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  • 1.  Tip of the Week #37: Account Organization

    Posted 01-07-2021 11:21

    Hi, all! We're back with our first Tip of the Week of 2021. A new year brings resolutions and often goals of organization. So, we want to share some go-to steps you can take in your Cvent account to stay organized and start the year strong.

    • Event Custom Views – Did you know you can customize your own event view, so that when you log in you can see your events in the format that is best for you? Whether that be by event planner, region, or including custom fields, you have the option to customize it to your liking and then set it as a default view, so you don't need to repeat those steps again.
      • To do so, click the Create View button next to the Current Events dropdown on your events page. Fill out the basic information such as name, private or public for other users, and past event types to display. Then, the fun part comes. You can choose the fields to display and sort in your preferred order, shortcuts, and event statuses. Lastly, you can set filters to by both standard or custom event fields. Once you save the view, you can then choose to set it as your default. Keep in mind, each user on your account can have their own view, or you can set views for different teams, whatever works best for your organization.
    • Contact Groups – Like any database, your address book likely has gotten quite full if you have been with Cvent for some time or hosted several events through Cvent. Consider cleaning up your address book by using Contact Groups, which allow you to associate contacts to various groups you create, and in turn manage them more efficiently.
      • Within Contacts, simply click on the Contact Groups tab, then Create Contact Group. For general organization, you will choose Standard as the type. There are Distribution and Exclusion lists for other functions. Once the group is created, you can add contacts individually or in bulk through the Contacts list. You can also choose to import these members specifically into a group if there is a large amount. One of the best features is the ability to automatically add registrants to a contact group directly from an event.
        • To do so within your Flex event, access the dropdown menu within the Site Designer > Click the gear icon to the right of the registration path > Scroll to Advanced Settings section > Toggle on 'Add registered invitees to a contact group' and either select an existing group or create one new at that time > Apply and save or publish your changes. Your contact groups can be created and organized in any way that makes sense for you and your team. A few suggestions could be per event, per region, or even per department.    
    • User Roles – A feature that we want to make sure everyone is aware of. When your Cvent account is created, the first user is created as the Administrator. An Administrator has access to all aspects of the Cvent account, and therefore is responsible for adding the other users at that time. Did you know you can control various permissions and features for users by creating User Roles? These can be organized by department, role for your Cvent account such as Event Builder, or in any other way that fits your needs.
      • The administrator can do so within Admin > Manage Users > User Roles > Create User Role. Here, you can enter the name, and then navigate through the creation wizard where you choose the permissions. The permissions can range from account-level and event-level, as well as across other products based on the licenses you have. Now, when you take the step to add your next account user, you can select the User Role from the dropdown. This is great for keeping your account details secure, as well as making sure your users are taking the right actions in your account.

    These are just some of our go-to best practices to keep your account structured. What else have you done either when initially setting up your account or when you were doing some clean-up later on? If there was only one feature you would advise new accounts to use to stay organized, which would it be?

    Let us know below! #CventTip


    #Flex-Creating/ManagingEvents
    #ExecutingStrategicMeetingsManagement

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    Danni Czark
    Senior Associate, Online Community Marketing
    Cvent
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  • 2.  RE: Tip of the Week #37: Account Organization

    Community MVP
    Posted 01-13-2021 09:13
    Good morning Danni,

    these are great suggestions/tips and they make sense (even though we currently don't use Flex) - having key players with specific roles will allow an easier control of the involvement every one should have would be one of the things I'd set up.

    Looking forward to more tips so I can share with our team and hopefully we can adapt this program in the next Fiscal Year

    Andrea

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    Andrea Timbes-Cox
    CRM Administrator & Lead Catcher
    Visit Fort Worth
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  • 3.  RE: Tip of the Week #37: Account Organization

    Posted 01-14-2021 10:12
    These are great Tips. We are just completing our first Flex/VAH event. I agree with everyone that all users should be Cvent Certified. It could be very fustrating to use Cvent if you have not completed training.

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    Scott Sward
    Global Travel and Events Manager
    Viewpoint, Inc.
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  • 4.  RE: Tip of the Week #37: Account Organization

    Community MVP
    Posted 01-13-2021 15:47
    Working for a very large organization and having been the only person certified in Cvent until very recently, let me emphasize that anyone who is going to use their organization's Cvent account needs to FIRST be Cvent Certified!

    We literally had hundreds of custom account-level field, many of them duplicates of fields that already existed in Cvent. And those duplicates messed up the baked-in reporting.

    People fail to understand an Account-level field VS an Event-level field. If you have an event and you need to assign people to a team for that event, make an Event-level custom field, and it will show up in just that event. One example of why Account VS Event level fields need to be understood and why it is mission-critical for anyone working in Cvent needs to be at least base Cvent Event Management certified. 

    I admit that since I have an old programming background, I look at data differently. There are objects in every database (a contact, an event, a session) and all objects have attributes (First Name, Event Name, Session start time) and those attributes THEMSELVES are objects. Keeping unnecessary duplication of fields to a minimum means a clean and easily understood database for reporting on event metrics and ROI.

    Thank you for reading my programming-nerd expostulation on data management!

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    Brenda Ainsburg
    Channel Program Manager
    brenda.ainsburg@siemens.com
    Siemens Aktiengesellschaft
    United States
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  • 5.  RE: Tip of the Week #37: Account Organization

    Posted 01-13-2021 18:56
    So glad to know we haven't been suffering alone, @Brenda Ainsburg! I echo your comments about the importance of Cvent certification to make sure every user in your account has a passing knowledge of how the software works, then you can funnel down into the nuances at your organization. I'm still working on "process guides" for all of our team so that they understand exactly what to enter, where, and why, along with all the corresponding reports that will be most helpful/relevant to that part of the system (e.g. MRF reports, Event Details report, Financials by G/L Code and Item Date). My goal is to make sure any new user has to go through both Cvent formal training and an in-house training that explains all of our processes. The level of certification will unlock more access, although we'll always keep Admin roles limited to a very small, very select number of super users.

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    Stacy Wright, CMP
    Senior Manager, US Congresses & Events
    Galderma Laboratories, L.P..
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  • 6.  RE: Tip of the Week #37: Account Organization

    Posted 01-14-2021 09:21
    I really think just spending time on Cvent and looking into every aspect helps to be more familiar and comfortable with the product.  In regard to User Roles we did not know that you have to click a certain button for users to receive email notifications of webinars and such so one of our new hires was missing out on a lot of great training opportunities.  If you are going to  be an Admin spend some time, get familiar, and make the most of the opportunities Cvent sends out.

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    Ann Starley
    Senior Group Sales Manager
    Macon-Bibb County Convention & Visitors Bureau
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  • 7.  RE: Tip of the Week #37: Account Organization

    Community MVP
    Posted 01-14-2021 13:47
    Interesting tips and comments. As hoteliers the Cvent Certifications is awesome.  Everyone on my team has all available certifications to suppliers.

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    Colleen Beck
    Director of Sales & Marketing
    The Westin Tampa Bay
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