A newly released survey conducted by the leading provider of event safes asked UK based event managers the fact that was their preferred tool for managing and planning their events. The most typical tool certainly was event keeper with 67% in the votes. Coming second and third were spreadsheets and 'other' respectively.
Spreadsheets can be a tried and tested strategy for managing events - they are able to track budgets, monitor resources and could be a good way of making and managing lists. The advantage of spreadsheets being an event management tool will be the low priced connected with them. The majority of event managers gain access to spreadsheets and they're a widely accepted document format.
However, you can find a large number of drawbacks if event managers choose spreadsheets his or her top level management tool. Common issues include:
Poor efficiency: Using spreadsheets is very little extremely powerful way of managing all the elements of a meeting. It's quite possible that event managers is going to be using numerous spreadsheets, all with a large number of tabs, holding so much data. Managing all of this data within spreadsheets may be confusing to a outsider, and time consuming for many users.
Lost data: Spreadsheets are only as safe since the server/system they lay on. If they are maintained a pc hard disk drive, there's a risk that the information is going to be lost however transpires with that computer or laptop. Spreadsheets will also be susceptible to freezing/stalling and unless the event manager is familiar with conserving regularly, there's a risky that data and work will probably be lost.
Trouble keeping data up-to-date: Many events have multiple event managers, all using the same spreadsheets to organise and plan various areas. Problems arise when managers update spreadsheets without informing the other event mangers that the spreadsheet changed. If event managers take a copy with the master spreadsheet and work on that, the actual soon becomes outdated. There are also issues when more than one event manger has to access the spreadsheet concurrently. Only 1 editable copy can be opened, inducing the others being 'read only' - taking out the capacity to make updates.
Hard to create reports to determine success: An integral a part of event management may be the power to analyse event success. It is essential to have the capability to know what is really a particular event successful along with what should be measured as a way to analyse event performance. Using spreadsheets makes this a difficult job. Although creating graphs and charts can be easy on spreadsheets, the amalgamation and sorting with the data can be an extremely complicated and time-consuming task. It is quite often necessity that after using spreadsheets, the game of measuring event performance is forgotten or dismissed.
Deficiency of management information: Much like the problem in creating reports to analyse performance, there's also a deficiency of management information overall. For companies organising many events a year it is advisable to have the ability to have a clear picture of such events in general; understanding delegate numbers, budgets along with other KPI's across all events may help shape event strategy down the road.
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