Excel As Seminar Management Tool

No compromises in seminar management: Why Excel is not enough and you should rely on professional software

Excel is undoubtedly one of the most widely used spreadsheet programs, which thanks to its ease of use and data analysis functions, it is also frequently used to manage data. However, this can cause problems in many business areas.

In this blog post, I use a real-world example to explain the difficulties that can come with using Excel in seminar management.

Excel as a quick solution for seminar management: advantages and disadvantages of a simple method

When things have to happen quickly, many companies resort to the simplest solution: Excel.

Excel offers a number of advantages, as it is a well-known software that anyone can use and usually does not incur additional costs.

Let’s imagine the following case: A company offers internal and external employee seminars. In order to manage the external participants as well, a customer export from the ERP system can be used by the IT department to import the customer data. A table is then created for the seminar, as well as another table to manage the participants – for each seminar date. Using the S-reference function in Excel makes it possible to quickly merge the data, a participant certificate can of course also be created to confirm successful completion…and so on, and so on….

If on average only 80 seminars are offered per year, each with about 1,000 participants, the described solution of seminar management by Excel is undoubtedly suitable.

However, it must be remembered that in the long term the number of seminars will increase and with it the demands on efficient seminar management.

Seminar management rethought: How specialized software maximizes efficiency

There are a number of factors that may cause Excel to be inadequate as a seminar management tool in the future.

The aspect of transparency:

It is becoming increasingly difficult to maintain an overview when there is a lack of transparency. This can have a wide variety of reasons. For example, the accumulation of tables, the storage of documents in different folders or, of course, the use of disjointed tables.

The subject with time:

Excel is becoming a time waster because the core processes do not mesh seamlessly. Documents such as certificates, invoices,
registration confirmations and feedback forms are usually managed separately in the file system, which makes searching extremely time-consuming.

Automation and real-time collaboration:

Real-time collaboration between multiple users is not very effective in Excel. Conflicts can arise with simultaneous edits and there is a risk of data loss if changes are not saved in time. It is also often difficult to keep track of who has made what changes, especially with complex tables. In addition, there is the lack of automation capability of Excel, which often leads to problems in such cases as well.

Limited Scalability:

Excel often reaches its limits with large amounts of data and becomes slow and unreliable. For the management of data Excel is only conditionally suitable and a professional database will be necessary sooner or later anyway.

And then there was data protection:

The ability to control access is limited in Excel, which means that it can be difficult to ensure the confidentiality and integrity of data.

Without control over who can access and edit data, it can be vulnerable to misuse or unauthorized changes in Excel. A big problem!

How lack of integration and digitization burden seminar managers

Excel is only suitable for a fraction of the administration tasks and many applications need to be taken out of Excel over time to make the daily work easier for seminar managers.

By using different seminar management software tools, seamless connection to the online portal can be can be complicated, and problems can arise such as missing remaining seats and poor customer experiences during the seminar booking may occur.

A digital participant and trainer portal is also often missing altogether, which can make it difficult to share information and lead to an increased workload.

The increasing number of seminar participants requires elaborate administration, forcing employees to work overtime, and the workflow must be distributed among several employees.

And all this in times of digitalization…

Seminar administration with Excel is time-consuming and inefficient. This leads to increased workload and unnecessary stress.

The need for a suitable measure to overcome these challenges is becoming increasingly clear.

If you want to save time and money on seminar management and increase your sales as a result, you should definitely take a closer look at simplyOrg.

Our web-based “All in one seminar management” offers a reliable and scalable option that helps you to optimize your work processes and make processes and turn participant booking into a true customer experience.

With our free online demo, you can easily and quickly find out how simplyOrg can support your business while eliminating wasted resources – up to 70%.