The Challenge

Stanford Alumni Association's two key events during the year put a heavy load on their existing Events Management web tool, which would sometimes crash the server, leading to anxiety and frustration during peak activity. In addition, they needed better methods for keeping track of staff members' hours, and to have a more robust role based system for administering the site.

The Solution

After reviewing existing web-based CMS and event management tools, SolutionSet determined that a custom written architecture specifically tailored for the needs of the Stanford Alumni Association would better meet their needs during peak event activity. A cleaner, more simplified user interface was added to the end-user site. Administrators of the site got a much more robust and refined set of reporting tools, including AJAX forms that improve user experience by giving the ability to export queries to Excel, email staff quickly and easily, and refine the quality of report results. In addition, varying level of site administrators are able to login, view and edit the events and shifts that they are assigned. The ability to search for, and manage staff members' was added, as well as, the ability to create, edit and clone events and shifts within those events.

The Result

• Established a stable web infrastructure for peak event activity
• Improved both admin and end-user experience with simple, clean, consistent user interface
• Better administrative ability to find users, and determine staffing hour requirements via reports
• Increased number of events that the improved Event Management web tool is used for