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  • 1.  New Meeting Request Forms - How to Get Started

    Posted 03-31-2021 11:56

    Hi, everyone! Did you get the chance to check out @Beline Falzon's awesome Tip of the Week on Access Portals last week? If you didn't, be sure to review it and feel free to share your own tips for Access Portals or ask Béline any questions you may have.

    To continue the theme of product solution evolution, as well as strategic meetings management, we wanted to focus on New Meeting Request Forms for this edition of Tip of the Week.

    Getting Started:

    • If you haven't yet added your first meeting request form, navigate to Admin > Meetings Management > Forms > Meeting Request Forms > Create Form to begin.
    • You'll fill out basic details such as the name. What's important here is selecting New Form Designer under "How do you want to create your meeting request form." This will allow you to use the newly enhanced designer rather than the legacy form set-up.
    • Next, you'll have the option to set your Form Statuses. We recommend the first (and default) status to be Submitted. The other common statuses are Approved and Declined.
    • When selecting Update Event and Update RFPs, this depends on your event process lifecycle and approvers. We would recommend setting both of those to Yes so they can update automatically, however this is a strategic step you'll discuss with your team. This can also help you decide if you will require comments or not when a status changes.
    • Lastly, you can set an email alert when a new request is submitted. This often depends on the number of requests and size of organization you are involved in.
      • You can set the alert based on custom fields, email address, even a question – therefore if there are multiple people receiving these requests for different departments/teams/regions/etc., you can ensure they are only getting the request email alerts that are relevant to them.
    • Your form's status visibility is also dependent on your overall strategic meetings management process in Cvent. If you are utilizing Event Roles and User Roles, consider limiting their status visibility by said role.
    • Within Advanced Settings, consider if you are requiring approval or not in your process. If you are, set Automatically create an event: when a request enters the following – Status: Approved. This will save you, or your event builders, time to automatically create it in the Cvent platform once the stakeholder approves the request.

    Designing and Building your Form:

    • If you are familiar with Flex, you will customize your form in a snap. The new Meeting Request Forms follow the same back-end designer that allows you to drag & drop widgets and have a responsive and modern design.
    • Follow the same image and theme guidelines that you are familiar with from Flex.
    • Use both default widgets and customize your question widgets to populate the fields and information your requesters will provide. Keep your wording clear and concise so there is no confusion on either end when filling out or reviewing the form.
    • If you have multiple pages, we'd suggest adding the Progress Bar widget to the top. Everyone loves to know how long a task may take.
    • If you are connecting this process with an event, which you most likely are, be sure to include any or all standard or custom event fields by dropping the Event Field widget onto the canvas. Once you drop the widget, a full list will populate for you to select from. This will include standard fields such as Event Description, high-level estimates for budget, virtual event, and even custom fields from your account.
    • Similar to above, if you are connecting this process with your RFPs, be sure to include any or all RFP fields by dropping the RFP Field widget onto the canvas. Once you drop this widget, a full list will populate for you to select from.
    • If you are connecting with process with your budget in the Cvent platform, include the Budget Estimate widget to collect the total only or detailed amount, as well as in fixed or variable entry type.
    • Limit page visibility if needed by clicking the gear icon next to the page name. Here, you have a toggle to set Limit Page Visibility. If toggled on, you set the criteria by fields/questions and corresponding operators.
    • On the Landing Page, include any instructions for the requester, such as estimated time they will hear back, any follow-up steps that could be required, or even who they will hear from if you have a set approval process.

    Publish to Access Portal:

    • As Béline mentioned in her Tip of the Week post, if you have the enterprise license for Access Portals you are able to publish and manage the process for Meeting Request Forms through the portal. This can be a one-stop shop for any stakeholder or requester to complete all their tasks for your strategic meetings process in one streamlined location.
    • Review this helpful Knowledge Base article in addition to last week's tip for everything you need to know on Access Portals!

    Questions for You:

    • If you migrated from legacy Meeting Request Forms to the new forms, what is your favorite new feature or enhancement?
    • What feedback have you received from colleagues or stakeholders that you found valuable about Meeting Request Forms? Share with your peers here!

     

    Please share any of your own tips, thoughts on the above questions, or new questions you may have on the thread below. #CventTip


    #Flex-Creating/ManagingEvents
    #ExecutingStrategicMeetingsManagement

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    Danni Czark
    Senior Associate, Online Community Marketing
    Cvent
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  • 2.  RE: New Meeting Request Forms - How to Get Started

    User Group Member
    Posted 04-09-2021 14:38
    We don't actually use meeting requests, but all these features sound great!

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    Rachel
    NJ
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  • 3.  RE: New Meeting Request Forms - How to Get Started

    Community MVP
    Posted 04-12-2021 11:03
    This is a great tip sheet - if it's not already in the knowledge base, it should be added! 

    Our event manager, @Michele Gebrayel, has done an AMAZING job of creating an access portal for our internal stakeholders, including a meeting request form. It has streamlined our team's request process so much - including streamlining our event team's creation of events in Cvent, since it auto-populates the requestor's information right into a new event template for us to build out and finalize. ​

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    Lori Wildman
    Senior Marketing Manager
    DuCharme, McMillen & Associates, Inc.
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  • 4.  RE: New Meeting Request Forms - How to Get Started

    Posted 04-13-2021 12:08
    We don't actually use meeting requests, but all these features are very interesting and I may took a look at using these forms instead of Google Forms.

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    Scott Sward
    Global Travel and Events Manager
    Viewpoint, Inc.
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