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Innovative Use of the Platform: Streamline Event Registration With Nationwide Children’s Hospital’s Annual Research Retreat

Published November 29, 2016 in Leadership

Event registration and awards or abstracts program organization rarely occur on the same platform. Unfortunately, this forces many organizations to request the same information from entrants or those who submit abstracts twice. More unfortunate is how storing information in separate places leads to an unorganized, overly-complicated program.

Nationwide Children’s Hospital eliminated these common frustrations by relying on OpenWater for both their abstracts program and event registration needs. The result is a single workflow that supports all necessary functions and centralizes information on one website.

Read on to see how their annual Research Retreat came together.

Registration, Made Simple

If there’s one monotonous task users dislike, it’s entering the same data twice. For events, this would mean entering information once to submit an entry or abstract and then again to attend the event.

With OpenWater, all information is required only once. The software is also intelligent enough to display only relevant questions to those who are (1) Attending only and (2) Both submitting an entry and attending.

Here, you can see that because this applicant registered as both an attendee and someone submitting an application, they are prompted to fill out additional information after entering their name, department, email address, and dietary restrictions.

Showcase and Market Your Program With OpenWater

While event registration is primarily about gathering information to organize your conference, it’s important to market your event and generate excitement as well.

OpenWater allows you to create a website that showcases applications with a gallery and utilize scheduling features to organize each presentation as part of the event. This keeps everything in one, easy-to-manage location where you can generate reports, analyze data, and publicize the event.

You can include essential information on the website as well. This may include directions, parking instructions, and a map of the building to prevent any potential confusion.

Many organizations, Nationwide Children’s Hospital included, also publish an agenda so attendees are prepared for what’s to come upon arriving at the conference.

You’re Already on OpenWater. Why Not Use it for Event Registration as Well?

If you’re already relying on OpenWater to organize your awards or abstracts program, why not use it for event registration as well?

Getting started is simple, as you’ll see in our TED spotlight on the same feature. Click here to see how TED followed a similar process and a step-by-step guide on how to get started on your own event registration!

Kunal Johar

Kunal Johar is the OpenWater platform evangelist. He currently manages our development teams and enjoys diving into the fray. Find him in our community chat room.

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