a user is defined as Staff, they will also see a date field along the bottom of the screen. 

  1. To test your event, enter a date/time within the range of your session times. 
    Format matters here, so be sure to use the format shown as a sample in the field. 
    (Example: Date: Oct 10, 2019 and Time 09:00AM)
  2. Click Reload. 
  3. If your time is within the correct parameters, the event info will become bold, and you will see a Launch button.
  4. Click the Launch button to deploy a user container. The button will temporarily display 'Opening'.

5. When the container is fully launched, the button will say  Open.

6. Click the  Open button to view the container. This view will be the same container your event attendees will see.

7. To see all deployed containers, click on the Learner Deployments tab from the main Virtual Labs page. 

  • Deploy ID is a unique alpha-numerical string and represents your set of containers and all their data.
  •  Learner email is your users' unique IDs.

8. After you are finished testing, be sure to click Expire & clean up your deployments. 

9. You can also expire all deployments at once with the Expire deployments button in the Session info on the tab for your event.

>> Please note that the Live Events is included in the Virtual Labs Premium Plan, and can be purchased for other tiers as an add-on.

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