EMS Software is an enterprise space management, event, class and resource scheduling application acquired and now supported by Accruent in June 2018.
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ON24
Score 8.4 out of 10
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ON24 is an intelligent engagement platform, that enables customers to continuously engage audiences with AI-powered, hyper-personalized webinar, virtual event and content experiences.
Accruent EMS is well-suited when it comes to room utilization and transparency but with regards to onboarding other departments such as A/V and Catering, it becomes a challenge because there are other software that meets the needs of these departments that EMS does not have. The use of multiple systems for other departments is a nuisance especially with inventory mangement.
I find that ON24 caters for all types of organisations, having it allows for more choice/options. The experience around virtual events if fantastic and the ON24 team is constantly improving the platform. If you want to run a virtual events programme where you want to generate leads and track engagement, then ON24 is the platform for you
It's user friendly. By doing a little self-exploration one can find out the many features that EMS offers.
It is simple to add or remove conference rooms and provide details of the conference rooms.
I appreciate that there are different ways of reserving conference rooms. This allows each user to feel comfortable in their use of EMS by finding what works best for them.
Incredible complexity on the back end. While its highly configurable nature lends to flexibility, it also makes it a challenge to manage.
Support has not been as quick as we'd like when we've needed to reach out.
Most likely due to the company recently changing hands, we had real trouble with their billing department attempting to double charge us for our services, and sorting it out took 6 months of back and forth.
There was a recent update within the past year where the UX designer or developer thought it would be best to wide all titles from the audience view until they placed their mouse on top of the window. That was the worst mistake, as we have a moderator script where we tell the audience what each of the tool bars are and they can’t grasp what the tool is without putting their mouse there. From an accessibility standpoint point, it’s back to 1999 when there was no laws about accessibility.
Number one above is a major pain point.
ON24 needs to do a better job of introducing features and soliciting feedback from their customers vs making a high impactful change like #1 described above.
Accruent EMS has always been a one-stop-shop for our organization when it comes to scheduling conference rooms, offices, apartments, services, etc. It has a wide array of reporting, and what isn't set up as a standard report, can usually be created as a query to report on the information you are looking for. Accruent EMS has pushed out new releases with updates to bugs and other add-ins and stays current and up-to-date with market trends.
ON24 is everything we expected and everything we needed. It's simple to use, extremely customizable, and scales very easily. The integration to our CRM makes ON24 major lead generator for our sales team from our established webinars series. We can automate lead delivery to our sales team as well. If anything, we will look to expand our partnership in the future.
Most new users would greatly benefit from (or possibly require) at least some training on how to use EMS, but the training doesn't need to be extensive for the users to get comfortable with it. Most functions are easy and straightforward, so users tend to not have many issues with it.
97% of our attendees say it is the best trainings they have every attended. But they other 3% have a horrible experience (while watching the event live) interesting fact. On24 uses two different encoders for live vs OnDemand. I have never had issues with the On-Demand experience. My only complaints come during live events
Currently I can only access EMS from my work computer, from in my office, on campus. While I'm sure this isn't an Accruent issue, and mostly our IT issue, Accruent hasn't exactly stepped up and tried to help when these issues have been addressed.
ON24 is always available when I have a question about a new feature, if I'm having issues during a live webinar, or if I'm having issues with a webinar on the backend. Our client support specialist, Heather Haines, has always been incredibly consistent with getting me the answers I need when I need them.
The only other software we use in conjunction with EMS is Epaper Signs by Visix. Once we worked out the initial bugs, the integration has been seamless. It does not slow down our software or cause any errors. Our signs are updated every 15 minutes with any problems.
Sometimes (it may be my computer) i cant login to ON24. I create a new PW and then i still cant get in. I clear cache/try new browser etc. and nothing works. I come back in a few hours and its like the problem never existed, its the strangest thing. Outside of that everything works pretty seamless. We've ran into a few bumps with Marketo talking to ON24 and passing reg through but have that figured out now. Not being able to be on a VPN when connecting to webcam on the presenter side does cause issues for our government speakers.
Since the merger, our team has found that there are a select few of the tech team that can actually support our questions. More often than not, we have already tried the suggestions that they give us and they are either unable to answer our questions and submit them as update suggestions or they have to be sent to supervisor for an answer. Once or twice in the last year we have received bad advice that resulted in system issues. Prior to last year, the customer support system was at the top of the list of tech support departments that I have ever had to deal with, especially during our upgrade to 4.0.
ON24 support is really good with the 24/5 support chat line, where someone actually responds within 30 seconds. The customers success team is also really good and our rep is very helpful with all our questions. Whenever we have more technical questions, she will bring on a IT designer or a tech specialist on our calls for additional comments and help.
It was great but could have been a little better. I feel like there are different ways to use some of the software and some of that was not explained. I think at the time the training was great but now that we are more experienced with the product I can see we missed training based on what part of EMS the instructor thought we were going to use.
On24 has amazing ON-Demand trainings that you can use at anytime and they walk you through step by step on different topics/ they are always updating and innovating and putting out new trainings. I would highly reccomend the trainings and reading the documents they have created. They also do live webinars on a rolling basis that are filled with so much knowledge and Information
I think one of the biggest things is to step back and see how you want your organization to function and use the product prior to quickly diving in and configuring. I think some (based on some EMS Live conference sessions I attended) built their systems on how they used their old systems or old processes, but thinking about how you want your organization to function moving forward will help you configure it the best way and make the necessary changes from the start rather than having to go back and adjust.
We had a few training's, which were broken up, and focused on specific areas of how to use the platform. Mostly though, a lot of it is just dedicating your time to learning and exploring what the possibilities are for enhancing your webinars
[Accruent] EMS is very robust, and a great all in one solution for hospitality and Event management needs. I have dealt with a few other software solutions in the past that try to handle event planning and management, but have run into the need to have multiple solutions to handle all those needs.
From what I've seen, ON24 is built specifically to meet the needs of event marketing (or marketing generally), versus the other platforms which are more about simply providing a mechanism to hold virtual meetings. The integration with sales and marketing systems is really valuable. I don't know about pricing differences, but if the competitors were comparable, I would still select ON24.
We purchased the client, web version, and Outlook plug-in. I'll be honest, we haven't pushed the email part, but I did test it and liked it. After the old program we placed, I have simply been gun-shy about implementing another email plug-in. However, the client for the super users to get department alerts, etc. and the web version for all users to create reservations has been fabulous and easy to use and understand.
The ON24 platform is straightforward to use and train clients on, which is a huge plus. Clients appreciate its features and simplicity. Internally, we receive valuable analytical data from webinar events, enabling the organization to make data-driven decisions. This helps us optimize strategies and drive success for B2B businesses effectively.
The most noticeable improvements in our usage of EMS is our ability to process requests more efficiently using a standardized form that has a professional presentation. Before we began using EMS, we processed our parking requests by simply typing an email with a few details. Pricing was jumbled in with the wording and clients often did not read the fine print. EMS has definitely made an impact with projecting a professional image to our clients when they receive confirmations and invoices.
