Session Planner is where your agenda comes to life. Each session represents a workshop, training, or meeting you’re designing in SessionLab. Inside a session, you build your agenda from reusable blocks, arrange the flow with drag and drop, and keep timing accurate as you iterate.
SessionLab supports your full facilitation workflow: you can explore and prepare your thinking in Pages, build a structured agenda in the Session Planner, and collect feedback or input with Forms, all in one place.
You can easily rearrange your sessions in the Session Planner; just drag-and-drop your modules and your overall timing will update accordingly. When you create a block in SessionLab, the block becomes searchable and reusable in any other sessions on your workspace.
What is a session?
A session is a single agenda in SessionLab. It could be a half‑day workshop, a multi‑day training, or a short team meeting.
Sessions teach you to think in blocks:
Each block represents one activity or agenda item
Blocks are reusable across sessions in your workspace
Categories and color‑coding help you quickly see the interaction style and balance of your agenda
Because timing is built in, you can freely rearrange blocks and immediately see how changes affect the overall schedule.
Creating a session
You can create a session in a few different ways, depending on what you want to do. If you create a session from your dashboard, by clicking the New session button:
(screenshot)
you will be able to choose how you want to start:
Plan an agenda – build a timed agenda in the Session Planner
Take notes – create a Page for briefs, ideas, or documentation
Collect input – create a Form to gather feedback or data
If you choose to Plan an Agenda, you will then be able to select to either create a new session from scratch, or use / modify one of the pre-existing workshop templates in our library. Templates are a great way to save time and follow proven workshop structures.
If you choose ‘Blank’, an empty new session will appear in a new tab in your browser, and you can start working on your workshop agenda in the Session Planner.
If you choose to Take Notes, a new session will be created and you will see the option to create a Page.
If you choose to Collect Input, a new session will be created and you will see the screen where you can work on creating a Form.
Alternatively, you are also able to duplicate sessions from your dashboard. As a free user, you are able to duplicate your own sessions, while as a Pro or Business user you can duplicate any session from your workspace.
Add session details
When you create a new session, you’ll first be asked to add some basic information:
You’ll also see the option to create a session with AI. This can help generate a first draft agenda based on your goals, but it’s completely optional. You can always build everything manually.
Once saved, you’ll enter the Session Planner with a mostly blank canvas and a short introduction block to help you get started.
Session Planner layout
The Session Planner is organized into three main areas.
Left-hand sidebar: where you can see the Days, Pages and Forms in your session, as well as the Overview.
Main agenda area: the actual session where you will see the blocks of your agenda, the timing of the agenda, and the Minimap which you a time-proportional overview of the interaction and style of your session with the colour coding you have set up.
Right-hand sidebar: The sidebar on the far right of the screen allows you to change the functionality of right side of your screen:
Minimap: You can toggle the Minimap on/off by clicking the button.
Tasks and materials: All the tasks and materials in your session will be grouped here for easier overview.
Parking lot: park the blocks which you may or may not wish to add into the agenda you’re creating, without them adding to your session's timing
Library: find blocks and add them to your agenda from other sessions or from the library
Comments: Read and respond to comments from your collaborators. Comments can be made to a specific block or to the session in general
Attachments: Get an overview of files attached to all blocks of the session
Activity log and Versions: See what your collaborators have changed since you last logged in and manage your saved Versions
AI Assistant: describe the context of the activity you need, and the AI assistant will suggest specific activities to you
Start building your agenda
Sessions in SessionLab are built entirely from blocks. To add your first block please click Add block in the agenda area.
After this you can choose a block type or search for an existing one. And then add details such as title, timing, and instructions.
Every block you create becomes reusable across your workspace, helping you build a personal or team library of activities over time.