Thoughts on EMS from someone who "lives" in this software.
Updated July 29, 2022

Thoughts on EMS from someone who "lives" in this software.

Amy Williams | TrustRadius Reviewer
Score 6 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User

Overall Satisfaction with Accruent EMS Software

EMS software is used by our registrar's office as well as other departments across campus. In my department, Notre Dame Studios, we use EMS to schedule services, resources, and space. It has helped us manage all of our resources in one place.

Pros

  • EMS allows us to schedule our staff, equipment and rooms that are needed to complete our services.
  • EMS process templates allow flexibility in scheduling among different types of users across the University.
  • The book view in EMS allows the staff to view the day ahead in a glance.

Cons

  • When using the calculations option in pricing, it is almost impossible to report on those amounts. We currently have to run several reports to get the details needed. It can be very tedious pulling the data together.
  • When entering payments it would be ideal to allow a batch of reservations to be shown as paid, rather then entering each reservation number individually.
  • When processing invoices, it would be ideal if the invoices could be emailed as a mail merge instead of one invoice at a time.
  • accuracy
  • invoicing
  • reporting
  • EMS has allowed us to offer different services to different clients through the process requests.
  • We recently upgraded and found some options in the desktop client to be valuable.
  • We have been disappointed that the web client no longer offers the configuration and various options available on the desktop client.
It was already selected on campus when I started using it.

Do you think Accruent EMS delivers good value for the price?

Not sure

Are you happy with Accruent EMS's feature set?

No

Did Accruent EMS live up to sales and marketing promises?

No

Did implementation of Accruent EMS go as expected?

I wasn't involved with the implementation phase

Would you buy Accruent EMS again?

No

The % calculation function is difficult to report on. The software is great for scheduling events and adding various resources to the event.

Using Accruent EMS Software

300 - We have several staff who use EMS as a requester and less that use it to manage space, resources or staff. We use it in our Department called Notre Dame Studios. We manage space , ghost rooms and services. The campus uses it for room reservations. A new department on campus that manages events is getting set up to use it as well.
4 - It does require training to use EMS especially if you are using it a little differently then other people. The 4 people in the answer above is from my department only.
  • Registrar controlled rooms for classes
  • Events
  • Services
  • By creating Ghost rooms, so you can book a service even though it was intended to for rooms.
  • A lot more services on campus would be able to use EMS, if it had a little better invoicing piece. Bulk should mean a mail merge not one by one emails to clients.
This decision is not up to one individual. I would say the University would most likely renew it if there are improvements and upgrades when things are outdated.

Evaluating Accruent EMS Software and Competitors

Not Sure
  • Product Features
I believe it was originally selected for the registrar classrooms the product works very well for that use. We use it for a service and it can be a bit more complex and not as easy for us at times.
Get more users of the product involved in the evaluation. Explore what it does that we currently don't use it for. Compare similar products accordingly.

Accruent EMS Software Implementation

EMS is very detailed in a lot of ways but then in other ways there are not enough options.
  • Implemented in-house
Yes - We worked with a consultant who setup all the steps to get us going.
  • unsure

Accruent EMS Software Training

  • Online Training
It was dece
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.

Configuring Accruent EMS Software

At this point I am unclear on how configurable it is. I am hoping to find out more options at this conference.
Be consistent and double check everything
Yes - we have customized the interface extensively - This was pretty easy for our team to do
No - we have not done any custom code

Accruent EMS Software Support

I am not usually the one who makes large change requests but I would say my questions do get addressed.
ProsCons
Quick Resolution
Good followup
No escalation required
Immediate help available
Support understands my problem
Support cares about my success
None
Not Sure

Using Accruent EMS Software

A lot of the time it works well for us but it can be very challenging
ProsCons
Technical support not required
Feel confident using
Unnecessarily complex
Difficult to use
Inconsistent
Slow to learn
Lots to learn
  • Booking a room.
  • specific room details
  • gathering info on requester
  • process templates
  • Managing Services
  • Invoicing multiple clients--email or mail merge needed
  • Lack of desktop client for Mac, we access with microsoft remote desktop, constantly freezes up
  • Managing room schedules, you can only manage close times for a building not by room.
Yes, but I don't use it

Accruent EMS Software Reliability

I am concerned about the softwares ability to handle higher traffic as more users start implementing the software. The system does already seem to have slow periods where there is some increased lag time.
it is available when I need it
reports work great but we can't do everything we need to in EMS . We have to use several other softwares to get the info we need. Other integrations are needed. We use this software for a service and not just room scheduling. The ghost rooms are services and this is a horrible way to view the schedule for the say after assigning staff resources

Integrating Accruent EMS Software

Not great since I have a mac
  • Google Calendar
  • 7 points
  • Trello
& points we hired an outside company. Google calendar was a failed integration but was not that complex to set up. Tableau was very complex to set up based on the complications of the back end of the program.
  • Google Calendar
May possibly make a second attempt using Google calendar but not likely the same way- this integration would work more like Master calendar and would need an API writtem.
  • File import/export

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