The Abbotsford Police Department (APD) provides policing and community protection to the City of Abbotsford, located just outside Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada. They have over 200 sworn officers, 100 civilian staff, and 80 volunteers that serve a population of 140,000 residents. Their mission is to make Abbotsford the safest city in BC.
Challenge
The APD Administrative staff coordinate dozens of mandatory training events and optional social and educational activities for sworn officers, civilian staff, and volunteers to participate in. Administrators manage hundreds of registrations every year.
One person tracked event registrations manually using a combination of paper-based sign-up sheets and an Excel spreadsheet. That inefficient system required a large amount of time to manage and maintain.
APD wanted a digital event management solution that would:
- allow multiple administrators to announce events,
- share event information, and
- manage event registrations through their existing intranet website.
The intranet site is a secure, central hub where all staff go to locate and access corporate information.
They did not want a complex solution with custom code that would require them to hire a development expert to manage, maintain, and modify the system.
Solution
Regroove built an integrated event management and registration solution. The system integrates into their existing SharePoint intranet seamlessly.
Staff can now perform their own event registrations and cancellations. They no longer have to rely on the event organizer to be available.
Event organizers invest significantly less time coordinating registrations, managing wait lists, and communicating event information with registrants.
Here’s how it works:
After an admin publishes an event with multiple date and time options, the staff can:
- See all upcoming events in their intranet event calendar.
- See all possible dates and times for each event in a calendar or list layout.
- Register themselves for an event time slot or put themselves on a wait list.
- Withdraw themselves from a time slot if their availability changes.
- Receive system notifications when an event they are wait-listed for has an open seat.
- Sign up for notification alerts for new events that are added to the calendar.
- Look up their own registration history to see which voluntary events they have attended in the past.
Outcome and Benefits
Automating the process eliminated wait times, increased event attendance, and reduced the volume of “back and forth” email communications between registrants and event organizers to request event registration changes.
Admins no longer need paper sign-up sheets. People power has also been reclaimed and invested back into the organization.
The system captures registration data for all voluntary events. Management can analyse registration data to determine which events are most popular.
The APD IT Department can manage and maintain the Event Registration system in-house because the solution was built in their existing SharePoint environment. They can also modify the system in-house as their business requirements evolve because the solution uses minimal code.
The decision to not purchase a third-party solution with a recurring annual subscription means the APD IT budget can be used for other strategic, mission-critical initiatives.
Screenshots:
This solution was build using:
- Microsoft SharePoint