Corbin Ball saw the announcement that Certain Registration and Pathable have integrated our online registration system with their event social networking application. Professional event planners can now use the information they collect in the online event registration process to populate attendees' profiles in the social networking tool. Attendees can then use Pathable to make connections before or during the event.
Much of the credit for this project goes to Brett Weigl, who led the partnership arrangement, and Ryan Manville and Dustin Chesterman, the two developers who built our Web Services API that allowed this to happen so quickly.
To me, the biggest news is that this project proved the value of our expanded Web Services API – without this it would have been too expensive and taken too long to even try this kind of mash-up. Look for more of this from Certain Software as we expand our API and adopt APEX and OTA standards.
There are some catches, however. Single sign-on means that when the attendee has logged into one system, they get access to the other. So you have to be sure that the system they are logging into meets the security requirements of both applications. For example, it would not be wise to allow a simple sign on to the registration form, e.g. using only the Registration Code or Name, because then SSO would bypass the security requirements of the Travel system.
The RESX online travel reservation tool has a single sign on (SSO) capability that Certain Registration will use to integrate our online event registration forms with the online travel reservation application used by many corporate meeting planners.
RESX's SSO system uses both a timestamp and access key to ensure secure integration. Not only would a malicious user need to learn how to generate the security parameter from the unique access key, they would have to re-learn this repeatedly and instantly as the current date and time is encoded in the constantly-changing security parameter. Such a combination of timestamp plus access key helps us guarantee that the person who registered for the event in Certain Registration is the same person who is accessing the RESX online travel reservation system via a single convenient hyperlink.
GetThere has SSO services for user authentication, and the modification or addition of user profiles. Certain will allow corporate meeting planners to connect their online event registration forms to the GetThere online travel booking application via secure, tightly integrated single sign on.
We are releasing Certain Registration version 4.25 today with integration between our online registration application and the Global Distribution Systems via the TRX ResX corporate travel booking tool. I had to postpone delivery of a last-minute design issue, as I discussed in yesterday's post.
In most cases, attendees will register online for the event and then book their travel reservation to arrive in the event's airport on the default arrival date and depart from the same airport on the event's final date.
Some travellers may need to piece together two separate tickets around their event. For example, I might book a round-trip from home to the event, then later discover that I need to visit a client after the event. It may be cheaper to simply lose the second half of the original ticket and create a new ticket that originates at the event, goes to the client site, and then brings me back home.
Since Certain Registration only stores one travel reservation per event registration, we could not keep records of both the original reservation and the new, overlapping reservation. The issue exposed itself too late in the release cycle to be changed with our version launched today.
So the solution will wait for the next release, which will also include integration with Sabre and GetThere. We will only store the earliest non-cancelled trip reservation within Certain. In the odd situation described above, the planner will need to manually update the event departure trip information if that is of consequence to their departure manifests.
We also want to gather feedback from other meeting and event planning professionals. If you're not currently a Certain Software customer, please take a few minutes to tell us what a successful meeting and event planning application needs to offer for you to consider purchasing it. We'll reward the 25th, 50th, and 100th respondents with a $25 iTunes giftcard!
Click Here to Start Obligation-Free Survey
We plan to release Certain Registration version 4.25 tomorrow with integration between our online registration application and the Global Distribution Systems via the TRX ResX corporate travel booking tool. Today I had to address one of those last-minute design issues that always slip through to the end.
In most cases, attendees will register online for the event and then book their travel reservation to arrive in the event's airport on the default arrival date and depart from the same airport on the event's final date. A few travellers, however, will encounter "special" situations. One we had to deal with today was when the attendee books their travel, then Certain synchronizes the online registration data with the travel information, then the attendee cancels the reservation and creates a new reservation. Since Certain only stores one travel reservation per event registration, we could not keep records of both the cancelled reservation and the new ticketed reservation.
The solution was to remove the reference to the cancelled trip and replace it with the new ticketed travel.
One topic we've been particularly interested in is online registration for "simple events". Clearly, not every event registration process requires complex information; indeed, many could do with a very simple application to collect attendee data.
Meeting planners have typically chosen Certain because of our professional-grade online registration and event data reporting tools. With Certain's forms, you can tailor the online registration experience to each attendee type with a high degree of accuracy, allowing you to deliver value and personalization to your clients.
However, some events really just require some contact information, an RSVP, and perhaps dietary and special assistance questions.
We're currently designing new features that will allow our customers to build online registration for their meetings and events in two ways: one, our traditional route, and two, a "Simple Event Mode", that will facilitate creation of the event details, form, and online registration experience in one easy process that takes 5 minutes.
I'm interested to hear what you consider "simple." If you want to set up an online registration form in your meetings management software, what is an absolute must-have on the registration form if you are advertising a simple event. Feel free to either comment on this page, or else email features@certain.com with your opinions.
Thanks
Brett
We're seeking a few early adopter customers who are willing to implement Certain Sourcing in their organizations on a trial basis; the software will be available to you through December 31, 2009, for up to 3 users, should you join up. The only thing we ask is that you participate in 3 web conferenced feedback calls, so that we can gather information about the value the application provides to real planners who use Certain Sourcing to streamline their site selection, RFP, and meetings management workflow.
To participate, please email me at bweigl@certain.com for more information.
In addition to providing tools that help you match the best site to each meeting, Certain Sourcing will integrate with Certain Meetings, allowing your team to implement a strategic meetings management program coupled with best-practice supplier negotiation tools. Together, we believe Certain Meetings and Sourcing together offer significant opportunities for ROI and time savings for enterprise meeting planners.
Follow this blog for more news about our Certain Sourcing launch. Also, feel free to follow me and the Certain team on Twitter for more up-to-date announcements about Certain's solutions for strategic meetings management.
After version 4.25 of Certain Registration launches this week, we will have the ability to integrate our online registration application with any Global Distribution System through the TRX ResX online travel booking tool.
The next step in our development of a complete conference management application will be to connect the online registration forms in Certain Registration to the online travel reservation process of the ResX and GetThere booking tools. This will allow the event attendee to register online for the event, and then seamlessly transfer to the travel reservation form without having to log in again. We can even pass the event's closest airports and default arrival and departure days, so that the traveller can skip the first page of the travel search process and go directly from event registration to selecting their flights.
As we finish development of our travel integration with TRX ResX, I've shifted focus to preparing for our next GDS - Sabre. Sabre's GDS commands about 45% of the U.S. market for travel reservations, and their Web Services comply with the Open Travel Alliance (OTA) standards for electronic distribution of travel data.
I've been working on the OTA standards for several years now, with the APEX initiative to standardize the exchange of meetings and event data among professional meeting planners and their suppliers (typically, hotels). This, however, is my first time implementing the standards in our online registration application, Certain Registration. One thing that has become immediately clear to me is that the OTA standards are overbuilt - intentionally - because they have to address all possible combinations of data exchange. Our purpose is limited to pulling current travel reservation data from the GDS and storing it in Certain Registration, so that the event planner can effectively manage the attendee experience from registration to housing to travel.
After that, we will begin working on Sabre Web Services. Sabre currently holds about 45% of the U.S. market share for travel distribution systems. It took us several months to gain developer access to their web services, but now the time is right for connecting Certain Registration to the Sabre GDS. After Sabre, we will be working on the ResX single sign-on process and the GetThere SSO integration.
When these releases go live this summer, Certain Registration will offer complete event attendee management - from event registration to housing management and travel integration.
In the example below you can see configuration options within a report for changes. Again, be sure you have every detail of your custom report working as expected before you select the Changes Report Option because you cannot modify it after it's saved.

The first run of the report will appear as a standard report. Each time you run the report in the future you will receive options allowing you to run the report for changes since that date or one of the previous dates the report had been run. The report will only contain records that were modified and a column showing the specific modification.
Change reports are most often used for housing but, they can be created for registration details, financial and much more.
A good example would be housing. If you have VIP registrants that receive upgraded housing options, you most likely do not want other registrants to see these choices. It's best to create a form that only displays the upgraded rooms to registrants that register through that specific form. You don't have to recreate the form from scratch. Simply copy the existing form that all registrants will be using then modify it. Add the room block for the upgraded rooms and remove the standard rooms from the new form for VIP registrants.
Another use for additional forms would be exhibitor registration. Obviously exhibitors would have specific options such as booth space, exhibitor fees, etc. You can create an exhibitor form in the same event and only display questions and fees that pertain to the exhibitors. This allows you to collect both registrant and exhibitor details in the same event.
It's simple to direct the registrants to the correct form. Simply create an e-mail template for each registrant type under the communication tab and insert the form link that is associated with that registrant type. Now you can run reports on specific registrants send a mass email invitation to each group.
The basic layout would be normally start with a welcome page. Any page can be customized to suit your needs. You may want a link about the location, directions, speaker bio, spa treatments and activities.
Each page has an HTML editor so you don't need to know any HTML to create the page. Simply type the text and format the font and colors, background color and add images. Each page will automatically appear as a link across the top of your event along with a link to register for the event.
There is also an optional feature to require a login and password to access the website. Normally this isn't necessary unless it contains sensitive information that should be hidden from public view.
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