Facilities Management| News

Facility Scheduling Software Adds Social Network Tweaks

• By Dian Schaffhauser
• 01/24/11

A facility scheduling application in use widely by colleges and universities has been updated. Version 3 of Event Management Systems (EMS) from Dean Evans & Associates includes a new function that allows users to share calendar events on social networking sites.

According to Bryan Peck, head of the higher education team, "If there's a lecture from a visiting professor, and it looks interesting, [the user] can click on it on the calendar and they'll see an option to tweet about it or send it to a Facebook page."

The new version also automates some steps in the process of synchronizing courses in a student information system (SIS) with the scheduling of space for those courses. "Before, it was a kind of manual process," Peck said. Users would have to manually choose to bring across course changes made in the SIS, creating a lag between the two steps. Now, that has been streamlined to work automatically with all major student information systems.

The latest release also offers more user flexibility in specifying a space on campus for a given event or course, Peck said. For example, now a user can designate not just a first choice, but a second and third preferred choice as well. The software will take those preferences into account as it automatically finds a room for that event.

"This release will definitely be a crowd pleaser," he added. "It includes many enhancements that our customers have requested, like the ability to divide charges across billing reference numbers, greater Web browser access, and e-mail notifications with links that make it easy for end users to cancel or reconfirm their event."

Current customers can download the new version of EMS on the company's Web site.