Town Halls App Overview

Town Halls

Town Halls was called Livestreaming before October 2026.

1. What it is

Town Halls lets your company broadcast live video to the entire organization — or a targeted audience — directly inside OneMango. Typical sessions are town halls, all-hands meetings, leadership Q&A, training briefings, and safety announcements. Viewers participate through live chat, upvote-Q&A, and polls while watching. Streams are recorded for on-demand playback.

• Video: a session’s video is streamed here from your encoder, shown on another platform you link (Teams, Meet, your streaming vendor), or left out entirely for a session people are in the room for. The Q&A, polls and chat are the same in all three.
• In the room: every session has a stage wall — a full-screen page for the screen behind the speaker that shows the question a moderator put on stage — and a join QR that brings people’s phones into the Q&A. With Digital Signage, a session can also take over break-room screens while it is live.
• Enablement: Town Halls is a pay-as-you-go app billed in platform credits — broadcast minutes and viewer minutes for a stream broadcast here, a flat charge per session without our video. It is available to every tenant without a separate license purchase; an admin enables it from Admin → Apps → All Apps.
• What it is not: Town Halls runs one-to-many sessions. It is not a two-way video call or a remote-expert session — those are handled by Live Assist.

2. Standing it up

1. Go to Admin → Apps → All Apps and enable Town Halls.
2. Open Apps → Town Halls → Settings. Review the defaults (see §5). The most important decision is Who can schedule and host sessions — the default is Admins, app admins and contributors. Under Questions, decide whether hosts may make a session’s questions anonymous (Allow anonymous questions, on by default).
3. Confirm a streaming provider is connected. The Settings page shows a Provider card. Most tenants use the managed Mux account (no setup needed). A company admin who wants your own Mux account can connect one under Admin → Organization → Integrations.
4. Check the Secure playback badge on the provider card. If it reads Public playback, any person who obtains the stream URL can watch — even outside your organization. Contact MangoApps support to enable signed playback.
5. To try the workflow without notifying anyone, load the sample sessions from Settings. There is no test or rehearsal mode: Go live on a real session starts it for real and notifies its audience — everyone, when no audience is set — at once. For a real rehearsal, schedule a session whose audience is just the people taking part and set Who can watch to Only this session’s audience. Your users will see a Town Halls widget on their home dashboard showing any live or upcoming sessions.

What silently does nothing until you also configure it: the “Auto-post recordings to the Communications feed” setting requires the Communications app’s own Town Halls — allow posting to the feed contributor switch to be on. If the contributor switch is off, the auto-post is skipped silently regardless of the Town Halls setting.

3. How it fits together

Sessions and their lifecycle

A session (the central object) moves through a fixed sequence: Scheduled → Live → Ended → Recorded. A session can also land in Failed if the provider refuses the go-live request. Ending a session is final — it can’t be restarted.

A session is scheduled by choosing a title, an optional description, a scheduled start time, and whether to record. Anyone allowed by the Who can schedule and host sessions setting can schedule one — by default admins, app admins and Town Halls contributors. Whoever schedules a session can name someone else as its host, and starts on the session’s Session team — the people besides the host who run it. After that, only someone on the team or an admin can change the host, and only a Town Halls admin can change the team, with Edit on the session.

Example: your HR director creates a session titled “Q3 All-Hands” scheduled for Friday at 2 PM, with recording on. That session appears on the company Calendar (if the Calendar integration is enabled), in the Town Halls dashboard widget, and in the Sessions list. On Friday the host opens the Host console with OBS, vMix, or another RTMPS-capable encoder ready, and clicks Go live. That starts the stream and notifies its audience straight away; the console then shows the RTMPS server URL and stream key, which the host pastes into the encoder before starting it. Viewers watch at the session’s watch page. After the broadcast, the host clicks End stream. Once the provider finishes processing, the status changes to Recorded and the recording is available for on-demand playback on the same page.

Roles

These levels of access govern who can do what:

• Viewer — any user the app is published to can watch, chat, ask questions, and vote in polls. A session whose Who can watch is Only this session’s audience is open only to its audience, its host, its session team and admins.
• Scheduling — controlled by the Who can schedule and host sessions setting. Business admins, Town Halls app admins and Town Halls contributors can always schedule, whatever the setting says.
• Running a session — opening the host console (server URL and stream key), going live, ending, editing and canceling, and switching break-room screens on or off while it runs. Allowed for the session’s host, its session team (whoever scheduled it, unless a Town Halls admin took them off, and anyone an admin added), any business admin, and any Town Halls app admin.
• Moderating — removing chat messages, marking questions answered or dismissed, launching and closing polls, running the stage wall, the AI features (cluster questions, generate recap), and seeing the session’s Reach by location. Allowed for everyone who can run the session, plus every Town Halls contributor.
• Town Halls contributor — a role an admin grants per person under Admin → Apps → Town Halls → Admins & Contributors, for a comms partner who works on sessions without changing settings. A contributor schedules and runs their own sessions and moderates every session, but gets no host console, stream key, Go live or End stream on a session they neither host nor are on the team of.

Audience participation

Three real-time features run alongside the video player:

• Live chat — text messages that appear for every viewer in real time. Moderators can remove individual messages (the message is hidden from all viewers immediately; the audit trail is preserved). Chat closes automatically when the session ends. Messages are capped at 500 characters. A rate limit prevents flood spam.
• Upvote-Q&A — viewers submit questions (up to 1,000 characters) and upvote others’. Questions are sorted by votes so the most popular rise to the top. Each session chooses how questions reach the room: Open (straight in), Filtered (a question with language the company’s filter catches waits for a moderator), or Reviewed (every question waits for a moderator before anyone else sees it, except a moderator’s own outside an anonymous session — the default for a session open to everyone). Moderators approve, edit then approve, or dismiss waiting questions from the watch page or the host console. Its host, session team and admins can switch the mode from the host console while it runs. The host marks questions Answered or Dismissed; dismissed questions are hidden from all viewers, and the person who asked is told. New questions close when the session ends, but upvoting existing questions remains open afterward so a late viewer can still push a question up the host’s follow-up list.
• Names on questions — each session decides who sees who asked, separately from how questions are moderated:
  • Shown to everyone (the default) — the room sees each asker’s name.
  • Moderators only — the room sees “Name hidden from the room” in place of the name. Moderators — the session’s host, session team, Town Halls contributors and admins — see who asked in the waiting queue and on the stage card, and so does the questions export.
  • Anonymous — the question is saved with no asker at all, so nobody sees who asked: not the room, not the moderators, not the export. The asker sees their own questions under Your questions on the device they asked from, can withdraw one until it is answered, and is told if a moderator takes it out of the queue.

  The Ask box tells each person which of these applies before they ask. The setting is fixed once the first question arrives — people asked under it — and Anonymous is offered only while Allow anonymous questions is on in Settings (a session already anonymous keeps it).

• Polls — moderators create a poll with a question and at least two options, then launch it live. Each viewer gets one vote per poll. Per-option results are hidden from a viewer until they have voted or the poll is closed, so results cannot bias the vote. The host can close a poll at any time to lock in results.

The stage wall and join QR

The stage wall is for the people in the room. It is a full-screen, dark page with the company’s logo and the session’s title and status (Starting soon, Live with how many have joined, or ended), meant for the screen behind the speaker or a vMix or OBS browser source:

• On stage now — the question a moderator put on stage, in large type, with the next questions in the room by votes beneath it under Up next. With nothing on stage, the wall shows the Top questions by votes.
• Only approved questions — the wall never shows a question waiting for a moderator. It names the asker and their site only in a session whose names are shown to everyone; otherwise, and wherever a works council hides names, it says “A participant”.
• The run of show — moderators drive the wall from the Stage wall card on the host console, or on the watch page for a moderator who doesn’t run the console: Put on stage (any unanswered question in the room, from Up next), Pin (keeps the question up after it is marked answered; unpinned, it leaves the wall when answered), Take off stage, and Pause wall / Resume wall (paused, the wall keeps what it showed — except a question that is dismissed, which still leaves it). Each change reaches the wall within a few seconds without a reload.
• The display link — the wall’s own link opens it with no sign-in, for a stage machine that never logs in. It works until a moderator clicks New link: the old link stops at once, and a stage machine still showing it says “This display link isn’t working” until it is given the new one. Digital Signage screens showing the wall switch to the new link on their own.
• The join QR — in the wall’s corner, on the Stage wall card, and on a printable sheet (Print the QR) with the session’s title and start time for an agenda or the door. A scan opens the session’s watch page on their phone (they sign in the usual way first if they aren’t already), where they can ask a question. The sheet also prints the link for anyone who can’t scan.

Reach by location

Once a session is live, its page shows Reach by location to its host, moderators and admins: of the people it was for (its audience when it has one, otherwise every active member), how many joined — by region (the districts and regions above the sites) and by site, each person counted at their own site in this company. Admins can pick any recent session in Analytics. Groups smaller than the company’s smallest report group (5 by default, set under Admin → Compliance → Retention & Legal Holds) are counted together in Other, and a region is left out when a smaller group could be worked out from it. Break-room screens that played the session are listed separately, never as people.

Connected apps

Town Halls automatically wires into other apps when enabled in Settings:

• Calendar — a calendar event is created when a session is scheduled, kept in sync on edits, and removed if the session is canceled. It goes on the calendar of the session’s audience, or of everyone when no audience is set.
• Broadcasts — a draft “We’re live” Broadcast is created when a session goes live, when your company runs the Broadcast or Communications app. Nothing is sent until someone publishes it from Communications → Broadcasts: a business admin, a Communications or Broadcast app admin, anyone allowed to publish broadcasts or whose assigned audiences cover it, or the person who went live if they may create broadcasts. Admins, managers and anyone who manages or edits broadcasts see every draft there. While the session is live, the session page and host console link to the draft for the people who can open it, and a draft nobody sent is removed when the session ends.
• Communications feed — a “Recording available” post is published to the Communications feed when the recording finishes (subject to the Communications contributor switch).
• Digital Signage — when your company has Digital Signage with an active screen, a session everyone can watch can be sent to break-room screens (Show on screens on the schedule form, optionally Only some sites). While it is live, those screens switch to it: a stream broadcast here plays muted with its title, a LIVE NOW tag and the join QR; a session whose video is elsewhere, or has none, shows its stage wall. When it ends, the screens go back to their playlist. An alert in a screen’s feed always comes first, and a screen whose own Live sessions rule is set to hide them never switches. A screen playing the stream counts as one viewer for viewer minutes, but is not counted as a person in the viewer count or reach.

AI features

Three AI-powered features help hosts and viewers:

• Cluster questions (the Q&A on the watch page, for moderators) — groups and de-duplicates the Q&A list into themes so a host fielding many questions can see the topics that matter most.
• Generate recap (session page) — produces a summary after the session from the audience interaction (chat, Q&A, polls) and, for a stream broadcast here, its captions, for employees who missed the session.
• Catch me up (watch page, live sessions only) — gives a late-joining viewer a summary of what has happened so far, from the audience activity and, for a stream broadcast here, its live captions. One summary is shared by everyone who asks; it is refreshed at most once a minute.

4. Running it

Scheduling a session

1. Go to Apps → Town Halls → Sessions and click Schedule a session.
2. Enter a title, optional description, scheduled start time, and host. Choose how Questions reach the room (Open, Filtered or Reviewed) and where the Video comes from — Stream it here (pick the Spoken language for its live captions, keep Live captions while on air checked or uncheck it for a low-latency stream, and check or uncheck Record this stream), Another platform (paste the https:// viewing link), or No video. Pick Names on questions (Shown to everyone, Moderators only or Anonymous). For a session everyone can watch, when your company has Digital Signage screens, tick Show on screens — and, under Only some sites, the sites whose screens should show it (none ticked means every site). The form shows the session’s likely cost before you save, priced for everyone who can watch it — its audience when Only this session’s audience can watch, otherwise everyone with Town Halls — and it updates as you change Audience, Who can watch or Host.
3. Click Schedule a session. The session appears in the Upcoming section of the dashboard and, if the Calendar integration is on, on the company Calendar.

Going live

There is no test or rehearsal mode. Go live is the real start: it notifies people at once, and the stream key only exists after you press it. For a session on another platform or with no video, the console’s Open the room is the start instead — it tells the same people the session has started (its Q&A, polls and chat are open before then, so people can ask ahead), and Close the room ends it.

1. Open your encoder (OBS, vMix, or any RTMPS-capable software) so it is ready to paste into.
2. Open the session and click Host console. Before you go live it shows who will be told and who can watch.
3. Click Go live. The status changes to Live straight away, everyone in the session’s audience (or everyone, when no audience is set) gets a “Live now” notification with a link to the watch page, and the console shows the Server URL and Stream key.
4. Paste the Server URL and Stream key into your encoder and start it. Viewers can open the session as soon as it is live, even before your encoder connects, so do this right away.
5. The console shows a real-time viewer count, a status badge, and the End stream button. Ending is final — a session can’t be restarted.

If the provider refuses the go-live, the session moves to Failed and the error reason is displayed on the console. The host can click Try going live again on the console (or Try again on the session’s page). A failed session is left off the Town Halls home’s On air, Upcoming and Past lists and the home-page widget. It still appears in the Sessions list, marked Failed, for everyone who can watch it, and its page tells them nothing was broadcast; only the people who can run the session see the reason and the retry button.

A 15-minute reminder notification is sent to the host before a scheduled session starts. If the session targets a specific audience, those audience members also receive the reminder. For a session with no audience set, everyone else gets it only when Remind everyone 15 minutes before a session that has no audience set is on in Settings (off by default). People who registered for the session under Calendar’s Company Events also get the calendar’s own reminder an hour before.

During the session

• The host monitors the live viewer count and status from the Host console.
• Moderators can remove chat messages, mark Q&A questions answered or dismissed, approve or dismiss questions waiting for a moderator, and launch or close polls — all from the watch page (the waiting questions are on the host console too). The console’s Open watch page button takes the host there.
• Cluster questions, in the watch page’s Q&A, groups the questions into themes for the host.
• Moderators run the stage wall from the Stage wall card (host console or watch page): Open the wall opens it in a new tab, Copy copies its display link for the stage machine, and Put on stage, Pin, Take off stage and Pause wall change what the room sees.
• The console’s Break-room screens switch turns the session on or off for the screens while it runs.
• Viewers who join late can use Catch me up on the watch page.

Ending and reviewing

1. Click End stream on the host console. The session moves to Ended and can’t be restarted. A live session cannot be edited or canceled — end it first.
2. Once the provider finishes processing (automatic), the status becomes Recorded and the recording is available for on-demand playback on the session’s page. If recording was turned off for this session, no recording is kept.
3. A moderator can use Generate recap to create a summary of the audience interaction, and Download all questions (CSV) on the watch page or host console for the follow-up. The session’s page shows its Reach by location to its host, moderators and admins.
4. To call off a session that hasn’t aired, open it and choose Cancel session from its ⋮ menu; for a session that has ended, the same menu offers Delete. Either one also removes the mirrored Calendar event if one was created.

Analytics

Go to Apps → Town Halls → Analytics (admin and app admin only). The page shows sessions held, broadcast minutes and recordings, all time; sample sessions are left out. Broadcast minutes are part of what Town Halls bills for streams on the managed account (20 credits per broadcast minute; viewer minutes are billed on top — see the FAQ); streams on your own Mux connection are counted here but draw no credits. Each stream’s minutes are rounded up individually. A Recent sessions table lists individual sessions with their broadcast minutes, unique viewers and status. Above it, Reach by location shows one aired session from the latest 20 at a time — pick it from the list and click Show.

5. Settings

All settings are at Apps → Town Halls → Settings (admin and app admin only).

Hosting & recording

Setting	Default	What it changes
Who can schedule and host sessions?	Admins, app admins and contributors	Controls who can create and host new sessions. Any user lets every employee schedule a session. Admins, app admins and Town Halls contributors can always schedule regardless. Switching back from Any user doesn’t take back sessions already scheduled: their host and session team can still edit them and go live — a Town Halls admin takes someone off a session’s team with Edit on the session.
Record streams by default	On	Pre-fills the “Record this stream” checkbox when scheduling. The host can override it per session. Recorded streams are available for on-demand playback; unrecorded streams are not.
Auto-caption recordings (AI transcription)	On	Requests AI-generated captions on recorded streams.

Connected apps

Setting	Default	What it changes
Add scheduled sessions to the company Calendar	On	Creates and syncs a Calendar event for each scheduled session. Switching it off removes upcoming sessions from everyone’s calendar; switching it back on adds sessions scheduled from then on, and ones already booked come back when they are edited.
Draft a ‘We’re live’ Broadcast when a session goes live	On	Creates a draft Broadcast when the host goes live (when the Broadcast or Communications app is on). Nothing is sent until someone who may publish broadcasts publishes it from Communications → Broadcasts, and a draft nobody sent is removed when the session ends.
Auto-post recordings to the Communications feed	Off	Posts a “Recording available” entry to the Communications feed when the recording finishes. Also requires the Communications app’s contributor switch for Town Halls to be on.

Questions

Setting	Default	What it changes
Allow anonymous questions	On	Lets a host set a session’s Names on questions to Anonymous — saved with nobody’s name behind them, not even for moderators or in the export. Off takes Anonymous off the schedule form for everyone; sessions already anonymous keep it, since people asked under it. Moderators only stays available either way.

Notifications

Setting	Default	What it changes
Remind everyone 15 minutes before a session that has no audience set	Off	A session with an audience always reminds that audience. On, every employee who can open the app also gets the 15-minute reminder for sessions with no audience; off, they hear about those sessions only when they go live.

6. More help

• Town Halls FAQ — specific setup and operating questions, limits, and troubleshooting.
• Ask AI — the assistant answers questions about Town Halls from these articles.