Easy to use conference app, decent support, but lacking features if you are looking for an Educational platform.
October 13, 2020

Easy to use conference app, decent support, but lacking features if you are looking for an Educational platform.

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

Overall Satisfaction with Whova

We are using Whova as a conference platform, where attendees view state approved sessions in order to satisfy their Continuing Education (CE) requirements for licensing renewals for substance use disorder professionals. We must be able to track attendees' attendance and time attended in order for them to earn CE hours.

Pros

  • Ease of use.
  • Chat support is very good.
  • Reasonably priced.
  • Both desktop and mobile apps.

Cons

  • Missing functionality: cannot automatically issue CE certificates.
  • Missing functionality: must generate a large report and filter out to see who has viewed which sessions and for how long. Also, the attendees themselves cannot see what they have or haven't viewed so they are continuously requesting this report, which we have to filter each and every time.
  • I worry about the accuracy of the report and when I expressed my issues I was told someone would get back to me, but they never did. I had several attendees who viewed sessions that did not show up on the report.
  • Whova has an "Organizer" app where meeting organizers can ask questions and give each other advice. Once I entered the above info, I was immediately blocked from the organizer app and no longer had any access whatsoever.
  • Also, we have to create a separate CE certificate for each and every attendee. Very time consuming and we are unsure of the attendance report accuracy. Makes us look incompetent.
  • Overall I like Whova but this is currently not a great fit for companies that need to track for continuing education. It is missing key features. We would use it again if we didn't have to track attendees' time and attendance. It falls short on those features and therefore becomes very time consuming. Also, we could not be assured that Whova is working in the direction to have these features in the future.
  • Attendees like the app, and generally it is very user friendly.
  • Whova is fairly inexpensive compared to other platforms, but be aware there are several costs that can get added along the way, such as if you have over 10 attachments, each attachment is +$30. Every 5G of storage is another $50, each sponsor you add is $50, etc.
  • We are very disappointed in the way we have to view attendance through an export of all attendees and all sessions (lots of data to manipulate), that we have to create our own CE certificates, and that attendees cannot view when they have completed a session.
We selected Whova for price, and ease of use. We would have chosen GoToWebinar but they did not have as many options for sponsor recognition. We will most likely use Event Rebels in the future for our needs. Tracking time and sessions viewed is a must for our industry as attendees rely on us to earn CEs to renew their licensing.
They are quick to respond and very helpful, except when something goes wrong and they have to ask the tech team. We never heard back from them afterwards in those cases. Perhaps it is just because they don't have the answer, but we would rather they just admit that than ignore the question.
Whova is quite user friendly, and helpful for the conference planner. It has features such as sample emails to attendees and import abilities if you have your sessions on a spreadsheet to avoid having to enter each session manually. Another thing we didn't like was the inability to allow attendees to enter a pre-recorded session only when it is scheduled to be presented. It's either all pre-recorded can be viewed once the conference opens, or none.

Do you think Whova delivers good value for the price?

Yes

Are you happy with Whova's feature set?

No

Did Whova live up to sales and marketing promises?

No

Did implementation of Whova go as expected?

Yes

Would you buy Whova again?

No

Whova does a great job as long as you don't have to track time and attendance. I would recommend to others for ease of use and features that help simplify the conference planner's workload. I was really excited about Whova and how easy it was to create a conference. However, it falls short as a CE issuing platform. If they would work on adding those features, I would consider using them again.

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