Here’s how it happened.
Before FMX, Otterbein University had different building representatives each responsible for organizing their own calendar for their building. If events took place in multiple buildings, event organizers had to coordinate with multiple people across campus. This made organizing events a timely and complicated process.
Otterbein needed a campus-wide scheduling system that was more streamlined and easy to use for both requesters and approvers. To do this successfully, the scheduling system needed to integrate with classroom schedules from the registrar’s office to ensure accurate space availability. The goal was to allow every single room and space on campus to live in one system. They also wanted a University-wide activity calendar for students and faculty.
With FMX, Otterbein was able to achieve this.
Challenges
One of the biggest challenges Otterbein faced was finding a system to house the substantial number of spaces they had on campus. Across campus, there are hundreds of spaces. Each building had conference rooms, classrooms, and some had auditoriums, art galleries, or outdoor patios, all of which needed to be captured in an event scheduling system.
Matthew O’Dyly, Director of Events and Conferences at Otterbein University, knew implementing FMX would be a culture change for the University. However, Otterbein quickly realized the benefits that FMX could bring: increased security on campus and reduced risk through increased availability. FMX also gives the Otterbein Police Department visibility and insight into each event on campus through weekly reports.
FMX: The Solution
With FMX, it is easy for students to submit event requests. Students are able to use their Office 365 University log-in through Single Sign On to access FMX. This means student groups, student leaders, faculty members, and admins can submit requests through FMX.
Otterbein utilizes configurable request forms to ensure they are able to capture all the information for each event. This ensures that different teams are looped in if an event needs food service, AV assistance, or if alcohol will be served at the event.
Outside community members are also able to submit event requests, and those that know the campus well are able to seamlessly find the correct event space they need by using Reservation Finder. Requests can search for spaces by event time, capacity, resources needed, and more.
With the Public Facing calendar, not every event in FMX is shown — and that’s a good thing. Event Requesters are able to decide if they would like events to be advertised on the University-wide calendar or just saved within FMX.
Results and Benefits
Otterbein has been able to streamline the scheduling process on campus for events. Last year alone, 57,000 events were held on campus and added to FMX.
Not only did FMX increase safety on campus, Matthew also knew this University-wide calendar would act as great publicity for the university to showcase all the events taking place outside of classes. Current and new students are able to quickly view upcoming events on campus and plan to attend these, encouraging student involvement on campus.
Because the FMX University calendar filterable, viewers can quickly find the events relevant to them. They can sort by building, event type, and more. Different student organizations on campus can use the embedded link and the filtered view to showcase only their events on campus.
With their Banner integration, class schedules are automatically imported into FMX and rooms are blocked off during class times so events cannot be scheduled. This helps avoid double-booking and makes the search of available spaces much easier for event requestors.
