At Mazévo, we’re proud to say that we’ve been members of the Association of Collegiate Conference and Events Directors-International (ACCED-I) since our founding. In fact, our support of the association goes back even further to our days at EMS.
ACCED-I is run by outstanding people and does important work to, as stated on their website, “promote and advance the collegiate conference and events profession and to set the industry standards of excellence.” We were thrilled recently to be able to give a presentation as part of ACCED-I Corporate Member Demo Day 2022 on the biggest problems scheduling professionals face.
At this session, titled Solving Your Most Challenging Event Management Issues With Mazévo, our CEO Dean Evans, Sales Associate Claire DeGroot, and I shared insights on how the right scheduling solution can help streamline and simplify the managing of events.
You may watch the video here or read on for some highlights from the presentation.
What Is Mazévo?
I kicked off our session by explaining that Mazévo is a modern room scheduling and event management platform. It helps scheduling departments handle all the details associated with the use of their space—reserving rooms, booking resources like equipment, coordinating services such as catering, scheduling academic classes, running reports, publishing an online calendar of events, etc.
As I noted, Mazévo sounds like many other systems out there (EMS, Ad Astra, CollegeNET, etc.) but with a significant difference. We designed Mazévo from the ground up to be both powerful and simple to use. Those may appear to be conflicting goals, but customers agree that our solution achieves both.
Consequently, Mazévo enables scheduling departments to effectively address five common event management problems that often have them looking for a better solution than what they’re currently using:
- Inefficient scheduling practices (often because there’s no single source of event information)
- Limited access to event details (especially for people who are away from their desks)
- A hard-to-use scheduling system (particularly in the area of requests, which causes students, faculty, etc., to call the scheduling department for help)
- Trouble training new system users (mainly because many have complex. clunky systems)
- Being stuck with an outdated product (primarily because they believe switching systems will be difficult, expensive, etc.)
An Overview of Mazévo’s Features and Functions
Our presentation continued with Dean logging into Mazévo to show attendees some of its features. He started by mentioning the tools designed for event planners—things like the Add New Event and Find Events functions, Day At A Glance and Manage Tasks features, etc. Dean then continued through the major Main Menu areas: Academics, Reports, Invoicing, Operations, and Approvals.
He went on to dive deeper into a few features, starting with the powerful Event Book, which gives users a graphical view of event activity but also the ability to open and edit, move, and create events. Along the way, Dean explained approvals, pointed out where users can generate confirmations to send to customers, etc.
Next, he talked a bit about Mazévo reports, showing a few he’d generated for the presentation.
Mazévo From the Customer’s Perspective
Following Dean’s overview, Claire took over. She provided a look at Mazévo from the perspective of a “customer”—a faculty or staff member, student, or anyone looking to reserve space for an event. That started with showing how easy it is to submit requests while also explaining how an organization can control a customer’s access and customize their experience.
Claire also pointed out the part of the request process where the system can automatically pose questions to the requester based on triggers the organization defines.
Leveraging the Mazévo Mobile App
The presentation continued with Dean showing attendees the Mazévo mobile app. He started by explaining that Mazévo can be run from any modern web browser (Chrome, Safari, Edge, etc.) on PCs, Macs, or tablets of any kind.
As he noted, the advantage to this type of easy access is that if, for example, you’re contacted in the evening by a team member who has an urgent question, you can simply grab whatever device is close at hand and be in Mazévo in seconds. There, you have access to nearly every feature you could use from your computer at work. That means you can quickly answer the question and return to what you were doing.
Dean moved on to access the Manage Operations function from his phone and explained its significance. It’s a vital feature for setup crews that enables them to see and filter a list of events for the day, with icons making it easy to spot required services. He drilled into a particular event and then further to see the audio-visual details as a user would.
Dean also pointed out that a manager can assign work to a specific individual or leave it unassigned so that it’s handled by the first person who can get to it. And just as importantly, Mazévo users can note that a task has been completed so that others viewing information about the event see how the preparations are progressing.
And since the system provides access to real-time information, organizations no longer have to scramble to figure out how to notify team members about last-minute changes. Those scenarios can’t be addressed easily if people are relying on printed reports.
Next, Dean showed how team members can use other features, like the Event Book, efficiently and effectively from their mobile devices. While certain functions (like those for global administrators) aren’t available from the mobile app, virtually all the features users need to manage events on a daily basis are accessible.
Final Considerations for Scheduling Departments
I wrapped up our presentation by noting something very important about scheduling solutions: You don’t have to be stuck with the one you’re on! Mazévo is a streamlined, intuitive system, so very little (if any) training is needed. Onboarding new users is simple.
We can also convert data from the EMS system into our Mazévo format. (Download our free guide on switching scheduling systems if that’s something you’re considering.) Conversions include resources, pricing, notes, reservations, etc.
Needless to say, this greatly simplifies switching to our modern, web-based solution from that older, increasingly outdated one. Scheduling departments that capitalize on this conversion service can be up and running in Mazévo in days or weeks rather than months or longer! Mazévo’s room-based pricing also makes a very cost-effective scheduling solution.
In summary, Mazévo is a complete, feature-rich scheduling platform that delivers a fast return on investment (ROI), provides anytime-anywhere access, and comes with attentive customer service.
Our thanks to ACCED-I for giving us the opportunity to connect with scheduling pros looking for a more effective system for managing events!
And if you’re interested in seeing Mazévo in action, schedule a demo today. You can also learn more by participating in a free, no-obligation EMS “sandbox” conversion. Contact us to learn more!
