Does BriefingEdge have reporting capabilities?

Yes.  There are 3 types of reports that we support - grid, with flexible sorting and subtotaling, graphical summary and drilldown. The drilldown reports let you summarize from a high level about your briefing center and then drill down to finer and finer levels of detail so that, at the finest level, you can view every piece of information related to a single briefing.

BriefingEdge provides reports on forecasted revenue, revenue won/lost, upcoming visits, and number of visits by topic, by speaker, by status, account type, and customer. There are also room and speaker utilization, customer history, and various other summary reports. All reports can be emailed or exported to Excel. The agenda and meal reports can also be exported to Word providing even finer levels of control.

Does BriefingEdge let you track a briefing through several different status stages?

Yes.  BriefingEdge has the most sophisticated status system available.   It accepts briefing requests from the sales force or requests can be generated by the briefing center staff. (See Access Levels below for information on who can perform what tasks)

Briefing requests begin as tentative requests. They move from tentative to confirmed status by the briefing center staff.  Resources associated with a confirmed briefing are considered to be “locked” and unavailable for use by another briefing during that time interval.

For those sites using the BriefingEdge Outlook Integration feature; speakers, coordinators and/or requesters (account execs) will have their personal Outlook calendars automatically updated when they are confirmed for a visit.

Once a visit has been completed, BriefingEdge lists these post briefing visits, enabling you to close out or mark for follow-up, all visits that have occurred.   Part of post briefing process is to flag those visits that you want BriefingEdge to automatically follow-up with.

Any visit can be tracked further for automatic sales follow-up.   One of the more advanced features to be found in any scheduling system is BriefingEdge ’s ability to follow-up when the expected close date has been reached.  This process is actually initiated when one of the initial visit request fields (Expected Close Date) is entered.  BriefingEdge automatically emails the originating requester on the expected close date with a link to the visit so that a final status can be determined (business was Won, Lost, or the Project was Dropped).

BriefingEdge reports on won/lost/dropped projects and won/lost ratios.

Is an auto-email sent to speakers?

Yes.  In fact, auto-emails can be configured to be sent when any of the following conditions are met:

  • To the originating sales person when a visit request was received.
  • To speakers and originating sales person on visit confirmation.
  • To speakers and originating sales person on 2-3 days before the visit as a reminder.
  • To speakers and originating sales person on visit cancellation /rescheduling
  • To the originating sales person when the expected closed date is reached and a Result of Briefing has not been entered.
  • To briefing participants as reminder about an upcoming visit.

Does BriefingEdge allow you to search by Topic or Presenter?

You can search for visits based on (1) Status, (2) Date Range, (3) Account Manager, (4) Visiting Company, and/or (5) Visit Coordinator. You can also search based on customer and date from the center calendar. And, Yes, there are also reports allowing you to sort and subtotal by Presenter or Topic.

If I look up Tom Jones, will it show me all the topics he can present?

BriefingEdge can link speakers in a number of ways, depending upon the way you configure your briefing center. Most installations however, do not link speakers to topics since they have found that maintaining this linkage is not worth the effort since a good speaker with general knowledge is usually more valuable than a poor speaker with deep subject expertise. Some people link speakers to topics in which case, when building an agenda, BriefingEdge will only display speakers who have been associated (linked) to the selected topic.

For those briefing centers with dedicated, on-staff speakers, BriefingEdge can automatically assign a speaker based on target number of briefings and availability. The key is that BriefingEdge provides the flexibility to allow you to define how speakers are selected, assigned and notified rather than make you change the way you run your briefing center. In all cases, BriefingEdge performs automatic conflict checking – not allowing a speaker already scheduled for one event at the same time to be scheduled for another (conflicting) event.

Remember, BriefingEdge automatically presents speakers who are available so that there is no danger of assigning the same speaker to two different visits concurrently. Another option is to allow BriefingEdge to maintain your speakers’ calendars. This means that you know whenever they are available. Used in conjunction with our Outlook Integration feature, BriefingEdge can synchronize its calendar with a speaker’s Outlook calendar.

How are topics organized?

BriefingEdge has clients who have only a few topics to some having over a thousand different topics. This diverse range required that we segment topics into categories so that the users, in selecting topics for a briefing, never have to scroll through dozens of pages in order to find the one they want. Categories roughly define the various lines of business and make it much easier to select topics for a briefing by first selecting one of these lines of businesses. There is no limitation on the number of categories nor the number of topics within a category.

Does BriefingEdge show a calendar with all the briefings on specific days?

BriefingEdge provides 5 calendars. The first is a monthly calendar showing tentative and confirmed visits for the month and the rooms in which they are scheduled. Holidays are also displayed. Clicking the room in which a briefing is scheduled will open up that day into a detailed, expanded view. Visits are color-coded so that you can see at a glance, whether they are tentative or confirmed. The second and the most widely used calendar is the weekly Center calendar. This calendar shows everything going on in the briefing center including visits, assigned speakers, customers, rooms being used, and all events currently scheduled for that week. Like the monthly calendar, the center calendar color codes this information so that you can tell at a glance, the type of visit, its status and assigned resources.

The center calendar additionally provides a hyperlink to the visit so that you can update any of the information associated with a visit, directly from calendar. The center calendar also displays vacation days and personal time off for those speakers / coordinators who want to be sure BriefingEdge knows they are not available on specific days. {Remember, if you specify time off in your BriefingEdge calendar, you will automatically be excluded from an assignment during that timeframe. And, with Outlook Integration, BriefingEdge will automatically synchronize your Outlook calendar.} There is also a holiday calendar which shows you holidays scheduled for the month and lets you add / remove holidays. This includes not only the typical holiday like Thanksgiving, but also allows you to take one or more rooms out of service to accommodate room repairs and upgrades.

Holidays or out of service days can be scheduled on a room-by-room basis or for an entire briefing center from the “holiday calendar". And to accommodate our international customers, holidays for one location (one briefing center) do not necessarily have to be defined for all locations. The 4th calendar is the personal calendar. This calendar is automatically maintained for each “in-house” speaker, whenever they are scheduled by BriefingEdge for an Event. Once scheduled, BriefingEdge will show that speaker as unavailable for another event during that timeframe and will prevent you from accidentally scheduling them for a conflicting event. Personal events like vacations, personal time, training or just about anything that would prevent you from being available to host a visit, are entered into the BriefingEdge personal calendar.

For those installations using BriefingEdge’s Outlook Integration feature, all personal calendar events that you enter into BriefingEdge automatically update your Outlook Calendar. The last calendar is the Customer Calendar which is typically used to show for a month at a time, what customers are scheduled for the briefing center. Some BriefingEdge installations provide the Customer Calendar as a direct link from their corporate intranet site and configure it so that it does not require a login. In this way, a simple link to the calendar makes it easy for management to see who’s coming into the briefing center – all without having to login.

Is there an Automated Agenda builder?

Yes. The topics (and optionally, preferred speakers) initially selected with the briefing request become the agenda template. Now, with version 8 and higher, meals can be selected just like topics, by the account exec. Once confirmed, a coordinator can add topics and speakers, assign time frames and order additional or change existing meals.

Each agenda item can be individually confirmed. You can also define optional text to appear on the agenda. This allows you to print out an agenda that you can distribute to your customers and enables the topics presented to be customized for each visit. The agenda and meal reports can be saved to Word for further refinement and formatting.

Is there a catering management piece to BriefingEdge?

Yes. Part of agenda processing is meal selection. Initial meals can be identified by the account team. During agenda processing, meals and quantities are confirmed or modified as required. There is also space for special instructions to be sent to the caterer. After meals are finalized BriefingEdge can generate a meal report that can be printed or emailed to the caterer or sent to Word.

Can BriefingEdge help with security?

Yes. BriefingEdge can help your staff by reducing the time spent on briefing logistics. It can also make it easier on your security staff by providing information, in advance, to security about upcoming guests. Because reports can be emailed directly from BriefingEdge, many of our customers email the attendee list directly to security, on the day before a briefing. In addition, BriefingEdge can print name tents and visitor badges directly. (Note: because of variation in each installation’s badges, some customization is usually required).

Is BriefingEdge password protected?

Yes. There are minimally 4 levels of access into BriefingEdge and for Enterprise versions (multiple briefing centers) there are 6. The lowest level is Report Only. Those users given this access level can only run reports that the administrator has designated in advance.

People with Report Only access cannot enter or modify briefing requests, nor can they view the full complement of reports provided by BriefingEdge. The next level is Account Manager or Account Exec. These users can self register and are allowed to enter briefing requests and define customers. Customers entered by an account exec are automatically linked to their account. The next level and newest level is called Event Planner. Like an Account Exec, they can request a briefing. However, Event planners can also request an Event which, like a briefing, is sent to the briefing center team as a tentative event.

Events are configurable by an administrator and are designed to schedule non-briefing visits that use briefing center resources. Examples of events are Customer Tours, Internal Meetings, Seminars, etc. The next level is Coordinator Access – the briefing center staff. These users are allowed to confirm or cancel visits; run any report in the system, reschedule visits and update any information about that visit. They can transfer customers from one account exec to another (which happens when someone leaves the company) and they can enter visits on behalf of another account exec.

The highest level access is Global Administrator. These users maintain the system tables that drive the system and enable you to define how visits are stored and cross referenced. Some of the tables under control of the Administrator are account types, industry codes, rooms, event types, sales regions, and cancellation reasons (yes, BriefingEdge not only tracks how often visits are cancelled, but also tracks why they were cancelled.)

Is there a deal close / follow up function in BriefingEdge?

Yes. As briefly mentioned above in the section on auto emails, one of the most useful reports, related to sales follow-up, is the Revenue Won/Lost report. This report summarizes visits that have posted a result and reports on the amount of revenue won, lost, and how often projects have been cancelled.

BriefingEdge will automatically follow-up on the expected close date for those visits that are marked with a status of tracking, unless a result has already been posted. It will not allow a tracking visit to be closed until a result has been posted or a new expected closed date has been entered. BriefingEdge will automatically follow up on the new expected close date.

Are there Customer, Sales and Speaker Evaluations?

Yes. This is an area in which many of our clients want very specific customization. Generally, BriefingEdge supports speaker, facilities, and overall evaluations. Evaluations can be entered by customers and by the account team.

The most recent trend we’ve seen in the area of evaluations is a combination "Thank You" note and evaluation sent after the briefing to customers. This allows your visitors to fill out an evaluation from the convenience of their office. Although how you implement evaluations is a business decision, BriefingEdge supports immediate, (as soon as the briefing has occurred), deferred, or email evaluations.

Can I create a "Thank You" to Sales or Speakers?

Yes. Typically, an automatic "Thank You" email can be configured into BriefingEdge so that each person involved in the visit can be thanked.

What programming language is this built on?

BriefingEdge uses a combination of languages. The database manager is SQL Server. Most of the application is written to run on the server and uses Active Server Pages built using VBScript. The client portion uses JavaScript and our low level Com+ components were written in C++.

Who hosts the application?

Beginning in 2007, BriefingEdge Solutions, Inc., hosts the BriefingEdge application, exclusively, for all our customers.

We provide the hardware, software, facilities and maintenance. Our data center has secure, redundant facilities at our primary location in North Carolina, as well as our back-up site located in New Jersey.

For you to access BriefingEdge, it's as easy as accessing the internet!

Does BriefingEdge maintain customer history?

Yes. BriefingEdge links a sales person to a customer. It tracks every time that customer comes into the briefing center. A customer history report allows you to combine different entities of the same customer into a single report, displaying every time that customer has visited the briefing center.

Do I have to enter each data item for customers having visited before?

When a sales person starts to schedule a visit, BriefingEdge displays a list of customers they’ve brought into the briefing center before. If they select from an existing customer, the customer specific information automatically populates the client information screen, letting the sales person to update any information that has changed since the last visit. Therefore, you need not enter customer information already known to BriefingEdge.

From an enterprise management perspective, the Customer History Report allows management to treat multiple customers, spelled slightly differently as a single customer enabling divisions to be rolled up into a single report or even allowing the same customer, spelled differently, to be identified as the same customer.

Additionally, there is a new feature called Customer Name Administration which lets you force consistency in how customers are spelled. For example; I.B.M., IBM, International Business Machines, Intern. Bus. Machines; can all be adjusted at the same time to be spelled the same. BriefingEdge will adjust all occurrences, past and future, of these companies so that they are all spelled the same.

How is BriefingEdge customized?

For customers purchasing a license, the license fee includes up to 40 hours of customization. This allows our developers to configure BriefingEdge to use terminology and field labels that correspond to the terminology used at your briefing center.

For example, some people call them presenters while others call them speakers and yet others call them briefers. BriefingEdge is customized so that your terminology is used on screens, in tables, and in reports.

As discussed earlier, BriefingEdge is also configurable through the administration screens that allow each licensee to define how visits are cross referenced and how drop-down lists are displayed. This allows you to define color sets used throughout, define categories and topics, and scheduling rules.

Sometimes, our customers have used another system or a combination of off-the-shelf products for scheduling (like Outlook and Excel). In those cases, some of the customization hours can be used for migrating the historical data into BriefingEdge so that its extensive reporting / tracking capabilities can be used immediately.

For customers leasing BriefingEdge, customization is charged on a time and materials basis.

How are new features introduced into BriefingEdge?

BriefingEdge is always gaining new features, mostly suggested by our customers. Some of these features are very specific to a single implementation and typically don’t become part of the “core” product.

Others, especially those that have widespread applicability, usually are incorporated into the core feature set at the next release. Those customers under support agreement with BriefingEdge Solutions have the option of gaining these new features either at no charge or a small charge to cover conversion of existing data.

What new features are being planned for later this year?

More personal calendar integration – with version 12, you are able to invite speakers and internal attendees to your visits.  BriefingEdge will generate a calendar invitation and send it out.  Under version 12, the responses from invited speakers are automatically evaluated and the agenda item for them is either confirmed or declined based on that response.

 Soon, the same kind of response processing will be incorporated into attendee processing so that you will know which internal attendees accepted and which have declined.

 One of the biggest enhancements we incorporated is single sign-on.  For those of you unfamiliar with this phrase, this new feature allows your corporate intranet to authenticate a BriefingEdge user and then it links valid users directly to BriefingEdge.  The advantage to this technique, based on SAML 2.0 standards, is that your sales force will not have to learn a separate password for BriefingEdge.  They will use their corporate login and be routed to BriefingEdge.

Can you supply a list of references of companies successfully using BriefingEdge?

Yes! We will gladly supply a list of references at your request.