Thursday 29th June 2023

External Consultant led vs USI lead product review of Momentus

Barry: Ungerboeck BPO report received September, started to implement in January. We received 86 recommendations, getting quite a lot out of it. Hoping to have much of it completed by August. Also introducing SharePoint and interested in how it might integrate.
Lee: Do you all find Ungerboeck better and suggesting process and best practices?
Group stated focus was “here are ways to do it, but not the best way”.
Jo/Mark: There was a recent webinar from Momentus where it sounds like they may be changing direction a bit to be more focused on giving best practices.
Mark: We sometimes have to remind ourselves how much of our revenue comes through Ungerboeck, and are we investing enough?
Kris: Did a BPO. Found it quite hard to get the users to change. Quick wins worked well. Ungerboeck were also trying to sell some new modules as part of it. Another venue had a BPO about 12 months ago - similar output (focus on selling new modules). Was run for 3 or 4 days.
Alex: In the 3rd year of BPO, but not using Ungerboeck for it.
James: Is anyone still using the community forum?
Some of the group confirmed they still do

Premium Support - is it worth it, do USI fix things quicker?

Jason: We take the additional support package and find the additional training material worthwhile, along with a quick line to the support team. Ungerboeck also did a 2 day session.
Kris: Tried to offer us the additional support package. They have since taken on a Customer Success Manager. They have one at another venue too, but I don’t think it’s worthwhile.
Large quantity of the group have access to a Customer Success Manager
James: The free training clawed our money back just from that.
Barry: Maybe able to try a module out FOC? I think there are also some discounts when buying additional modules?
Jo/Mark: It sounds around the table that it’s worthwhile for smaller or newer companies with less knowledge/dedicated resource.
James/Jason: Our call every 2 weeks is usually a mention that a new version is coming out, do you want us to upgrade your test? and maybe a mention of open tickets.
Eddi: Having taken over from John, it was really good having Momentus identifying bugs when we were looking at the 99B upgrade.

Upgrades

Kris: Has anyone found any issues with upgrades? It seems like Ungerboeck QA may have dropped?
Jo: Also a bit of a worry when they start automatically upgrading.
Kris/Jo: We had issues with fairly major pieces of functionality.
Lee: Sometimes the time taken testing and you won’t find a bug, may be best saved to implement a workaround if a bug is found after going live. Have to balance the time/benefit.
Mark: It doesn’t take much for users to get frustrated with the software, so we do have to be careful.

Add on Modules

Who is using what, what business challenge is it solving are they good value for money?

Sarah: We nearly took on suite management. Invested a fair bit in it, but it didn’t quite deliver.
Mark: The challenge is that you need to have the spaces booked.
Kris: Tickett built a custom solution
Barry: There are different tiers?
Lee: You can see the details by hitting your Ungerboeck URL /api/help.
Barry: We’re looking at SharePoint integration.
Lee: We built a small integration just to get event information into SharePoint and another to get event information into the digital signage system.
Kris: Is anyone using AP Automation? I know of one venue using it, but it’s pretty rough. It scans invoices and matches PO’s etc.

Online orders

• Orders on the day – How are these managed in your venue?
• Gala dinners – Live orders during the event (Order at the table via QR code).

Jo: How do you deal with on the day orders?
Alex: We have tablets on the floor.
Sarah: Do you only use ESC for Exhibitors?
Jo: We also used it for fringe events. The terminology was a bit off, but by using different dictionaries we were able to make it work (switch “booth” to “table” etc). We also use it for gala dinners.
Kris: You can have some custom URLs for events when you maybe don’t want to include AV or Furniture etc.
James: Do you manage stock in Ungerboeck?
Jo: No, we use some external and some in-house. We just edit the sellable option/navigation menus the day before.
Kris: On the day they use an app which is a different POS platform? Fed back to Ungerboeck maybe at the end of the day?
Eddi: We sell connectivity using ESC, it works well.

Sales Goals

Does anyone use Ungerboeck sales goals?

Mark: We wanted to monitor number of calls, outgoing, appointments and have more targets. Think it maybe only worked for individuals, maybe not by departments? Also the more advanced dashboard reporting gives more power now.
Jo: We use User Defined Fields and have been able to create charts/dashboards using it.

Payment portal

Mark: How do you get payment?
Alex: We have a link on invoice 3rd party
Mark: We have a similar configuration
Lee: Wonder what payment gateways it supports?
Mark: Think it’s stripe?

Power BI

Lee: While Crystal Reports still useful for bits like invoices, not really strong for BI. While some are using SSRS, this has been pretty much abandoned by Microsoft. Began moving towards reporting using Power BI, as this is up to date and allows for a large range of data source compatibility, which can then be utilised together.
Mark: We use Crystal for things like function sheets (real time). We use SSRS for data which combines with ticket data from other sources. We use Power BI with cached data, which is much quicker and visual, but slightly out of date. It has some drag and drop functionality and overall more user friendly.
Mark: As Ungerboeck have gone down the SaaS route, they are going to have to come up with a better reporting solution.
Barry: Will be talking about it at some point.
Alex: We have it, our CEO even has it on his phone.
Alex: We had the problem Lee described where we tried to expose the data to our finance team, but they struggle to self serve for reporting. We even pull weather, visitor numbers.
Mark: Hard when you have multiple sources of truth.

Contract Module

Managing changes to the bookings, adding more space or days after the original contract has been signed.

Eddi: If someone makes a change (like adding an extra day/item) it’s quite a long winded process.
Kris/Jo: Contract addendums. We put all the space and catering on the contract. But then things go up. Finance likes to keep things clean and create separate invoices for individuals.
Tara: Can you add multiple contracts to the same event.
Kris/Jo: Yes, you have to be careful to take out anything you haven’t contracted that you don’t want on the new contract (it assumes you want everything added).
Lee: Think it might be venues with fewer big events use it. Those with lots of smaller events don’t.
Mark: We just use a contract report, which essentially does the same thing.
Kris: We use Docusign.

Automating Administration

With a large number of small ‘events’ each year producing loads of invoices/contracts etc. who has some great time saving tips and tricks?

Mark: We’ve experimented with JotForm for customers to fill in “web forms”, which we can import back into the system. We’re thinking about how we can maybe get delegate lists, dietary requirements etc. Anyone with any ideas?
James: Is that what the EPP is meant to be?
Barry: One of the key requirements is for prompting the client. Automated e-mails when actions need to be completed. Notifications when actions hasn’t been done when it should etc.
Mark: Do you use checklists for your internal teams for their processes?
Kris: It’s a bit all or nothing
Dan/Alex: We just communicate with the event organiser. I don’t think we get delegate lists.

Enquiry Management Recording of enquiry details where you aren’t ready to create an event – i.e. vague details/multiple dates. What functionality does everyone use to store enquiry details in the system? If at all. Does anyone still use opportunities for this?

Alex: Isn’t that what opportunities for?
Sarah: Our sales people didn’t like it.
Dan: Ours didn’t either, but Alex managed to persuade them.
Lee: You can’t put the spaces in.
Kris: You could use UDF’s with dropdowns.
Jo: We use events, we can use event profiles pre-filled etc.
Sarah: We do similar, use an enquiry status.
Jo: We just use opportunities to record events happening elsewhere that we might be able to pickup.
Louisa: We turn some away, but don’t capture them because we could never handle them.
Mark: You could have an opportunity type or turnaway reason, but it boils down to whether people will put in the effort.

Customer Web Forms

Mark: Does anyone use them?
Jo: We do internally.
Lee: There is a bit of an issue with duplication.
Kris: Our FMT team used it to “clock in and out”. It’s a great way to get data in/out.

Friday 30th June 2023

Momentus Core Values: Passion, Speed, Focus, Innovation and Humility.

Jason: Will we be seeing more face to face, site visits. Remote tends to involve a meeting then waiting 2 weeks for follow up etc.
Jo: Will we get to choose when we update?
Momentus: Yes. You can opt-in to automatic updates, but not forcing. Ideally, we’ll get everyone on the same version (standard SaaS approach).
Lee: Community on the radar? And openness? No Response

Momentus: No more Unite Conference. Being replaced with the “Worldwide Innovation Lab”. Let your account manager/BSM know if you want to be a part of it. It’s about discussion integrations/upcoming technologies etc? Also introducing the Momentus Innovation Summit. Want to be involved with promoting and organizing the agenda etc. of future user groups.

Event Planning Portal

James: What happens if a task due date passes?
Momentus: The task can no longer be completed. The customer would need to use the message feature.
James: How does access work? If we want to give certain people access to certain parts (e.g. the schedule but not bills).
Momentus: Yes, you can configure it at a low level.
James: Can you have a template for new events with standard documents etc.
Momentus: Yes.
Kris: When you copy an event can you select to copy the EPP config.
Momentus: Yes.
Kris: Will customer get e-mail notification when you send them a message
Momentus: Yes, if you configure it that way.