Event Planning Software

Manchester Stop Smoking Service, part of the Manchester NHS Primary Care Trust required an event management database. Events and activities managed include trade shows, conferences, workshops, and trips to other countries. The solution is based on a Microsoft Access Database. Many events offer attendees the choice of attending several workshops. The database automatically allocates places to available sessions, ensuring available places are not exceeded and no double booking occurs.
General Operation Users identify themselves from a list, and enter their corresponding password. Users are assigned standard user rights or admin rights. The database allows shared concurrent multi-user access via a local area internal network. Main Forms Event - This form has multiple tabs: Details - description, status, title, start/end time/date, key personnel, places available, places remaining Task List - description, deadline, completed, person, cost, duration days/hours Budget - group, description, quantity, estimated, actual Preferences - options available for invitees to choose from Fees - specify list of price options for each event Invited attendees - add and delete Registration - date, fee, method of payment, diet, preferences for sessions, total income Session - actual sessions that will be held, automatic allocation attendees to sessions
Contacts Holds all possible event attendees details, including organisation, address, contact details, job title and category, previous events invited and attended. Advanced filter faculty allws selection by organisation and/or job categories and/or locations. Selected contact(s) can be easily added to the list of invited attendees for an event en mass.
Setup Form Allows for easy addition and amendments of configuration data by adim users: Expense Groups - Site, Catering, Publicity etc Event Types - Conference, Exhibition, Publicity Event etc Event Status - Proposed, Planning, Implementation, Complete, no Action Job Types - Doctor, Nurse, Educator etc Organisation Type - Hospital, GP, School etc Payment Methods - Cheque, Cash, Credit Cards Employees - Name & Title, Access Level General Details - Name & address, phone, VAT number etc Contact Source - Where names were sourced from
Purchase Orders Suppliers Budgets Product A toolbar allows users easy navigation between forms and reports. Reports Customised reports can be printed or exported to Word showing: Popularity of sessions - used to determine which sessions to run Session Allocation - shows which session each attendee has been allocated Budget details Task list and status Invite status - who invited, who is coming Confirm list of attendees, sessions, special diet Who is attending each session Event summary showing for all event status, and budget, key dates Purchase Orders Invoice when fees are charged All reports can be exported for use in a Word mail merge.

The Allocation Process

The database has a capacity to allocate up to 10 workshop sessions for each attendee. Sessions can be split over several days. Attendees can register for whole or part of an event.

On registration the attendee preferences are recorded and the number of overall places remaining for the event is reduced. Each registration is allocated a priority number, such that those booking earlier stand a better chance of attending the workshops higher on their list of preferences. Once the places remaining reaches zero then no more registrations are allowed.

A session popularity report totalises for each option the number of 1st, 2nd, 3rd ... preferences plus a combined total to determine which and how many sessions of each workshop will be run.

Once the number actual sessions for each workshop, start times and the number of places available has been specified the automatic allocation process can allocate each attendee with their most preferred options. In priority order it allocates the 1st session to each attendee by attempting to allocate their 1st choice, if all sessions for this option have been taken then it will attempt to allocate their 2nd choice and so on. This process is repeated for the 2nd, 3rd etc sessions the attendee will attend. When allocating the 2nd, 3rd etc sessions the process will check that session times do not clash with the previous sessions they have been allocated.

If sessions can not be completely allocated from the chosen list of preferences then the automated process selects any other available sessions.

Once this process has been completed the session allocation report displays how effective the process has been . This lists for each attendee their preferences with their allocated sessions.

The number of places, number of session and timing of the session can be adjusted if necessary and the automated process re-started.

It is also be possible to adjust the automated allocation and to manually assign attendees to sessions.

The confirmation letters showing the workshops allocated can then be printed off.

Import

Initial contact data was imported from 3 existing databases.

Do you require bespoke Event Management Software?

If you think you could benefit from a powerful, easy to use customised, corporate event planning/campaign management application please contact me and find out what is involved in customising this software to meet your needs.

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