Overall Satisfaction with EMS Software
Our college has primarily used this to schedule all events and catering in campus. It primarily ran non athletic events, and we are now implementing the EMS course scheduling for the optimizations. A few specific departments really use it, primarily performing arts, and catering. Everyone else on campus uses it but not to its fullest extent and not if they can manage to not use it (no services or publicity required). The Grant and community outreach folks have finally discovered its usefulness for their reporting by principal investigators and for auditing purposes.
- Room optimization
- Parity for all users
- Reporting
- HVAC integration
- Support (recent not past)
- Customization of reports ( crystal or similar)
- I sometimes feel like it would be interesting to get sandboxed versions of other users' really well implemented environments for others to look at. And probe into.
- HVAC interation
- Glance
Evaluating EMS Software and Competitors
- Product Features
- Product Reputation
- Prior Experience with the Product
Our initial purchase of EMS Software was driven by the need to capture revenue. Our previous system of managing spaces and resources was a 4 part carbon copy routed through campus mail. We wanted to be able to easily share in real-time with all departments on campus what spaces were available and or encumbered. We chose EMS for its ability to manage the space, people, and report on all of those things and handle the billing paperwork for our accounting folks.
We believed in the software and its potential so much that we chose to abandon our initial system setup, and invested the time and resources to implement the CPI and revamp our 8 year strong existing business practice and setup of EMS. This process was not easy but the EMS framework and our knowledge of its potential allowed us to reimagine how we used the system and to modernize our classroom assignments through PeopleSoft via the CPI and Optimizer. We ended up with a better system that more effectively meets the needs of our events, rental, academic, and records office users.
Using EMS Software
Pros | Cons |
---|---|
Like to use Relatively simple Easy to use Well integrated Convenient Feel confident using | Slow to learn |
- Copying previous years reservations to new dates
- Changing Dates or Times using the Wizard Features
- Creating complex reservations through the Client application
- Importing Large reservations using Tab Delimited files
- Customizing reports from stock reports to fit user process needs
- Integrating Campus solutions with People Soft for Academic Planning.
Yes, but I don't use it