“Where’s Mike?!” Sara shouted as she raced from office to office looking for the building security manager. Without his approval, an event scheduled for that evening could not take place, as no one would be available to unlock the event space.
Unfortunately, someone had overlooked getting Mike to authorize the event, and the customer and their 75 guests were going to be very frustrated when they arrived.
While issues associated with approvals aren’t always as urgent or dramatic as described above, anyone involved in event scheduling knows that getting the appropriate people to sign off is critically important but can be a major pain. How can the hassle and the risk of somebody dropping the ball be avoided? Event approval workflows.
Advantages of Defining and Requiring an Online Event Approval Process
Sara’s predicament typically occurs because while everyone knows certain approvals are required for certain types of events, too often getting those approvals is handled using anything from printed forms that can end up buried under stacks of paper on someone’s desk to sticky notes on the edge of a computer monitor that are easily ignored during a busy workday. Who hasn’t scribbled the equivalent of “Don’t forget to talk to Mike about Friday night!” on a little yellow square and stuck it somewhere?
A better way to approach approvals is to define and manage them in an online scheduling system. With Mazévo, for example, you can define approvals, their “triggers,” and the people responsible for granting the authorizations. Then you can methodically move approvals through multiple “states”: Waiting for Review > Pending > Approved/Denied/Disregarded. In that way, it’s clear to everyone with access to approval information where things stand for a particular event or service at any point in time.
Using an event approval workflow delivers many benefits, including that it:
- Provides a centralized source of information. People no longer have to use their email Inbox to manage approvals.
- Creates clarity and transparency about approvals. Your event services team doesn’t have to ask, “Does this event need to be approved by Catering?” The need for approval is either automatically noted in the event or it’s not.
- Ensures that everyone who must approve/decline some aspect of an event does so. No more stressful, last-minute scrambling to find Mike!
- Streamlines the process. Efficiency is key in event management, and moving an event through a defined set of steps takes far less time and effort than randomly realizing different approvals are needed and trying to track the people down.
- Helps you identify approval bottlenecks. Are delays frequently caused by the A/V equipment group? If so, maybe they don’t understand how important their approval is. Or, maybe they’re continually short-staffed and need some assistance or more advance notice for addressing approvals.
- Enables better customer service. At any point in time, an event coordinator can respond to a meeting host’s inquiry and let them know where their event stands. This eliminates the awkward and unprofessional response, “Hmmm… I’m not sure. I’ll have to ask around about that and get back to you.”
- Provides motivation for process review and improvement. Deciding to standardize your approval process can help you identify ways that you can improve it both for your staff and your customers.
See Event Approvals in Action
An orderly, online event approval workflow can make life easier not just for your scheduling team, but also for all the other departments and service providers you rely on to execute successful events. How, specifically, could implementing a workflow be to your advantage? The best way to get a sense of the possibilities is to walk through the process in a live demo tailored to mimic your environment
Schedule a quick, informative session to see how approvals are defined, monitored, and managed in Mazévo. We’re happy to show you and other stakeholders how our scheduling solution simplifies the approval process and event management in general.
