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EMS, or Event Management System, is a versatile software solution widely adopted by colleges, universities, and organizations for …
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What is Accruent EMS?
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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What is Accruent EMS?
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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What is Accruent EMS?
Accruent's EMS Software connects people with the right spaces, resources, and technology, solving today’s workspace and scheduling challenges and enabling organizations to get the most from their modern work and learning environments.
Employees want the flexibility to work from anywhere and to collaborate using their preferred technologies in a safe and social environment. At the same time, leaders need to drive value for their businesses by making the best possible use of their real estate footprint. Multi-use spaces, hoteling or hot desking, and open floor plans can provide efficiencies, but not when burdened with redundant, outdated tools, and processes disconnected from the rest of a business.
So EMS Software is provided as an intelligent, enterprise-class scheduling and resource management software platform, configured and integrated to a unique office environment. The vendor describes it as a management tool that offers the flexibility employees demand, while providing users the visibility, control and insights needed to drive value for the organization.The vendor further boasts deep industry expertise, with over 35 years in the business .
Accruent EMS Features
- Supported: Self-Service Meeting Booking
- Supported: Desk Hoteling
- Supported: Digital Signage
- Supported: Video Conferencing Integration
- Supported: Web-Based Booking
- Supported: Managed Space and Events Approval Workflow
- Supported: Invoicing and Billing
- Supported: Utilization Reporting and Custom Queries
- Supported: Catering Management
- Supported: Academic Planning and Optimization
Accruent EMS Integrations
- Microsoft Teams
- Google Workspace
- Workday Student
- Microsoft Outlook
- Crestron Room Signs
- IAdea Room Signs
- Embrava Desk Signs
- Envoy Visitor Mangement
- Zoom Video Conferencing
Accruent EMS Competitors
Accruent EMS Technical Details
| Deployment Types | On-premise, Software as a Service (SaaS), Cloud, or Web-Based |
|---|---|
| Operating Systems | Windows |
| Mobile Application | Apple iOS, Android, Mobile Web |
Frequently Asked Questions
EMS Software is an enterprise space management, event, class and resource scheduling application acquired and now supported by Accruent in June 2018.
Reviewers rate Availability highest, with a score of 9.1.
The most common users of Accruent EMS are from Enterprises (1,001+ employees).
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TrustRadius Insights are summaries of user sentiment data from TrustRadius reviews and, when necessary, 3rd-party data sources. Have feedback on this content? Let us know!
- Business Problems Solved
EMS, or Event Management System, is a versatile software solution widely adopted by colleges, universities, and organizations for scheduling and managing events. The system efficiently books rooms, tracks conference room reservations, and facilitates communication between service providers. Users appreciate EMS for streamlining scheduling processes across the organization, from classes and meetings to events. It also helps with work assignment delegation and managing services for internal and external events.
Hospitals also benefit from EMS by using it to schedule conference rooms and manage room and catering requests. For example, TIAA integrates EMS with Outlook, creating a one-stop booking experience that includes features like Webex and attachments. EMS goes beyond room reservations and effectively manages non-room items like banner spaces and van usage.
EMS provides comprehensive support for academic scheduling, event management, and non-academic space management within universities. Many departments already use EMS for event scheduling, with plans to implement it in more departments in the future. In fact, the University of Kentucky relies on EMS more than any other university in the nation for scheduling across all buildings.
EMS is invaluable for risk management and logistical planning. It is utilized in conference centers and other school units with unique spaces. Real-time utilization data allows users to evaluate meeting spaces and classrooms' efficiency. By effectively managing resource allocation and service allocation, EMS enables efficient operations across different departments.
EMS plays a crucial role in enhancing safety and security efforts through essential reporting capabilities. It is used campus-wide for managing catering orders, facilities requests, IT requests, and room reservations. Various groups within an institution benefit from EMS implementation, including the Registrar's Office, Athletics Department, Performing Arts Department, Auxiliary & Event Services, among others.
Overall, EMS receives high praise from users due to its ability to streamline scheduling processes, allocate resources efficiently, and optimize space management within organizations. Its wide range of use cases makes it a valuable tool in educational institutions, conference centers, and organizations requiring efficient scheduling and event management.
Attribute Ratings
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October 02, 2018
Excellent
PNC just signed with EMS in August 2018 and are currently in the implementation phase. We use EMS to manage our conference center programs across our HQ footprint. Once we “get our feet wet” the hope is to expand our use of EMS.
- Reports - automatic BEOs
- Details information
- Ease of use
- Transferring in data from previous databases during implementation
October 02, 2018
Fair and Balanced Review
EMS is our fundamental hoteling software.
- Flexible
- Feature Rich
- Cooperative - EMS is willing to work with you and ensure your success.
- Performance. To support large numbers of users and have the system perform fast and flawlessly, performance improvements are always welcome!
- Mapping and hotspotting functionality is lacking and can be improved.
October 02, 2018
EMS meets the needs of Texas A&M University - San Antonio
EMS is being used as the university event management tool. The Registrar's office uses EMS for classroom scheduling and for Final Exam scheduling.
- EMS does event planning well. Love that it prioritizes Academic bookings over event bookings.
- EMS is a user friendly tool.
- EMS does not have the best Final Exam Scheduling tools. Still have to do a lot of manual processing on the csv file.
- Communication for academic booking bumps.
- Final Exam Scheduling.
- Automization.
October 02, 2018
EMS is a robust database system that needs an interface update
EMS is used across multiple campus departments but not all departments. We are making moves as a university to move toward one universal system. I manage one area within the OIT that deals with video production and a media facility. EMS allows booking of rooms and services through one platform.
- The consultants are very good and willing to help.
- It has multiple pricing plans and rate schedules that allows for complex pricing.
- The wizard provides tools to help repeat reservations and bookings.
- All the information for a single reservation can't be accessed in one window without running a report. I would like to see one screen that includes all bookings and resources. Bonus if those features were also editable from the comprehensive window/view.
- It can be slow. It sometimes takes time to open up booking and resource details. I want the system to work as fast as I can.
- Calculations need to become an option on net reporting. We run more reports to try to capture this missing data.
October 02, 2018
It was good, but getting too big is making it worse.
It is being used by the entire college. The college uses it to manage space along with the web app and master calendar to have transparency with what events are happening so there are no conflicting events. My office administers the software and uses it for catering, billing and booking events. It helps to have all buildings and spaces managed in the software so there is consistency across campus and a way to have a utilization report. It would be even more useful it the registrar would use it for booking classrooms. We currently only push classroom bookings into ems not the other way around. The reason being is that there are issues with the information in our SIS having to be very accurate and there are colleges that we have heard have had problems with this.
- It can manage spaces and work with SIS very well.
- It has an ability to invoice out of it.
- It can manage resources.
- It can report on sales from resources.
- It is not compatible with Google, we are a Gmail college and we have to buy the G-suite to be able to have calendars available along with the rooms where as if I were an Outlook or Exchange client it would be no charge.
- Cloud services has to be perfected. There are major problems with communication between EMS support and cloud services support.
- The company seems to be moving away from catering and resources and is more a space software.
October 02, 2018
EMS makes our Student Center a Center for the Students
It is used to schedule conference room, meeting, ballrooms, wedding, academics... pretty much all aspects of the campus.
- Scheduling of rooms.
- Showing availability of rooms in building.
- Ability to combine both scheduling and catering billing.
- Working with other software. This is more of trying to find data to use in other systems.
- Our current version (43) is terrible on virtual. We can make it work. Some days when it is not used it just does not work, or fails to work for some users.
October 02, 2018
Useable, but high learning curve
We use EMS for classroom scheduling and events that use classrooms.
- Integration with Banner.
- Class size optimization.
- Visual view of course bookings.
- Classroom Utilization reports. Would like to limit use to 100%. I often get results that are greater than 100% which upper administration does not understand, which makes the reports useless.
- Sync changes to room capacities. Currently they are manually updated, if at all.
- Easier set up steps before beginning optimization.
October 02, 2018
If it’s not in EMS, it doesn’t exist!
Several, if not all, departments use this program in some form or another. It helps to streamline communication, share information, improve business processes, and continually advances to be used even more.
- Keeping up with trends.
- Continually advances and improves.
- Amazing customer support.
- Master Calendar.
- Web client.
October 02, 2018
EMS Rocks!
Our university used EMS throughout the campus. Although access is limited for some, in general the user experience is very good. There are a lot of moving parts, but with adequate in-house training, anything is possible!
- Scheduling events, very user friendly especially for our student staff.
- Easy use of the main menu and all its features. I like how you can manage from the dashboard.
- We have integrated Visio and it has helped our staff and clients visualize their particular event.
- For very first time users, it can be a challenge. Training will solve this issue.
- Interactive training manual online works, but can be frustrating.
October 02, 2018
Hammers' Review
EMS is used throughout the campus and is used for reserving event space on campus. It unifies the resources as well as time organization.
- Organizes events well.
- Accesses resources easily and accurately.
- Desktop client proficiency with web accessed reservation.
EMS is used as the University’s space scheduling software. The system is used across multiple areas - Event Services, Athletics, Registrar’s Office, Catering, Parking Services and more. EMS has created a one-stop event planning experience for campus users and created a centralized system for housing event support information.
- Improved Communication to Campus Event Planners.
- Created a centralized system for event planning information.
- Increased Staff Efficiency.
- Improved Functionality of communication tools - confirmation reports, notification rules.
- Improve security user preferences.
October 02, 2018
EMS for Me!!!
EMS is being used by the company that I work for. We use EMS to book rooms in our conference center and other areas in the building. We are currently rolling EMS out to our field office to be able to book rooms as well. It address issues with rooms being booked but not used. The EMS system allows rooms not being used to be released and we are not able to run reports on rooms being used /not used.
- Reporting on resources.
- Reporting on room bookings.
- Reporting on room cancellations.
- Web app is a one-stop shop for all booking needs.
- When using the plugin for Outlook users would like to be able to move their meeting on the outlook side and not have to go into EMS.
- Users would like the reoccurring option inside the Outlook app instead of selecting reoccurring first and then going into EMS.
October 02, 2018
Best That I know of...
Across the whole organization now with centeralized academic scheduling.
- I like that they have different products like the master calendar which feed information between the two systems.
- It has a lot of flexibility and allows us to configure it to our needs.
- Automated reports and confirmations are huge.
- The master calendar feature has been frustrating to implement and seems to have many issues. Tech staff is not the best to help with it.
- Better support hours. Sometimes it takes weeks to get items resolved. Maybe because they don’t understand the issue at first.
- Better online guidebooks. And an overall look at scheduling and the structure of how things can be done. A support group for users would be helpful along with a board where we can vote on implementation in or upgrade ideas that others have.
- Better system to track what has been done and where things were left off. We were left with using reminders and sending them to each other but we are basically burying issues in text. A better way to track where an event was left off and knowing who approved it had exceptions would be awesome.
- A better copy of the email version. It simply has the text but does not show the full context of the email copy in the reservation tab.
- Email notification to the services so they can respond to the states. And a link so they could respond by email.
- A better way to update groups and contacts by import. This does not work well. Or needs a clear sample import file. (More sample import files with the header of the columns would help a ton.)
- Report on inventory available on a certain day in a certain room.
- Room notes to automatically print on their confirmations. We have different confirmation copies but manually add on detailed reminders for various rooms.
October 02, 2018
My Take on It
Higher education for academic scheduling and events across campus. It is a one-stop shop for campus.
- Very user friendly and manageable—Client.
- Love the reports. Automation is very helpful.
- Ability to configure and specify spaces.
- I like that for auditing purposes, changes are tracked❤️
- Master calendar. It’s not so user friendly and very busy.
- Better support.
- When an email is sent from EMS, you are not able to see the attachments that were sent. You can only see that it had attachments.
October 02, 2018
EMS for simple users
Within the Gallatin School at New York University, we use EMS to schedule our classrooms, conference rooms, studios, theater, and gallery spaces. Most recently, I developed (with the help of Brandi at EMS) a way to utilize EMS to schedule the production and operations student workers that interfaces between the desktop client and the VEMS platform.
We have streamlined our scheduling practices so students feel comfortable requesting space for their needs. Within the desktop client, I have setup users to approve specific rooms that they manage and approve.
For the staff scheduling, I created a “building” for the staff workers, and each worker is a “room” within that building. Each worker is given a VEMS acount from which they can schedule their classes and conflicts. I (as their approver) approve or deny these requests. Then, when I’m scheduling shifts, I am able to create a view where I can see our scheduled events and see which students “rooms” are available to be booked. Once booked, I can confirm their work shift via a confirmation. For a weekly schedule, I run a report under Event Schedule for each week, as well as running a Room Card report to give each student “room” a list of their shifts through the current date that is staffed.
Each school within NYU is using their own platform of EMS since schools do not share spaces within the University.
- When used properly, EMS is a clean and concise communication tool. The options of how to manipulate the areas allow for efficient scheduling.
- EMS offers a range of opportunities to streamline both your daily scheduling needs and communication with users.
- I have developed a scheduling platform for my student workers. It took a lot to set this up. It would be wonderful if this option could be added as a software add-on.
- Overall, I’m very happy with EMS software.
October 02, 2018
EMS Review for SD State University
We administer EMS for the South Dakota State University Campus. I oversee the reservations for our student union and non academic spaces. We also use EMS for inventory management, reports to security and HVAC (for campus) centralizes billing, etc. Have been working on developing a way to do a “web” contract approval for both affiliated and non-affiliated campus users utilizing the existing system. Only roadblock is internal within our university. Trying to get buy in, and trying to get the existing campus users to conform to a centralized / standardized user process. It’s a great product and works exceptionally well for our event management.
- Reporting... both manual and automated reports. The automated confirmation for event planning meetings has saved us a ton of time reaching out to clients needing to schedule event planning meeting.
- Staff scheduling. Helps us determine the logistics of when to setup/when to tear down and how many staff are needed at setup times.
- Centralized billing. Took a while for us to implement but keeping everything within the system helps us provide a friendlier customer exerpience when it comes to billing.
- Legacy information is easy to access for annual events. Can pull up reservation information, setup maps, pricing, attached files, etc. It’s a one-stop shop.
- I would love to see the web interface come back. Would be easier for administrative users to access the system if needed.
October 02, 2018
First-time User
We are using EMS to book resources within the University.
- Resource management.
- Conferencing booking.
- Lack of intuitive reports.
- Integrating with other applications such as Campus Labs.
- Creating a Mac desktop. We have a lot of Mac users.
- More robust Mobile application.
October 01, 2018
Review of EMS from a newbie
Currently the University of Florida is utilizing EMS for their event scheduling. We have 4 departments currently using it, with plans to add on more of the University as we progress. In the near future, we are consolidating these 4 instances while bringing on the Registrar's office as well. We plan on using external software for academic room scheduling, and then populating that data into our EMS.
- I think that EMS performs automated user management pretty well. There have been hiccups, but it is mostly because of inconsistent security role or data entry on our side of things
- I believe that for end users, the EMS Web App is extremely user friendly, and the integration to the EMS desktop application for system admins is very seamless.
- We are not completely up to date with the latest released updates, so I can't say that these are not fixed. Response time when creating a reservation on the desktop application is a bit over the top.
- Again, this might have been resolved in a latest update, but I have found issues in creating automated reports, and getting them to work as intended. For example when creating a weekly automated report, the frequency seems to be a bit confusing on what you need to select.
October 01, 2018
Helping this Scheduler Sleep Better at Night
EMS is being used in our Registrar’s Office for academic scheduling and in our Hospitality Services Office for event scheduling. We are looking to branch out to Student Life, too, so they can help manage student club event requests. This program address issues with space reservation and utilization.
- Academic scheduling in a shared system. I’ve struggled for years with our old system. Whenever I’d import academic events, unfailingly, some of them would be bounced out because Hospitality booked events in academic spaces even though they weren’t supposed to. Try as I might to educate on this, there would always be at least a few conflicts and they were hard to find, which opened the door for double booking issues. With EMS, when I load in academic events, any Hospitality events get bounced out - not the other way around! It’s a Godsend.
- Flexibility around web user access. In our old system, it was quite the burden to create and maintain varying levels of access and security for spaces and types of events that people on campus could request. With the process template system, we find it very easy to limit or grant varying levels of access to different people and maintain that access as the university process evolves.
- Creating and maintaining contacts and their associated departments (or “groups” as they are called in EMS). While it was a little onerous to get the HR Toolkit element installed for EMS, now that it’s working, the function is serves is invaluable. I absolutely LOVE how it associates people/everyday users with their home departments, then grants them template access based on that. It’s so slick and so easy.
- Two words. Tech support. I don’t know if we on-boarded at a bad time or what, but the tech support that we’ve received has been abysmal. We’ve opened tickets and not had them answered for a whole week - 5 whole business days! When we finally did get a response, it was hardly apologetic. What’s worse, my IT guy would be contacted by someone, he would ask them to give him 5 minutes to get his conference phone set up, and then he’d wait and wait and wait for the tech support rep to get back to him and he’d never show! This happened 6 times. 6 times. Not ok. Our timeline for going live has been negatively affected by this lack of service.
- Training. Our trainer was OK, but I find that he had a hard time articulating new concepts and making them make sense. I had to figure it out myself, then I could see what he was saying. I’m sure in his own head it made sense, because he had the context for his explanation. But for me coming into a new system, I had no context. I needed him to back up and explain things from a more foundational level first, then build on that.
- Along with tech support and training, I would say we’ve lacked a general level of company care. Where is the rep calling to see how our implementation process is coming along? Where are the people offering to help us if we have any issues? We seem to be reaching out to a lot of folks and not getting any care in return.
October 01, 2018
EMS - Everyday Meeting Scheduling
We use EMS across the global organization to book meeting rooms, schedule VC meetings, manage catering/resources and equipment, track room utilization. In addition we use it for BEOs, room configuration/setup types and tracking. Lastly, we use EMS integrated with Outlook and TMS for our VC meetings.
- Room Utilization
- BEOs
- Resource Bookings/management
- Integration with Outlook
- More flexibility with configurations/templates
- More personalization/flexibility with reporting and queries
October 01, 2018
EMS works for us!
EMS is used by our department (conference center) to book venue space and resources. It is a robust, intuitive software that allows us to view calendars, equipment inventory, run reports, and schedule/book reservations. We are greatly dependent on EMS to run our operations efficiently.
- Easy to navigate/intuitive
- User-friendly interface
- Customizable reports
- Lag time
- Being able to change/update multiple details simultaneously
- Simplification needed for some views
- Being able to view last opened reservations even after sign out
- Being able to “favorite” reservations, personalized calendar of “favorite” reservations
October 01, 2018
EMS from a University Perspective!
[It's] Used by several partners on campus including, but not limited to the Student Center and Event Services Dept, and Registrar Department. The software allows course coded classes to be input along with special events. My department specifically uses EMS to book special events for Registered Student Organizations, Campus Departments, and External Guests.
- Allows for multiple bookings on one transaction. It does not take up a lot of my time to book a 7 room conference for one of my clients.
- The confirmation report allows for communication between client and event planner. I am able to select the details that I want to hide versus the details I want to highlight.
- The Wizard Tool allows for easy changes to multiple bookings. If I need to add details to multiple rooms on multiple days there is a tool for that.
- I would like there to be a better function to change multiple details simultaneously.
- At this time you are able to view last opened reservations only if you are continually signed in. I would like it to still remember despite signing out.
- Allowing a reminder for an event kind of like Outlook and Gmail. I understand that there is a partnership between EMS and Outlook, but a reminder for EMS itself.
March 09, 2018
EMS: A-OK! (Except for VTC...)
EMS is used firm-wide at a prominent law firm I support. It is used to schedule meeting spaces and services in offices around the globe, including catering, audio-visual support, and facilities.
- EMS works well to book audio-visual equipment for meetings.
- Booking and adding details can be done for dozens of meetings at once.
- Reporting can be created and specialized to produce exactly the statistics you need.
- Video conference reporting is awkward. When generating a report of video conferences that involve different meetings that involve different time zones for each location, EMS is not able to produce the video conferences in chronological order--the various time zones inevitably confuse the report, resulting in the need to print and manually sort the conferences. This has been my longest-running pet peeve with EMS.
September 08, 2016
EMS is a powerful tool, but is a bit over complicated if organizational needs are on the smaller side.
Dean Evans and Associates Event Management Software (EMS) is used on our college campus for event, academic, athletic, and conference space reservations. The product is managed by my office with dozens of virtual users across campus.
- EMS provides a comprehensive record of all spaces under request and approved for use.
- It needs as a basic functionality a calendar view of reserved spaces that the entire user community can view and sort.
- Self populating email function in the communication pages - those used regularly - similar to Gmail functionality.