Accruent EMS vs. Skedda

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.

Incentivized

It is really well suited for managing either desks and meeting rooms, or resources. It was really important for us that equipment could be included as bookable items because we can then track who has them - where and when. The self-service nature of bookings allows everyone to manage their own time.

• 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.

Incentivized

• the clear and accurate map of the space
• different filters (grid, day, map) for different users
• being able to build a questionnaire within the booking form
• giving people easy access to log-in
• the amount of control you can have over what your users see

• 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.

Incentivized

• Only one account can be setup as the overall owner of the system with control to adjust key settings. It would be good if more than one owner could be assigned to spread out the workload, without the need to for a shared account.

I am frustrated with the customer service when calling for EMS support. When prompted to leave a message I never get a call back, and furthermore, not only do I have to leave a message, but I have to send an email to make sure someone knows to call me back. This method is unacceptable and I am currently seeking a new software.

Incentivized

great system, flexible, fast and supportive

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.

Incentivized

For a non-tech person, it isn't clear to me how to create and use tags. Some instruction/training would be useful.

Incentivized

The version of EMS that is used in our organization is desktop based. We rarely have any issues with application errors or down time. As far as reliability, it is top notch! Our organization has been extremely pleased that no data has been lost due to an application error or crash

Incentivized

when looking at large reservations from say a year or two ago it does take a long to time for them to be loaded up but that may be because of the server and the way the software archives the info. that also goes along with running reports of old data that may of been archived that takes a long time to get

Incentivized

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.

Incentivized

The response time is extremely quick and the video responses are great to refer back to.

Incentivized

The training wasn't too bad, again it was about 15 years ago and one person came to campus and trained a number of us in one of the computer labs.

Incentivized

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.

Incentivized

For a non tech person more training on the in-depth functionality would be appreciated and useful.

Incentivized

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.

Incentivized

[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.

Incentivized

Skedda is much more comprehensive than these products and has infinitely more controls and options than Survey Monkey or Google Surveys. It would be difficult to implement either platform for the scale of reservations and scheduling we are currently using Skedda for and would make saving user information much more time-consuming for the staff of our organization.

Incentivized

EMS is able to meet our needs and has grown with our company as it has grown. We are able to include new buildings and rooms as well as update catering information as it changes. The updates to the software and our ability to test it out before we introduce it live to all users helps us trouble shoot challenges and promote the benefits of the system overall.

Incentivized

• There seems to be a positive impact on our ROI. Our team is able to enter information quickly into the system, allowing our team to function very efficiently and focus more on our client than with entering information into a system.

Incentivized

• we have been able to increase the amount of people using the spaces - from 20 companies a week, to up to 30 because we gave people the power to book
• employees don't have to keep checking emails from people asking about availability - users can just see this for themselves so this saved us a lot of time and workload