Tuesday, February 2, 2016

Wrangling Syllabi With the #RootsTech App

Accessing conference syllabi on a smart phone or tablet at a conference is sometimes an iffy proposition, with uncertain Wi-Fi connections. At the time I wrote this (on Monday), accessing the RootsTech 2016 syllabi on an iPhone was down right painful. The method seems to be a bandaid approach, so maybe it will be fixed before you read this. Just in case, let me tell you how it is done. Then let me tell you what you should do instead.

Accessing the syllabi on the conference app requires secret knowledge available only to select initiates. Or you have to have come across the tweet by Lydia Jones. Here are the magic steps:

Tap on General Info.
Tap on General Info.

Tap on FAQ.
Tap on FAQ.

Tap on the menu icon.
Tap on the menu icon.

Tap on RootsTech.
Tap on RootsTech.

Tap on Class Syllabus.
Tap on Class Syllabus.

Tap on the section header containing the desired class.
Tap on the section header containing the desired class.

Tap on the class number. This will bring up the syllabus if it is in PDF format. There may also be an “Additional Document” link. View it as well, however, the ones I checked were either class outlines, or Word documents corresponding to the PDF file. I’m guessing the Word docs will not display correctly in the app.
Tap on the class number.

Once you are done viewing a syllabus, tapping the back arrow takes you all the way back to the FAQ step. What a pain! Hopefully, by the time you read this they will do what the NGS conference app does. For the NGS conference, you tapped on the session in the schedule, then clicked a convenient link right there next to the class description, room number, and note taking link.

In a separate article I will show you what I recommend you do, even if RootsTech fixes the app.

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