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University of California, Berkeley

Past Experiences Lead to Current Success with Acteva

Challenge     Overcoming time constraints & bringing manual processes online

Solution        Providing a time saving, online resource for students, attendees

Results          Efficient solution simplifies administrative duties

Background

F or many years, the Haas School of Business at UC Berkeley has been a Top Ten, nationally-ranked business school. Sebastian Teunissen is an Adjunct Professor at the Haas School and Executive Director of the Clausen Center for International Business and Policy. The Center holds conferences on various topics that are geared primarily toward students and special guests. "We have a lot of small events but hold two main conferences, a Microfinance Conference and another on Investing in Emerging Markets, such as India, China and Russia," he says. "One of my many responsibilities here at the Center is to help organize them."

Business Challenge

Overcoming time constraints & bringing manual processes online

In past years, Teunissen's busy schedule left him little time for handling the administrative challenges that came with organizing the Center's events. Registrations were done manually, and attendees would either mail in checks or register at the door. Teunissen's primary goal was finding a state-of-the-art, online solution with the ability to securely accept credit card payments - which had become the favored registration method for attendees. "I'm busy, our students are busy - we all needed a better way to register and pay for the conferences," he says.

Teunissen had heard about Acteva from his students at the Haas School, who had spoken highly of its time saving functionality and ease of use when organizing social events and alumni affairs. In addition, he had initially become familiar with Acteva's capabilities in regards to donation collections through joint Tsunami relief efforts in 2005.

Acteva Solution

Providing a time saving, online resource for students, attendees

He decided to use Acteva to handle registrations and payments for their two main conferences. "With the conferences the ability to accept payments online via credit card was key, and having everything - all of the attendee data - online was also essential," he says. "And based on my past experience, I had found Acteva to be a professional solution that I could have up and running in less than 30 minutes. I think I set it all up during a break between classes."

In fact, once the decision was made to add Acteva, Teuniseen says he was amazed at how quickly he was able to create his branded registration page and get it online so he could begin accepting registrations. "It was an extremely simple process," he says. "It seemed like one minute I was setting up my page and choosing options, and the next I was seeing the registrations flow in from the students."

While most who attend the conference on campus, Teunissen notes others have come from all over to attend the conferences. Acteva provides a resource where prospective attendees can register anytime - from anywhere. "It doesn't matter where they are - local, international, whatever," he says. "I've found Acteva to be a hands-off solution that does all the heavy lifting for me."

Results

Efficient solution simplifies administrative duties

Since he began using Acteva, Teunissen's conference administration duties have been simplified considerably. Conference attendees can register online and pay via credit card, and Teunissen can communicate with them easily, thanks to Acteva's powerful communication tools. "It's quicker, easier and makes life as an organizer simpler," he says. "And because they receive a confirmation when they register, I'm no longer bothered with questions or issues such as receipts."

Teunissen notes that while his students likely have more skills than their parents and faculty members when it comes to the internet and computers- anyone can use Acteva. "You don't need to be proficient in technology to successfully utilize Acteva," he says. "It's easy for someone who's not sophisticated at this type of thing. For me, it's also a professional solution to help accomplish my goals."

For now, Teunissen is focusing on using Acteva for his two primary conferences. If more events are added, as anticipated, he may find the need to utilize Acteva's Google Publishing and Post Event Survey features. "In the near future, I'm hoping to incorporate some of the new features to help market, promote and grow our conference," he says. "And I can safely say that as long as we have conferences we'll continue to use Acteva."

Additional Uses - Accepting Donations

Leveraging the Acteva Solution for Tsunami Relief

Acteva was the natural choice when Teunissen and his students decided to collect donations for tsunami relief following the disaster that struck Sri Lanka in December 2004. A Haas MBA student, returning to Berkeley after traveling to Sri Lanka, spoke with Teunissen about the possibility of collecting donations for tsunami relief through the Clausen Center. "Her experiences and vivid descriptions of the need for assistance were instrumental in mobilizing the Clausen Center and choosing to use Acteva," Teunissen says.

In conjunction with Acteva, the Clausen Center helped raise funds to help the Sewalanka Foundation, which was working to rebuild tsunami-ravaged Sri Lanka.

In the past, contributions to Sewalanka from the U.S. had to be made by wire transfer or check. However, a new arrangement with Acteva allowed donors to make contributions quickly and easily via credit card, speeding access to donations and expanding the pool of possible donors.

Setting up the Acteva site for donations was simple. Any organization can set up an account and donation page in about 20 minutes, including various donation levels and payment points. Nonprofits can collect donations using multiple payment options, including credit cards, which greatly increases the number and dollar size of donations.

The end result was a fast, easy solution to help with tsunami relief efforts. "I learned how Acteva helps organizers who support charitable efforts to easily collect donations from their own site," says Tuenissen. My initial experience with Acteva was extremely positive."

Experience that counts

Acteva is the trusted leader in online event registration, ticketing and payment management services. Since 1998, over 14,000 customers have used Acteva to manage more than 260,000 events and process more than 4.6 million registrations. Acteva's customers include Bausch & Lomb, Pfizer, SAP, Girl Scouts of America, Whole Foods, Craigslist Foundation, BMW/MINI, NASA, VMware, Apple, DHL, PG&E and thousands of small to large-sized businesses and organizations.