Top 10 Conference Management Software and Tools
If you are an event organizer, what your tech-stack should look like would definitely have given you sleepless nights. Here are our 2 cents!
Conferences are defined as a gathering of like-minded people. It means a gathering of people to discuss common work, brainstorm new ideas, and connect with the community. Conference management isn’t as easy as it sounds. It requires an in-depth understanding of the audience behaviour, precise understanding of the outcome to be achieved, and the right approach to conclude the event.
Conference management has several components. These components include location, cost of engaging the stakeholders, logistics (travel and accommodation), and the actual conference rooms/ halls. Therefore, event organisers take the help of certain software and tools to cater to all these high-level components. These platforms automate and simplify the operations to run a successful event in three ways. One, automating registration process, two, helping with email marketing and social media campaigning, and three, event website publishing.
If you are looking for the most efficient tools for conference management, this article is a must-read for you.
List of top 10 Conference Management Software and Tools:
1. Bitrix24
Bitrix24 is a highly secure, turnkey intranet solution for small and medium-sized businesses. It is designed for effective collaboration, communication, social networking, business process and knowledge management. This one-stop solution offers CRM , documentation, workflow, email and social communication, along with a contact centre at one place. However, Bitrix24 on-premise is one step ahead. Additionally, it gives an option to organise a self-hosted version to run on organiser’s own server. Organisers get full control over data, and source code access. It also offers additional tools, such as help desk and e-learning, as well as integration and customisation options.
Website: Bitrix24
2. COMS
COMS stands for Conference Management Software. It is a web-based solution that provides multilingual support, delegate payments and participant management. It allows to collect data, files and surveys from participants, create personalised documents for the users (e.g. certificates of participation etc). COMS also supports the organisation’s scientific, medical and academic meetings. Since it focuses on academic conferences, it provides access to abstracts, full papers, and presentations.
Website: COMS
3. 123 Form Builder
123 Form Builder is a simple tool that can be integrated with your event/ conference management software. This tool allows organisers to customise the forms and share via multiple platforms with the stakeholder. Hence, the organisers get the exact data that they wanted to capture, analyse the data, and manage workflows. They are easy to build forms & surveys with drag-and-drop in real-time. Just drag & drop fields to your form and select your notification email.
Website: 123 Form Builder
4. Trello
If you are a startup and unable to shell out hefty amount on buying a software, then trello is what you should be using. It is a collaborative platform that allows all internal stakeholders to manage tasks. We understand that with multiple things to manage, it is easy that to forget to follow-up. The users can create boards that can be customised, mark timely alerts and out colour flags to keep the follow-up game in place. Hence, it gives you a bird’s-eye view of what’s going on with your conference, mention other users and tick-off tasks that are getting accomplished. Thus, Trello’s mobile app, is project management in your pocket.
Website: Trello
5. Hootsuite
It is a tool that allows the users/ organisers to schedule their social media posts and email campaigns in advance so that they don’t have to juggle communications while managing other things like logistics etc. It is a place where you can monitor conversations and answer questions about anything from submission deadlines to registration fees.
Website: Hootsuite
6. OSEM
Osem.io gives the organizers and the attendees an ease to submit papers, support communication, and perform analytics. OSEM is again used majorly in academic and tech conferences. With its splash feature, OSEM also allows the organisers to create a marketing website, schedule sessions over a spread of 2–3 days, and access presentations.
Website: OSEM
7. Social Tables
When hosting a event, seating always seems to be the most pressing issue. Social tables allows you to manage seating for all the guests in advance. It can get integrated with your registration platform, so that real time attendance can be mapped with the seating. Along with this it also provides a CRM solution. It simplifies seating charts management, room layout design, and guest check-in.
Website: Social Tables
8. Backstage by Zoho
This giant is catering to multiple aspects of the SaaS industry. Backstage lets website building, ticketing, event promotion, attendee registration, and more. Speakers can engage attendees and invite participation through slide likes, comments and Q&A. Additionally, Backstage enables the organisers to create a comprehensive schedule for the conference. Simply drag and drop elements to arrange sessions.
Website: Backstage
9. Super Planner
Every event or a conference is a sum total of the marketing, logistics, event plan and layout and most importantly the budget. Best of the planners keep things within budget. If you are an academic planner of a conference, you likely don’t have the wealth of knowledge that professional event planners have. Therefore, it can be easy to misjudge numbers. Super Planner eases the hassle for you by combining all the calculators- staffing, catering, logistics etc on a single app. Thus, you can keep a track of your budget.
Links to apps: Super Planner (iOS), Super Planner (Android)
10. Townscript
Townscript, an event management software solution caters to large scale events as well as small scale conferences. It gives you event registration and ticketing, on-site badge management, conference organizer management, and attendee tracking.
Website: Towncript
Summary of Top Conference Management Tools
Conference management is not very different than event management. Conferences focus mainly on academics or technical gatherings. As a novice or a seasoned organizer, you must know how to manage the smaller aspects that make a huge impact. These top 10 software and tools will help you plan things faster and better.
Originally published at blog.townscript.com on May 28, 2019.
