Well, 2024 is in the books. Nice work, people! We hope you had a great year!
Now, we’re focused on making 2025 an even better one for our customers. How will we do that? We’re glad you asked. Our product development team has a long list of planned enhancements for Mazévo that will help you work more efficiently and effectively. You might even recognize some of them, as customer input is one of the most important drivers of our development efforts.
To give customers a preview of the year ahead, we presented a Mazévo Connect session titled “What’s Next for Mazévo: 2025 and Beyond (Video).” Whether you’re glad to be back at work or are wincing at the sight of a pile of work that accumulated over the holidays, we think you’ll be excited about the new features and functions you’ll have access to in the year ahead.
We’ve summarized the webinar content in this blog, but we encourage you to check out the recording as well.
If you’re not yet a customer and have questions about Mazévo or want to see our web-based scheduling solution in action, don’t hesitate to contact us or schedule a demo!
TL;DR Key Takeaways:
- Mazévo will be enhanced in several ways in 2025 (and beyond).
- The Mazévo perspective is to make event scheduling and management as simple as possible.
- We’ll be streamlining the user onboarding process in many ways in the coming months.
- Look for a new "inquiry form" to receive requests from people outside your organization who don't have a Mazévo account.
- Integrating Mazévo with Outlook or Google Calendars is on our roadmap, but we want to limit the potential complexity and IT involvement that could entail.
- Approval workflows and risk management will be a hot topic in 2025.
- Our product development roadmap includes enhancements to our SIS integration and academic scheduling functionality.
- We will continually improve system performance based on advances in the underlying technology.
- We'll encourage users in 2025 to use the tools in Mazévo to delete old/unused data.
The Guiding Principles of Our Product Development Efforts at Mazévo
Scheduling and managing events efficiently and effectively is no easy task, but that doesn’t mean your scheduling solution has to be complex. That’s our philosophy and what guides our development efforts at Mazévo.
In fact, because your job can be hectic, it’s especially important that your event scheduling and management system has a user-friendly interface and intuitive processes. That’s why, whenever we’re considering Mazévo enhancements, the first question we ask is: How can we streamline this function and make it easier for people to use?
In many settings, ease of use is a top priority since some of the people who get into the system aren’t event scheduling professionals and might only occasionally need to use it. Making it easy for them to find what they need in Mazévo is critical and so is simply getting them up and running. That leads to the first section covered in the webinar: User Onboarding.
User Onboarding
At the time of the webinar, there were more than 180,000 Mazévo users at customer organizations, and that number continues to climb rapidly. So, it’s no surprise that we’ve seen a significant uptick in people reaching out to us for assistance with getting into and using the system.
That’s alright—it’s why our customer support team exists! But that increase in calls, emails, and support tickets is informative. It tells us we can do more to make onboarding new users easier and more effective.
One thing we’re planning, based on a customer suggestion, is a function that sends an email to a new user the first time they log on to Mazévo. The content of that email is configurable so that you can explain the system from your point of view, provide links to scheduling policies and other helpful information, etc.
Another feature is the ability to create a “vanity URL” for your Mazévo system to give new users comfort that they’re in the right place. You can also add your logo to the system and provide some instructional text on the login screen to guide users. There’s also the ability to request a Mazévo account for users who don’t have one. For people using the traditional login screen, we’ve added a link for “Need Login Help?”
Mazévo CEO Dean Evans explains these features in the video.
Making Requests
Another product development focus area for 2025 will be the room request process. For many of our customers, enabling people in their organizations to submit requests online as quickly and easily as possible is critically important.
A common theme in this area in recent years has been, “How do we let requesters do more?” We have some ideas!
One item people contact us about is giving requesters the ability to flag their event as Public or Private—which affects whether it is displayed on the Mazévo public calendar of events, room signage, etc. Currently, only an event planner can set that flag, and giving requesters that ability would have consequences like setting the event back to a Pending status or creating confusion about the definitions of “public” and “private.”
This potential feature is an example of how we look for input from system users, as Dean poses the question to webinar participants, and we get some good feedback!
Also in this area, should secondary contacts be able to edit requests? Currently, only the primary contact can do that. Enabling edits by secondary contracts would bring up security issues, as Dean explains, before asking for input.
Inquiry Form for External Entities
Another topic that comes up regularly concerns external customers (meaning people or entities not associated with your organization) submitting requests through Mazévo. Some of our customers give logins to external customers who use their space frequently. But we’re pondering how we can make it easier to allow external requests.
As Dean explains, there are several considerations here. How much information do you need from the requester? How does this request affect the availability of space (you probably don’t want it to hold the space like a traditional request does)? Ultimately, we envision this type of feature simply capturing some information and keeping it in a “holding area” of sorts until you can process it and decide whether you’ll allow the reservation, etc.
Along the same lines, some people have requested that the Mazévo Event Book be visible to external entities. Here again, there are considerations around which rooms will be visible (since you are likely to have some that you don’t want an outsider to see), etc. Attendees chime in on this important topic.
Outlook/Google Calendar Integration
Integrating with third-party calendars like Outlook or Google Calendar is another area of interest to Mazévo users. Those inquiries prompt the question from our side, “What does that mean specifically?” or “How do you envision that working?”
When we dig a little deeper, we find that users want an easy way for events to show up in their personal Outlook or Google Calendar. Mazévo has, for some time, had functionality for downloading an “ics” file to your personal calendar, but we’re working on making that feature easier to find and use.
Another feature people want is the ability to book a room directly from Outlook or Google Calendar. Sometimes, that request is driven by a directive from an organization’s leaders to standardize room scheduling organization-wide around one technology.
What we don’t hear is people saying they want the ability to plan a major event in these third-party calendar tools. We also don’t get requests for the ability to check a person’s free/busy schedule in conjunction with scheduling a room for a meeting or event in Mazévo.
We point out these issues to generate conversation around them. There’s clearly a desire for calendar integration, but what we’re eager to learn is in what ways and to what extent!
Dean elaborates on what we can currently do and demonstrates the functionality. He also says that we will likely create the ability to attach an ics file to a confirmation when sending that document to a customer or potentially in an email confirming that we’ve received a request.
In addition, he explains that tighter integration could require more involvement of an organization’s IT department, making the process somewhat more complex. This isn’t to say we won’t pursue tighter integration with third-party calendars, but it’s crucial for scheduling departments to understand what’s involved.
Attendees bring up some helpful questions and concerns on this multifaceted topic!
Approval Workflows
Mazévo has a built-in approval workflow mechanism. It helps coordinate what we call “secondary approvals” from people who need to sign off before an event can happen.
One thing people are asking about a lot recently is the concept of risk management. Will there be food or alcohol? Will minors be attending? These types of characteristics impact event risk and some people want Mazévo to go further in managing this information.
However, we’re not completely clear on what that would mean, so we pose that question in the webinar. As Dean explains, the risk assessment process can take many months, which complicates things when planning events. So does the requester potentially not knowing how to answer the questions posed to them in the request process.
For example: “Will there be food at the event? Will you be cooking the food? Do you understand food safety practices?” These are things the customer plans to decide later based on budget or other factors. Asking them all the necessary questions up front to secure the space may be frustrating or confusing.
That said, it was clear from the comments during the webinar that there’s some passion around this topic. So, in 2025, we’ll be looking at ways to make Mazévo more useful in risk management. That will likely include “picking the brains” of people interested in this area.
Academic Scheduling
Many of our customers manage both event and academic spaces. Mazévo has a feature for importing class information from a student information system (SIS) so that event planners can schedule around those courses. If you’re not using that functionality but want to, contact us, and we’ll turn it on for you.
Mazévo also has functionality that integrates our system with the SIS, enabling registrars to use our optimizer tool to get courses into the right classrooms in an automated way. We’ll be enhancing this two-way SIS integration and the associated tools in the year ahead.
System Performance
In 2025, like every year, we’ll be leveraging technological advances to enhance Mazévo’s performance. We work continually to make the system as responsive as the latest underlying infrastructure will allow. That’s especially important in high-volume scheduling environments, particularly in generating reports requiring large amounts of data.
Data Cleanup
Your Mazévo license allows you to retain up to three years of past scheduling data—in addition to all current and future data, of course. That three-year maximum is in place primarily because of performance. The more old data you maintain in any system, the more processing power is required to manage it.
However, data accuracy and reliability are also factors. As data ages, those characteristics decline. In addition, keeping your data clean and current makes it easier for new users to “get to know” the system, as they don’t have to wade through old information—contacts, organizations, etc.—that is no longer relevant. This gets back to the notion of keeping things as simple as possible! And finally, there are security issues with maintaining excessive amounts of old data.
Ultimately, it’s your data that we’re talking about, but we want to encourage “good data habits,” so it’s a fine line we’ll continue to walk in 2025 as we encourage you to purge old information and make it easier to do that. Keep in mind that we provide ways for you to export your old data so you can retain it indefinitely.
Dean demonstrates features like one for requesting the deletion of old events, including showing safeguards that prevent the deletion of recent data and a built-in pause before data is deleted. He also points out the powerful Clean Up function that identifies unused items (rooms, resources, organizations, etc.) you can delete.
Exciting Product Development Plans for 2025!
Nothing gets us more excited than finding even better ways for scheduling pros to do their work and making life easier for their customers. Our product development roadmap for 2025 includes many features and functions that will do precisely that!
Many thanks to the people who attended What’s Next for Mazévo: 2025 and Beyond and to everyone who provides the feedback that fuels our development efforts.
Not yet a Mazévo customer but eager to learn how our system can benefit your organization? Schedule a demo, and let’s talk about your scheduling challenges and opportunities!
