Our former provider was RESS. It was sufficient, but hard to use, difficult to navigate and not user friendly to the web-based client. Prior to that I used a Sharepoint calendar, which had definite limitations and no access from outsiders, I was the one who had to put in …
I was not involved in this decision, we have used EMS since 2010 and it took a long time for buy in from the rest of the college but we are slowly getting there
I previously had to use Google Suite apps, e.g. Sheets and Forms, to track and manage space and facility resources - those two factors having to be tracked separately made it incredibly difficult. EMS allows us to seamlessly and automatically track the use of our spaces and our …
[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 …
The meeting room manager we used before only has the functionality to book meeting rooms. It does not support Outlook integration or Zoom integration, which EMS does. It is a lot easier and user-friendly to use EMS for daily conferencing tasks.
Our old software MRM was out of date and had many, many issues. I don't remember the other products we looked at, but they did not compare. We also talked with other law firms (about 4-5) and they all agreed they loved Accruent EMS as well. If we had problems we called them on …
This isn't an area where we found a lot of competitors, but those we did see all seemed oriented toward even larger organizations than ours. Pricing was universally outside of our budget scope, and all focused on features we don't have any use for. We need(ed) a very …
I was unable to select our last software used (Meeting Room Manager - MRM), but Accruent EMS is a whole other ballgame. We had so many issues with our previous scheduling software that we welcomed EMS tremendously. EMS is much more efficient and effective. It's easy to use and …
I haven't utilized any other reservation systems so it is hard to compare systems. I have seen demos of other systems but feel EMS offers a more robust system well suited for professional event planners. Some of the demos seemed to be more focused on client facing booking …
We had used MRM before finding Accruent EMS. Before finding EMS, I received demos from multiple other companies, but none fit our needs. When I finally found Accruent EMS, I was impressed immediately, but before deciding, I gathered 25 of our 'super users' together and had …
EMS has more flexibility for configuring our unique needs as opposed to scheduling a room in Outlook. Outlook out of the box does not have the ability to do cost accounting and room configurations.
I can’t remember the name but I do remember it was useless. It did basic bookings without anything else. For example - could not generate reports or even show booking history. Once the bookings were deleted by mistake, we could not retrieve it since there was no booking or …
As I previously hinted, our campus chose EMS Software because we felt it better met our needs in terms of flexibility for both academic and non-academic scheduling and contained superior functionality and ease of use for a variety of user types (pro staff, faculty, students, …
We were able to test using 25Live for space and event management. What EMS has over every product is the ability to manage an event from start to finish. Its reporting capabilities are FAR beyond any other product we have seen. You have the ability to run very smart canned …
I wasn't involved in the selection process when we purchased EMS, so I have no idea which other solutions were considered nor why we chose EMS over others.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
[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.
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 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.