Creating Events

Source Document

This documentation site is based on the AWS Jam User Guide (PDF). In the event of any discrepancy, inconsistency or inconsistency between the content of this site and the PDF version, the PDF version shall take precedence.

How to schedule a custom Jam event

You would schedule a custom Jam event if you want to choose specific challenges for your own unique Jam event. This process has six steps: Event details, Attendance and Testing, Team Assignment Settings, Owners and Permissions, Challenges, and Review and Create.

1. In the Jam landing page navigation, choose Host, then Schedule a Custom Jam Event.

Step 1 Event Details (How to enter event dates and times)

The Event Details page is displayed. The first step to scheduling a custom Jam event is to complete basic details for it. You will set up basic information such as the title, who the event is for, how learners will access the event, and event times.

1. In the Event Overview panel, complete the following:
   • a. Event Title: Enter a title for your event between 4 and 250 characters.
   • b. Channel: Choose from one of the following as the audience of the event.
     • i. Skill Builder Event An event available only to customers with an active Skill Builder Team Subscription.
     • ii. AWS Classroom Builder Labs An event available only to customer as part of Instructor-Led-Training.
     • iii. Internal An event available only to Amazonians.
     • iv. Public An event open to the public.
     • v. Global Partners An event available to Global Partners.
     • vi. AWS Education An event that is exclusive for AWS Education programs
     • vii. Recruiting An event used for internal recruiting at AWS.

1. In the Event Privacy Type panel, choose one of the following:
   • a. Public You will hold a public event that is open to all learners. There will be no access control.
   • b. Private code You will configure an event secret key for learners to access the event with.
   • c. Private invite You will provide an email in Participant Management for learners to access the event.

1. In the Event Times panel, complete the following:
   • a. Time Zone: Choose the time zone where your event is located.
   • b. Start Time: Enter a start date in the format YYYY/MM/DD or choose calendar icon to pick a date. Then enter the start time in the format hh:mm and then, choose AM or PM.
   • c. Duration: Choose from 4 Hours, 8 Hours or Specific. > 📝 Note: A duration over 8 hours will require a manual approval. If you anticipate this schedule your event weeks in advance to anticipate a delay in approval.
   • d. IMPORTANT (Optional) Automatically unlock challenges: By default a facilitator must manually unlock the challenges during the event. You can automatically unlock challenges by enabling this feature. Check the box then enter a number of minutes the challenges should be automatically unlocked after the event starts. > 📝 Note: 0 minutes will automatically unlock the challenge at the event start time.

1. (Optional) In the Notes panel, enter any details you and facilitators need to know at the event. Participants will not see your notes.

1. When done entering event details, choose Next.

Step 2 Attendance and Testing (How to set the number of participants and team size)

The Attendance and Testing page is displayed. This second step is where you configure your estimated number of participants and the team size. Your estimate should be as accurate as possible. Also, this is where you choose if this is a live event or test event.

IMPORTANT: A Jam learner must be a Skill Builder Team Subscriber in order to participate in a Jam event.

1. In the Attendance panel complete the following:
   • a. Number of expected participants: Enter the lowest number of participants you expect and the higher number of total participants. > 📝 Note: A number above 100 participants will require a manual approval.
   • b. Team size: Enter a number of participants per team. > 📝 Note: Keep the size limits between 3 and 6 participants. Anything outside the limits could delay the approval of the event.

1. In the Event Type panel, choose one of the following types:
   • a. Live Event: Choose this for a live event where participants will complete challenges. A test event will be made available for a live event.
   • b. Test Event: Choose this if you want to run an event only to test challenges. (Optional) Check Allow access only to specific users to enable this feature. You can choose who to allow in Owners and Permissions.

1. When done with Attendance and Testing details, choose Next.

Step 3 Team Assignment Settings (How to configure team settings)

The Team Assignment Settings page is displayed. This third step is where you configure how teams are formed, the team size, when teams can be formed, and if you want to allow team renaming.

1. In the Team Assignment Settings panel choose one of the Team Types:
   • a. Self-forming (Default): This option presents participants with system suggested team to join based on their self-reported skill level and their goal of play-to-win or play-to-learn. Participants will also have the option to create a new team or create and join a password protected team with their peers.
   • b. Skill-based: Participants will be grouped into teams based on their selfreported skill level and will not be able to choose or create teams. An event facilitator must initiate the team assignment and compose teams with either similar or diverse skill levels.
   • c. Pre-created: Use this option when instructing participants to join a specific team. An event owner must create teams in advance from the Participants section on this page as participants will not be able to create new teams. > 📝 Note: This cannot be done until after this event has been approved.

1. In Team Size enter a number of participants per team. > 📝 Note: Keep the size limits between 3 and 6 participants. Anything outside the limits could delay the approval of the event.

1. The Team Forming Start Time setting helps to reduce the number of participants who join a team and then forget to come back when the event starts. In Teams cannot form until, enter a number in minutes before the event start time.

1. The Team Name setting controls the ability of the team owner to edit their team name anytime during the event and only applies to team owners. Facilitators will always be able to edit team names. To enable the changing of team names by the team owner check to Allow team owner to rename team.

1. When done with Team Assignment Settings, choose Next.

Step 4 Owners and Permissions (How to add owners and permissions)

The Owners and Permissions page is displayed. This fourth step is where you can add event team members and set permissions. This is also where you can enable messaging between facilitators and participants, enable chat support, and enable team members chat and create meetings.

1. The Owners and Permissions panel used to add event team members and manage their permissions. In the input field enter the email address of the user you want to add to the event, then select Add. The added users will receive an email to verify their email address prior to joining the event.

1. The Permissions section shows all event team members you have added to the event and their permissions. You can select a member's permissions by toggling on the role that is in the same row as their email. To remove a user choose X on the users row. > 📝 Note: The original event owner has all three roles by default and cannot be removed. You can choose only one role per member. The order of permissions from most to least is: Event Owner, Facilitator, and Support. When you choose a role, the user gets all of permissions below that also. For example if you choose the Facilitator that member also gets Support permissions.

1. The Support and Collaboration section is where you enable the support and team collaboration using chat and meetings. You can enable/disable the following based on your event requirements:
   • a. Support Chat: This option is disabled by default. If this option is enabled, participants can request a chat with a support member. > 📝 Note: For virtual events we recommend enabling the chat support option. This enables facilitators to provide support virtually. Only enable this option is there is an event team member dedicated to monitoring the support chat queue.
   • b. Team Chat: This option is enabled by default. If this option is disabled, participants will not be able to start team chats/meetings with their team for the event.
   • c. Facilitator Messaging: This option is enabled by default. If this option is disabled, facilitators will not be able to send messages to teams and/or participants for the event.

1. When done with Owners and Permissions settings, choose Next.

Step 5 Challenges (How to add challenges to an event)

The Challenges page is displayed. In this fifth step, you choose what challenges you will have for participants to solve. You can choose it individually, use curated challenge sets, or use challenges from a past event.

1. In the Challenges page the I want to choose my own challenges panel is maximized and shows the Browse Challenges panel, which is also maximized. Choose Select challenges to browse the challenge library and to pick challenges to use for your event.

1. The Select Challenges panel shows the challenge library. To the right of the Challenges title the count of challenges you have chosen out of the available challenges to choose from the list below that. The count changes based on your filters. The Hide unstable challenges is enabled by default. You can toggle on/of this option to hide/show unstable challenges.

1. Choose the search field without typing anything to show the Properties panel. You can filter challenges based on its properties. The available properties are the following: Title, Status, Owner, Category, Difculty, AWS Service, and Tag.

1. Choose a property to show Operators which are used to find more specific challenges. You can choose between two operators as follows:
   • a. **=** Equals. This operator is used to find a string of text exactly as you typed in the challenge property.
   • b. **:** Contains. This operator is used to find a string of text that is found anywhere in the challenge property.

Type the text after the operator and it will automatically update with a list of challenges that are available. If the list is empty, start your search over this time using new search terms. If the challenge list is empty again, the challenge probably does not exist. > 📝 Note: In this example the word "lost" is searched within Title of all the challenges with the **:** Contains operator.

The Challenges panel shows a list of challenges with your specific filters applied. If you want to add a challenge to the event, check the box to the left of the challenge title. The Challenges count is updated with the number of challenges selected from the available shown.

The Currently Selected Challenges section is also updated and shows all your chosen challenges. You can remove the challenge by choosing X.

You can narrow down challenges by applying additional filters in search in the Challenges panel of the Select Challenges section. In this example "s3" is typed and the value "AWS Service = Amazon Simple Storage (S3)" is chosen.

You can change the filter logic of two or more filters by choosing and/or found on the left of a second flter and later filters. You can remove filters by choosing X to the right of each filter. > 📝 Note: If your search returns empty, you can try improve your results by removing individual filters and/or changing the filter logic using and/or operators. Add a check next to the challenge name of the challenge(s) that you want to add.

1. You can add backup challenges which are used in the event if a primary challenge has a problem deploying. Choose Backup Challenges, then choose Add general backup challenges to open the Select Challenges section and use the search challenge steps shown earlier to find backup challenges.

1. You can also use challenge sets which are preset challenges to use to populate your selected challenges list. Choose Challenge Sets, then choose an set in the Choose Challenge Set dropdown.

1. When you choose a challenge set, it will replace any previously selected challenges and will populate it with all the challenges belonging to the set. You can remove an individual challenge of the set by choosing X. You can add more challenges by choosing Select more challenges. You can remove the entire challenge set by choosing X Remove to the left of the challenge set name in the Challenge Sets panel.

1. You can select challenges from a past event you hosted or participated in by choosing Previous Events. In Search events select a Range Start and Range End by entering a date in the format YYYY/MM/DD or choose calendar icon to pick a date. Then, choose an event in the Choose Event dropdown. > 📝 Note: If no event shows up check the Range Start and Range End dates to make sure the past event falls between your chosen dates.

1. The past event your selected will populated the Currently Selected Challenges with all the challenges from the past event. You can see the past event name you selected. If you don't want to use the previous event, choose X Remove.

1. When done selecting challenges, choose Next.

Step 6 Review and Create (How to review event details and create the event)

1. The Review and Create page displays. This sixth and final step shows the details of all the steps you completed for your review.

1. You can review the details for each step. If there is a setting see that you need to change in a certain category choose Edit.

1. When you are done reviewing the all the event steps, choose Create Event Request.

1. The event page is shown with important information such as the timeline, access, event overview, team settings, and preparation guide. You can see the event name at the top.

How to book a past event

You can select challenges from a past event you hosted or participated in for the Schedule a Custom Jam Event task.

1. In the Jam landing page navigation, go to Host, then select Create a Custom Jam Event.
2. Complete all the steps until you get to the Challenges step or skip the earlier steps and go directly to the Challenges step.

1. Scroll down to the Previous Events panel and choose it. In Search events select a Range Start and Range End by entering a date in the format YYYY/MM/DD or choose calendar icon to pick a date. Then, choose an event in the Choose Event dropdown. > 📝 Note: If no event shows up check the Range Start and Range End dates to make sure the past event falls between your chosen dates.

1. The past event your selected will populated the Currently Selected Challenges with all the challenges from the past event. You can see the past event name you selected. If you don't want to use the previous event, choose X Remove.