TEDxAveiro develops a Event Management System in 2 weeks using the free Agile Platform Community Edition

The Challenge:

TEDx was created in the spirit of TED's mission, "ideas worth spreading." The program is designed to give communities, organizations and individuals the opportunity to stimulate dialogue through TED-like global experiences at the local level.

At TEDx events, unique talks given by live speakers combine with TEDTalks videos to spark deep conversation and connections. TEDx events are fully planned and coordinated independently, on a community-by-community basis.

TEDxAveiro,  a non-profit organization, needed a system to manage and control the events it hosted.  The solution they envisioned covered the full cycle of event registration, payment control, ticket generation, name badge printing and access control at the event venue.

However, being a non-profit organization and having no internal IT department, TEDxAveiro faced the challenge of how to build such a system in a timely and cost-efficient manner.

The Solution:

Contisystems, an OutSystems Partner, was selected to develop an online centralized ticketing management system using the free OutSystems Agile Platform Community Edition. Being a multi-disciplinary project, where hardware and software engineering, marketing and organisational procedures had to be joined, the OutSystems Agile Platform was the development platform of choice to enable the agile methodology that was used throughout the entire process for building the online management system, from scratch to the go-live.

Another decisive criterion for choosing the Agile Platform was its "built-to-change" approach, allowing for new requirements and usability suggestions from users to be quickly reflected in the requirements system and put in production.  Finally, the Agile Platform enabled the system to be fully integrated with the existing public site and the tickets and accreditation printing systems.

The system’s main features are:

• Public registration web site, where attendees can register themselves for the event;
• Automatic operations module manages and sends emails for payment procedures, validation and interfaces with the name badge printing system;
• Operations back-office and reporting dashboard to manage the event’s logistics, providing information to support management decision-making based on the registration process data and payment status;
• Online centralized management system for all the event’s staff, with different user profiles and security access;
• Modular design, allowing the system to be re-used for other types of events;
• Integration with other components, namely PDA software for ticket validation and dedicated hardware inside turnstiles.

Results:

TEDxAveiro’s ticketing system was delivered on time and within the small budget available, thanks to OutSystems’ free Agile Platform Community Edition.  At the time of the event, TEDxAveiro had a fully integrated system including a public web site for registration, a complete back office for management and a PDA application for real-time check-in.

The major results TEDxAveiro derived from using the system were:

• Short time-to-market, with the entire project taking only 2 weeks from design to deployment in two agile sprints of 1 week each with only one developer for all modules;
• Easy integrations with external systems, thanks to the OutSystems Agile Platform. A new version is now being planned to integrate with a third-party paying service;
• Rapid adoption of the system by the entire staff, thanks to the quick change cycles enabled by the Agile Platform that allowed for the delivery of a system with the changes that were proposed by the users during each sprint;
• Automated management of the event’s logistics allowing the managers to focus on value-added activities and requiring less people to handle organizing and executing such an event;
• Real-time reporting system, providing information regarding entrances and exits as well as the number of people inside the event venue during the event;
• More effective marketing campaigns, based on the registration data and payment status reported by the system;

About TEDxAveiro:

In the spirit of ideas worth spreading, TED has created a program called TEDx. TEDx is a program of local, self-organized events that bring people together to share a TED-like experience. TEDxAveiro, a community-organized TEDx event, where x stands for ‘independently organized TED event’, TEDTalks video and live speakers are combined to spark deep discussion and connection in a small group. The TED Conference provides general guidance for the TEDx program, but individual TEDx events, including TEDxAveiro’s, are self-organized.

Visit www.tedxaveiro.com for more info.