Succeeding in events means staying ahead and embracing technology that simplifies complexity and makes management smoother. Clock’s latest offering introduces an advanced, fully integrated functionality for managing Meetings, Incentives, Conferences, and Exhibitions (MICE).
Let’s explore the exciting new features and improvements that make arranging events smoother and more intuitive.
Why upgrade Sales and Events to a new version
More hoteliers are looking for powerful and integrated event management capabilities. A new version of the Sales and Events functionality is born by popular demand and specific needs from our valued customers. Leaders at busy event properties expressed the need for more productive and flexible system interaction, which helped shape the upgrade to allow faster and easier event creation and modification. The new tools are made for flexibility to keep pace with the ever-changing nature of event planning.
The new interface is more compact, offering a single-glance view of event statuses and streamlined navigation, removing the need to switch screens or navigate multiple system layers.
To give you better availability control, it has integrated a more unified view of meeting rooms, hotel rooms, and restaurant seats – focusing on the number of attendees (PAX) and the seating style directly influencing capacity and availability.
The main goals during development were to:
- Enhance flexibility and speed in creating and editing events.
- Improve the integrated view and availability search for all venue types in a single, streamlined process.
- Significantly advance how to handle delegate packages, integrating charge posting and availability searching during event creation.
- Optimise guest communications through integrated workflows for sending proposals and contracts directly from the system, centralising guest communications.
- Enhance internal coordination and automate event organisation and handling processes further.
Continued core features excellence
- Improved Function Sheets and Customised Banqueting Event Proposals (BEO): Essential for careful planning and execution, ensuring every detail is accounted for to simplify event organisation, preparation, and handling.
- Enhanced Communication Capabilities: Enable clear and timely email interactions with guests, crucial for event success, supporting superior guest communication.
- Integrated ToDos Functionality: Enhanced for better staff collaboration; attachable to the event, its folio, each meeting room booking, or any activity. Assignable to any team member or department, offering live updates and a more flexible approach than static function sheets to improve responsiveness and coordination.
- Agreement signature app: Simplify the signing process by sending electronic signature requests to confirm the agreement with the possibility for the event organiser to pay deposits with a credit card.
- Credit card On Record: Streamline billing and collection of the deposits and final payments by securely storing the event organiser’s card on record for one-click payments.
- Multiple Event Folios and Deposits: Create and transfer charges to multiple event folios, manage deposits and payments, and invoice different payers depending on the arrangements with the organiser.
Enhanced Activity Calendar
The cornerstone of the new Sales and Events functionality is the revamped Activity Calendar. This tool integrates the availability of meeting rooms, restaurants, and hotel accommodations into a single, seamless interface. With it, event planners can make informed decisions quickly, enhancing their ability to sell and manage events.
Key Features:
- Interactive Controls: Easily create, move, and edit events within the calendar.
- Multiple Views: Choose from hour-by-hour details, activity-based, half-day, or daily summaries to match your planning needs.
- Advanced Suggestions: Suggest venues or restaurants based on requested guest capacities (PAX) and seating styles, ensuring each event perfectly suits your space and client requirements.
Event Templates
Event Templates is a feature that allows you to package and price various reservations and catering into one cohesive bundle. One click lets you create multiple bookings, applying charges associated with each component automatically.
Key Features:
- Template-Based Booking: Streamline the process of booking spaces and services with predefined templates that consider venue availability and guest numbers.
- Customisable Charges: Set specific prices within each template, ensuring consistent and accurate billing
- Automated Booking Allocation: The solution will automatically allocate suitable meeting rooms and restaurants based on the event PAX and requested seating style.
Setup or Seating Styles
Tailor your event space with the new seating style feature to meet specific requirements. The system automatically adjusts search results and suggestions based on room capacities for the selected configuration, whether a classroom, U-shape or any other setup. This ensures that you always find the most suitable meeting room that matches your criteria for the number of attendees (PAX) and the requested seating style.
Automation of Event Changes
Change is a constant in event management, and the new functionality addresses this by automating the adjustments needed when event details evolve. Whether it's a change in the guest count, event period, or cancellation, Clock’s Sales and Events functionality ensures smooth transitions and updates.
Key Features:
- Guest Number Adjustments: Easily modify the number of attendees for an event or specific activities, automatically updating related charges.
- Flexible Event Rescheduling: Move, extend, or shorten events with automatic updates to all associated activities and bookings.
User Interface Enhancements
In response to feedback from valued partners, Clock introduces a new series of user interface improvements designed to enhance ease of use and efficiency.
New Features Include:
- All-in-One Event View: Experience a consolidated view of everything important, including block pickup reports, activities, folios, and to-dos, easily accessible in one user-friendly layout.
- In-Line Edits: Update details directly within the main event screen without navigating to different screens or dealing with multiple pop-ups.
- Revamped Activities Views: Explore a newly designed view of activities allowing quicker, more intuitive interaction and management.
Documents and Emails Redefined
Documents and email handling are overhauled to boost flexibility and connectivity. You can now generate, edit, and send communications directly from the event management screen — streamlining your workflow and reducing the need for multiple tools.
Vote for improvement areas
Big things are coming with future Sales and Events enhancements planned, reducing administrative burdens and improving conversion rates further. Our experts identified three areas for improvement but need your help to decide on the best focus area.
Identified improvement areas:
- Web Booking Engine for Meeting Rooms: A user-friendly online guest front-end for event organisers to book or initiate booking of meeting rooms and event options, significantly easing administrative tasks and boosting conversion for simpler events.
- Automated Routing Rules: Enable sales staff to set rules for automatically allocating different event-related charges to predefined folios, reducing errors and manual workload.
- New Sales-Related Statuses: The current event and block statuses (optional, non-confirmed, guaranteed) tell the system whether to deduct the booked spaces from the availability. However, they cannot help sales teams track and manage the commercial aspects. We plan to introduce sales-related statuses to operate alongside the current occupancy-related statuses, focusing more on managing the sales status and helping sales teams better overview their sales pipeline.
Summary
Clock’s new integrated functionality for Sales and Events management is designed to empower event professionals by providing a comprehensive, intuitive, and adaptive tool to the complex needs of event planning. From the enhanced Activity Calendar to the innovative Event Templates and the automation of crucial changes, every aspect has been crafted to enhance operational efficiency and elevate the client experience.
Explore these new features and how they can transform your event management strategy, ensuring that every event is planned and perfectly orchestrated to exceed expectations.
All Clock users with a valid subscription for the Sales and Events features will receive the new functionality without any further fees.
Feel free to check more detailed product articles in our support section or contact us to request training and support in onboarding the new features.
Want to learn more or get help with using the new Sales and Events features?
