Dear EMS Customer,

This time around, the Reservation Times offers a sneak peek at the next major release of EMS, kudos to some very creative Master Calendar sites and a review of the recent EMS Users Conference. It also provides some advice for marketing your Master Calendar, some tips on using EMS, some feedback on our new training videos and more. So, read on...

Sincerely,

The Newsletter team at Dean Evans & Associates, Inc.
emsnewsletter@dea.com

Table of Contents

Coding Continues on Next Major EMS Release
Masterful Calendars – Creative Implementations of the EMS Master Calendar
EMS Tips & Tricks
Marketing Your Master Calendar
New Case Studies: Master Calendar at a Texas University and EMS Professional at a Washington, D.C. Association Leadership Organization
"EMS on Demand" in Demand
“Scheduling at its Peak” – EMS Users Conference Draws Record Number to the Colorado High Country

Coding Continues on Next Major EMS Release

While a release date (still a number of months away) has yet to be determined, great progress is being made on the next major version of EMS Lite, Professional, Enterprise and Campus.

Although the list of new features is subject to change as the release is finalized, below are some of the functions* that have been, or will soon be, coded:

Reservation Book

• Auto-refresh option
• “Current time” indicator line
• Option to show the event type color (which, itself, is new), rather than the status color, for events
• More shading choices for weekends and holidays
• More tool tip options

Navigator

• Ability to show bookings by event time rather than reserved time
• Reservation history report
• Multi-line viewing capability for notes
• Indicator for invoiced items

Billing

• Ability to discount an entire reservation
• Better management of the relationship between billing reference/client matter number, PO number and group
• New transaction types (Damage Deposit, Advanced Payment, etc.)
• Billing report enhancements

Virtual EMS

• Ability to assign multiple web templates to one user
• Help text by web template
• More tools for bulk-editing of services
• Continued improvements to Plan-a-Meeting functionality

Other

• Interactive floor map from hoteling kiosk
• Holiday import utility
• Ability to assign holidays to multiple buildings at once
• Enhanced reminder function (automatic reminders by event type, ability to view reminders for multiple users, reconfirm date events displayed, etc.)
• More field labeling options (salesperson, event coordinator, room size, etc.)
• Room search by minimum capacity
• Multiple improvements to email capability
• Column width retention in the Navigator, Browser, etc.
• Building-specific messages for Confirmations
• Special Instructions field on resources
• Numerous enhancements to the Query Builder

* General list. Not all functions are available in all products.

“One of the big themes in this release is personalization,” says Ed Nowak, our director of product development. “Not only are we adding some powerful functionality, we’ve also focused on allowing users to tailor the existing functions to their needs.”

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Masterful Calendars – Creative Implementations of the EMS Master Calendar

While the EMS Master Calendar system can be implemented right “out-of-the-box” using the system defaults, creative IT staffs sometimes come up with unique modifications to the way the system looks, the way users navigate in it, etc. In many cases these changes are made to bring the Master Calendar in line with their organization’s web standards, thereby giving it a familiar feel and making it an even better source of event information for their users.

With the help of Chris Meyers, the lead developer on our Master Calendar team, we thought we’d highlight some innovative implementations at a handful of customer sites to give you a sense of some of the possibilities. Although the examples below come from higher education, Master Calendar is in use in a wide range of settings – corporations, non-profits, municipalities, churches and more.

Vanderbilt University (https://community.owen.vanderbilt.edu/calendar/)
Style sheet changes and additional help text

Chris: I like the way they’ve modified the style sheets for their Master Calendar pages to change the system colors, the look of the buttons, etc. They’ve also added descriptive help text to the Calendar Selection page, making it very clear to their users how the system is used.

Indiana State University (http://calendar.indstate.edu/)
Customized calendar access and calendar subscription link

Chris: ISU integrated customized calendar access links into their home page, allowing users to go straight into a particular calendar. They also created a direct link to the Calendar Subscription page, which I had not seen before, as well as one to a page where users can tap into RSS feeds for calendars they’re interested in. Another nice touch is help text that is displayed in the Submit an Event process which indicates that putting an event on the Master Calendar doesn’t mean that a room has been, or will be, reserved for the event.

University of Alabama (http://events.ua.edu/)
User defined questions and custom fields

Chris: This site makes great use of “user defined questions” in the Submit an Event process. UDQs, which are displayed under the Additional Info heading on the page, can be used to collect text, date or numeric information. They can also be set up so that users select an option from a list. This site also provides hints for the optional fields, making it more likely that people will take advantage of this feature to provide additional event information to calendar users.

Kennesaw State University (http://claymore.kennesaw.edu/mastercalendar/)
Virtual EMS link and attachments

Chris: One of the first things I notice when visiting their site is that they have a link to their Virtual EMS page as one of their menu options. If I were a user at KSU, I’d appreciate how this simplifies moving between the two systems. Also, Kennesaw is one of the first organizations I was aware of that allowed users to include attachments when submitting an event. Attachments are an excellent way to provide more information to attendees. Options in the System Administration area of Master Calendar let you indicate how many attachments can be included, how big an individual attachment can be and what types of files may be attached.

Idaho State University (http://events.ets.isu.edu/MasterCalendar/MasterCalendar.aspx)
Customized home page and helpful calendar descriptions

Chris: Idaho State has created a customized home page, with links to a number of other areas – Academics, Prospective Students, etc. – at the top, and the Master Calendar below. They also have helpful calendar descriptions on the Calendar Selection page.

“Out-of-the-box” or out on the cutting edge – the ways in which you can implement the EMS Master Calendar are virtually limitless!

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EMS Tips & Tricks

The lazy days of summer are gone, and it’s time to get back to business. Check out these efficiency tips to head full speed into fall!

Dynamic Date Entry – Type “t” or “d” in any date field in an EMS scheduling product (Lite, Pro, Enterprise, etc.) to automatically fill in today’s date. With the date displayed, use the up and down arrows to move forward and back through the days.

Clutter-Free Lists – Find list items (rooms, customers, contacts, resources) faster by inactivating items you no longer use. Edit the item in Configuration and check the Inactive checkbox. Inactive items remain in the database for historical purposes, but no longer appear in list boxes. And inactive items can always be re-activated if necessary.

(Note: The items that can be “inactivated” varies by product.)

Bypass to Browsing – Prefer that Virtual EMS open to the Browse Events page rather than the default page? That can be arranged! In IIS (Internet Information Services) on your web server, open the properties for your Virtual EMS site, go to the documents tab, add a new document named “browseevents.aspx” and click OK. Then, in the document window, highlight the newly-created browseevents.aspx page and click the Move Up button until that page is at the top. Click OK to save this setting. Visitors to your Virtual EMS site will now bypass the default page and go directly to Browse Events.

Contact support@dea.com if you’ve got questions on any of the above.

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Marketing Your Master Calendar

More organizations every day are realizing the benefits of using EMS Master Calendar to publish events to the web. Master Calendar streamlines this often time-intensive process, allowing departments and groups throughout an organization to easily share meeting and event information with one another and the public through one comprehensive system. Master Calendar has intuitive navigation, powerful search capabilities and multiple levels of security. So with all of this available, how do you guarantee 1) that people will know that the system is out there and 2) understand how to use it? You've got to advertise!

Before you market this powerful communications tool, it’s a good idea to “brand” the system. Users are much more likely to embrace a new technology when it has a familiar look and feel. Your technical staff can modify the system’s default color scheme, add eye-catching logos and graphics, etc. One great example of Master Calendar branding is the California State University – Sacramento site. Check it out at http://www.calendar.csus.edu.

Once you’ve established the look of your Master Calendar system, it’s time to start promoting it. To firmly establish Master Calendar as the primary source for meeting and event information at your organization, try using multiple announcement formats. Some of the methods that have proven successful include:

• Campus or company newsletter
• Local newspaper
• Inserts in new employee/student orientation materials
• Banner ads and links from other organization websites
• Flyers and informational handouts
• Direct outreach to known “early adopters”
• Discussion at staff meetings
• Emails and text messages with links to the Master Calendar
• Bulletins, posters, or digital signage announcements
• Promotional giveaways at events
• Blog entries

Sacramento State’s efforts included using a broad information and promotional campaign featuring advertisements in the school paper, banner ads and links from other campus websites, flyers in orientation packets and presentations at faculty and staff meetings. An announcement on one of their university websites used the memorable tag line: “One Campus, One Calendar.” Their promotional efforts are definitely paying off. During a recent 30-day period the site recorded more than 193,000 hits, an average of nearly 6,500 per day. With 50 events or more being displayed on the calendar on a given day in the summer, and 75-100 during the fall or spring semester, it’s likely that the hits will increase as the campus becomes more aware of, and reliant on, Master Calendar.

How you brand your Master Calendar system and promote its use at your facility can make a big difference in how quickly and thoroughly it is adopted by your user community. With a little planning and effort, Master Calendar can be your organization’s “go to” source for meeting and event information.

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New Case Studies – Master Calendar at a Texas University and EMS Professional at a Washington, D.C. Association Leadership Organization

Two new case studies are now available on our website. The first describes how Texas A&M University - Corpus Christi went from having a brief list of events posted on a web page managed by one university department to a comprehensive, online Master Calendar of events that allows a number of authorized calendar managers to share in the work of keeping the calendar up to date and their group members well informed. To read the study, click here.

The second new case study describes how the American Society of Association Executives and The Center for Association Leadership achieved a 40% increase in scheduling efficiency and an 80% improvement in the turnaround of end-of-quarter reports. Read about it here.

Got a story you’d like to tell? We’d love to help you tell it! Providing us with the information we need to write a study is easy, and the positive press you get from a study can be very rewarding. Contact tom@dea.com if you’d like more information.

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"EMS on Demand" in Demand

Since their release in early August, our “EMS on Demand” online training videos have been getting very positive reviews. “I've watched them, and I think they will be excellent training tools for new employees,” says Mary Ritacca, systems specialist at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas. “They are very thorough, easily accessible, and efficient on time with the longest video running about 20 minutes.”

“There was one technical issue that came up early on”, says Chris Wall, our online training coordinator, “But an already-scheduled increase in our Internet bandwidth, which took place last week, has resolved that. Otherwise, I think customers have been very happy with the videos.”

Organizations whose Annual Service Agreement (ASA) is current can access the videos free of charge in the Customers Only area of our website. To learn more about the benefits of keeping your ASA up-to-date, please contact the sales team at 800-440-3994 ext. 863 or sales@dea.com.

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“Scheduling at its Peak” – EMS Users Conference Draws Record Number to the Colorado High Country

August 2007 brought a record 250 EMS customers to beautiful Breckenridge, Colorado for the sixth annual, and “best yet” (according to many attendees), EMS Users Conference. After two and a half days of training sessions, attendees left with a deeper understanding of how to get the most out of their products, including a whole array of helpful software tips and tricks. The conference also provided an excellent forum for attendees to network with their peers, a chance to experience the Rocky Mountains at their peak (literally) of summer beauty, and most importantly, the opportunity for the Dean Evans & Associates staff to meet with our clients and express our appreciation for their continued support.

The conference kicked off with the second annual Pre-Conference Training clinic, an intensive one-day course offering new EMS users the chance to quickly learn the basics of the system from our Client Services team in small-class settings. The general conference opened the next day, with over 80 informational sessions presented by staff, customers and exhibitors through the course of the conference. Saundra Peters, Reservation Coordinator at the University of Rochester, said of the sessions, “I was surprised that there was still so much about the system to learn! It was also helpful for me to see how other organizations have utilized EMS for their various needs. Overall it was win-win: really informative sessions, fun surroundings.”

An added bonus to this year’s conference was the location. Breckenridge proved to be a perfect destination, from its charming Main Street to the majestic Rocky Mountains right outside the front door. For the first time in the history of our conference, an entire afternoon was left open to encourage attendees to enjoy their surroundings and explore the town. Some conference-coordinated field trips included a visit to an authentic goldmine, a walking tour of historic Breckenridge and a ski-lift ride to the top of one of the Rocky Mountain peaks.

The main focus of any EMS event, however, is ensuring that our attendees recognize how important they are to us. From the lavish opening reception – complete with live dulcimer music – to daily general sessions full of laughs and raffle prizes, to our no-holds-barred closing banquet featuring The Badly Bent bluegrass band (and some nifty dance moves from customers and staff alike), conference attendees and staff had a great time making new friends and catching up with old ones. Darryl Simcoe of Colgate University commented, “The two EMS conferences I've attended were the best organized and most informative of any conferences I have, ever. The staff is very helpful, friendly, and knowledgeable! Also, Dean Evans has a great sense of humor and sets an excellent example for his staff regarding customer service.”

The 2008 EMS Users Conference will be held July 22-24 at the brand new Hyatt Regency Denver. Within walking distance of the hot spots of downtown Denver, the Hyatt boasts a contemporary feel and exceptional guest services.

For more information on the 2008 conference or to request the 2007 program with session descriptions and other information, visit our website at www.dea.com/UsersConference.aspx.

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