Description
Previously, the UCD Campus campus did not have a centralized events management system, nor did we have a place where folks could go to understand how to schedule various aspects of events on campus. Through research and conversations with campus leadership, we came up with a plan to save energy and increase our effectiveness as customer service providers by expanding our current room scheduling system. We included functionality that would manage ALL aspects of events including HVAC, lighting, housekeeping, electronic access, police security, event setup and parking. The system also has functionality built in to help folks get in touch with the right people at the university to build registration forms for events and market their events through multimedia avenues. Event notices go to our Risk Management group and Grounds crew so that virtually everyone on campus is notified of an event taking place, whether it is big or small. While I initiated this process and championed it through the ranks, many, many people came together to make this possible from Betty Charles and her group in TSS, to Doug Abraham and his crew and all of the people in facilities that touch events on campus.
How Does This Impact the University?
We no longer have to point customers in twelve different directions to schedule events. The site is a one-stop shopping area for all your events needs. A website, which I designed, is scheduled to go live on April 1, 2014. That website will have all the dos and don'ts for a successful event and will cover everything a person needs to know about events on this campus, IN ONE PLACE, regardless of what unit their need falls under. Our Outside Agency constituents will have quicker access to the right documents and the rules that govern events for their agencies. The amount of electricity and energy the campus will save per year (once implemented) is significant, just by installing a plug-in to the already existing system that automatically turns the heating and air conditioning on and off with the scheduling of events and classes in the system. Prior to this implementation, we were doing this manually, by having a person program the system daily for all events.
Implementation Status
The new system went live on January 6, 2014. We are in the process of bringing the Events on Campus website up (target date on April 1, 2014) and the electronic HVAC management module will be in place by the end of the fiscal year. Phase III of this project, which is to bring all conference spaces on the Anschutz and Downtown campuses online in the system, is scheduled to begin July 1, 2014. We have experienced high praise for the new system and events are now running much smoother and more orderly. We are able to track events and gauge staffing and service demand appropriately. Clients are being given better customer service and are able to have all their needs met in a one-stop-shopping fashion.
Submitted by: Layna Breyare, UCD