Eventsforce and The Royal Statistical Society (RSS)
The Royal Statistical Society (RSS) is a professional body for UK statisticians and data analysts and is one of the leading organisations promoting the importance of data and statistics around the world. The events team is in charge of organising around 100 meetings and events each year, including the annual RSS International Conference which gathers over 500 attendees.
Challenge: RSS runs events for both members and non-members, with members enjoying the benefits of discounted registration fees. When the time came to roll out a new event management solution, it was important for the events team that the new system would also address a specific issue: they needed to find a way of stopping people registering at the wrong rates. They wanted to ensure that the new system would be able to verify the membership status of each attendee prior to completing their online registration journey. With this in mind, the association decided to work with Eventsforce, whose development team recommended an integration between the Eventsforce web-based event management and abstract solution and RSS’s existing iMIS membership system.
Solution: The integration between the two systems ensures RSS event attendees are going through the right registration channels and non-members are not paying discounted member fees. When attendees select the ‘member’ box on the registration form, the email address they provide is automatically checked against the iMIS membership system. If it corresponds and the membership is valid, delegates are allowed to continue with their registration. Otherwise, it will ask them to try again. Having membership validation as part of the registration process has also helped RSS address queries around memberships a lot more quickly. For example, if a particular membership has lapsed, a notice can show up on the registration form advising the user to contact the membership services team.
“Without integration between the two systems, non-members could have registered as members as we wouldn’t have the time or resources to manually check the status of the hundreds of members that attend our events each year. We are now confident that the membership status of each attendee is accurate and that everyone is paying the correct registration fee. It protects one of the many benefits our members get and it secures a key revenue stream for our organisation. It also saves us considerable time chasing payments from those people who may have registered under the wrong category.”