RegOnline is part of the Cvent Event Cloud, a comprehensive software platform to help you plan, promote, manage and measure your meetings and events. It will be retired December 2019 and from April 2019 new customers will be onboarded to Cvent Event Management.
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Webex Events (formerly Socio)
Score 8.9 out of 10
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Webex Events (formerly Socio) gives event professionals event tech to power every stage of the event planning & execution process.
RegOnline is a great tool for multi-track events. It is very user friendly and the software makes it easy to set up multiple tracks. It's even easy to check the progress of your event and make changes without impacting the registration process. The ability to collect data that can be taken back to the C-suite is also nice.
WebEx Events is a great tool for hosting both an event website and an onsite event app. If you are looking to integrate an on onsite and online event, they have this capability, as well. The staff is always very helpful and I am able to get answers to my questions in a timely manner
RegOnline is able to handle credit card payments, cashing out once per month by sending a check to me (paid to the university) via mail. This was the main reason that we needed the site, and it is it's best feature.
Customizable options were added this year, and though a little confusing at first they have been great at adding additional details in headers on pages (on pages that I formerly was unable to provide additional instructions).
The registration system itself has been useful for managing registrants, and being able to easily update those who still chose to pay 'offline' via check or wire transfer (allowing me to still easily see all paid participants).
It has quite a few optional and customizable features that can be utilized.
It's easy to integrate your existing tools like Zoom, YouTube, Vimeo, and streaming services.
It's flexible in the way that you upload content in that you can enter things one at a time on the website, or use a spreadsheet to upload a larger amount of content.
You can't easily access a registration unless you click on the edit pencil. It appears that the title of the event is linked but if you click on it you always get an error message. This appearance of being linked should be removed because it causes frustration. Same with the event number. It appears to be a link that can be opened but it goes to the same error message.
RegOnline did a big change about 18 months ago which wreaked havoc with registrations. A lot of functionality was lost and it took about a year for them to recover from that. At that time, our education and conferences department got so frustrated, we starting using another registration platform which was not a good experience either and then in early 2018 switched to Cvent.
Sometimes I feel like it uses too many resources and makes my computer go slower
Chats of the webinar dissappear by default, but sometimes important info is shared and could be nice to have the option to save it
The quality of the video gets chosen by webex by default, sometimes maybe it would be nice to get the option to fix manually what's the minimum quality you want. Just to not talk with pixels
Of course something could happen to our orgs ability to put on a conference or Socio could fundamentally change their product or their customer service - but barring any magor shift there is nothing that is even close to competing for our attention here.
Some Android users could not get the app to work, so they had to use the web-based version of our conference guide. Most functionality was still there, but they could not pull up the QR code, which impeded the registration process. The presence of the log in with Apple ID button caused issues because most work emails were not attached to Apple ID, which caused access issues.
Socio (now WebexEvents) is one of two products I use that gets customer service right. Not only can you get an answer from an actual person quickly during business hours - but if you are asking after hours, you know the response will be waiting for you in the morning. Not only are they fast, but they are also smart about their products and customers. There is very little back and forth trying to explain the problem I am having, or the new way I am trying to use their product, that may even be novel for them.
The Department also uses RegFox for training events as well as conferences. One of the main reasons they use RegFox is because of the price, it only charges $0.99 per registration whereas RegOnline charges $3.55 per registration. Because we are a state agency, that can make a big difference to our budget. That being said it is easier to build multi-track events in RegOnline.
We have used multiple virtual event platforms in the past, as well as trialed several. We ultimately decided on Webex due to the aesthetics of the website, the incredibly easy build-out process, the 24/5 support, the user-friendly front-end interface, the multiple ways to monetize sponsorships, and ultimately... the price. The value for what you get is incredible compared to other platforms.
Everyone has been incredibly happy being able to pay on credit card! Prior to RegOnline, our only payment options were by check, money order, or wire transfer. I personally had to deposit many, many more personal checks to the university on behalf of participants. So participants have been happy with the credit card option (it was requested by many every year until the switch to RegOnline), but it also has been very helpful at saving me time as well.
The negative impact has been that we had a free registration page set up prior to RegOnline, that we dropped fully. So while some participants still pay by check or wire transfer, we still must pay the 'per participant' fee even for participants not paying through RegOnline.
