On January 22^nd, 2017, MeetMax puts into production a new release of its MeetMax online registration and event management system. This latest release includes a number of enhancements to existing features based on feedback from clients, as well as new features driven by client requests and market demands.

Here's a quick summary of the new features and improvements included in the latest release:

• Expanding MeetMax CheckIn® with QR Code Ticketing  
  • In our last software update we introduced MeetMax CheckIn® as an on-site badging solution that allows event organizers to dramatically reduce wait times while you quickly work through registration lines to check in and print badges for your attendees.
  • In this latest release we have included a new feature which produces a QR code for a registration that can be included in confirmation e-mails and schedules, then used on-site to "scan in" an event attendee. This will pull up their record in MeetMax CheckIn® to quickly print their badge (and mark them as "attending" in MeetMax).
  • Drop a line to sales@meetmax.com for a live demonstration at your convenience!
• Public Facing Events List
  For clients who host multiple simultaneous events in MeetMax, we've deployed a new public-facing events list as a tool which allows event organizers to display their events in a list which can be shown on an event's "Public Site" or within the application (to restrict access to only registered attendees). Event administrators can indicate on a per-event basis which ones should be displayed on the events list.
• Form Field Validation
  This enhancement comes by way of a long-time popular demand for improving the quality of your registration data. The new feature allows an event administrator to indicate if a field is meant to be entered in the form of a number, e-mail address, or a telephone number (both US and International), website URL, or a date.
• Securely Collecting Credit Card Information
  You can now securely gather credit card details via the registration form, as a stand-alone tab post-registration, or in conunction with the Hotels module; can additionally be used in conjunction with payment processing in MeetMax. The system generates an encrypted e-mail to the event host's e-mail address which can be decrpyted using a public/private keypair. Ask MeetMax Support for more details!
• Product Galleries and Expanded Profiles
  Allow exhibitors to create a 'product gallery' with videos on their profile in MeetMax. This profile is included on the meeting request interface as well as the floor plan and other lists (e.g. MeetMax public site). Product descriptions can include images or video as well as a text description.
  
  We've also expanded the ability to integrate social media connectivity into profiles, as well as a dynamic news release feature to include releases, fact sheets, and research reports on a company/attendee profile.
• Groups mode for Company meetings at unmoderated events
  The upgraded Groups mode for Meeting Requests in MeetMax. This is for unmoderated events like Trade Shows - where Companies will have multiple simultaneous meetings, and will want to choose for themselves which of their Reps participate in which meetings. It lets Reps add themselves to meetings, add colleagues, transfer meeting to colleagues, and make requests to buyers on behalf of the company.
• Enhanced Company Registration
  This is for events like Trade Shows - where Company Reps are actively involved directly in managing the meetings for their companies - and where they will even register the company in the first place - and want to have a single unified registration for themselves personally and their companies. This is to avoid someone needing a login for the company and also a login for themselves.
• NEW Custom "Institutions"
  This feature is a "shout out" to our Investor Conference clients which addresses a longstanding challenge of meetings/requests reporting related to "Institutions". Specifically, investors which have a different company name but are techinically part of the same institution (think "EverPoint" and "Point72"). This new feature allows event administrators to self-define groups of attendees into "Institutions" in the system so that they are counted correctly in Institutional requests/meetings reports.
• Adding Company Contacts to Company Reports
  Another item on a list of long-standing requests from our clients has been the ability to create custom reports which include the full roster of registered company contacts for each company. As of this release you will be able to create custom reports on the company list and then include the full list of contacts (displayed 'horizontally') for each company in the Excel download.
• Updating Floor Plans
  A new tool has been introduced which allows event administrators to make modifications to the booth layout at a trade show, without the need to upload an entirely new floor plan.
• Tracking Meeting No-Shows
  The Meetings List in MeetMax, now offers a checkbox for each attendee, which can be used to track no-shows to meetings. This provides an alternative to cancelling the person out of the meeting, or cancelling the meeting - but allows a monitor or admin to quickly note that someone was a no-show to a meeting. This meeting attendance value can be included in meetings list downloads.
• Category Fields
  Ability to create a drop-down custom field which has sub-fields associated with it. For example: "Category" and "Sub-Categories" or "Sector" and "Sub-Sectors". Also implements the ability to import a .csv file with possible field values to expedite field creation.
  
  Category fields allow for more sophisticated descriptions of companies and attendees. For example, rather than Healthcare, Consumer, Technology as choices, you can offer Healthcare > Biotech, Healthcare > Pharma, Healthcare > Services. Then for filtering on the Requests page - or filtering as Admin - someone searching broadly on "Healthcare" will see everyone in any Healthcare category - but searching on Biotech will show just Biotech companies.
• Custom Reports Management
  Centralized location for shared custom reports created by event administrators to simply display all of these shared reports in one place. Can also be used to provide a "one-stop" page for limited access event administrators who are simply meant to log in and access reports.
• Upload Notification E-mails
  Event administrators can enable notification e-mails to be generated upon a successul file upload, sent to the attendee/company uploading the file and/or event adminsitrator.
• Importing Mult-Select Fields
  Support for processing multi-select fields when importing companies/attendees into MeetMax. (Think "Industries" or "Sectors" or "Product Areas".) Note: please contact MeetMax Support for assistance.
• Mutual Requests Improvements
  Additional information related to "Mutual Requests" available, including counts of mutual requests, filters for mutual requests, and an indicator of request mutuality on the "Meeting Times" scheduler interface.
• Calendaring Integration
  MeetMax introduced in the last release a calendar widget that allows a MeetMax schedule to be imported into an attendee's calendar and also set to receive automatic updates. MeetMax's new release develops this capability by extending support to further respect settings established in the Schedule Settings widget.
• Payment Confirmation E-mails
  Additional details related to payments in the registration confirmation e-mail for events using MeetMax payment processing, including a full copy of the receipt in the body of the e-mail as well as the "Payer" (when that person is different from the "Registrant").
• Payments Live Mode Switch
  Adding to new features for payments-enabled events, we've exposed the "Live" vs. "Test" mode switch within the application. No more waiting for MeetMax Support to toggle this setting for you. But remember, with great power comes great responsibility!
• Meeting Cancellation E-mails
  Improvements to meeting cancellation e-mails to ensure that all parties are notified of the meeting cancellation.
• Custom Role Groups Defaults
  Ability to establish default settings for custom role groups (improving consistency in new event setup for clients using a custom role group).

In addition to all of these exciting new/improved features, the Technical Services & Support team is also hard at work on a project to update and expand our in-application help system. Keep an eye out for the "Help" icons in the upper right-hand corner of your screens as these will be increasing in number and quality of information contained therein.

With a robust and highly configurable piece of software that is constantly evolving, we need support resources that can easily scale with it. So instead of producing bulky PDF files we're going to put renewed efforts into continually updating the "Help" links within the sytem pages. Send us a note if you have ideas or questions that you want to see answered!