Guidebook + Ex Ordo – Streamlining Scientific Conference Management

Efficiently manage your scientific event by combining the power of Ex Ordo’s content management software with Guidebook’s mobile platform!

A partnership that simplifies the complicated

As a Customer Success Associate at Guidebook, I have pro-built (an option Guidebook offers where we build the Guide for the client) many Guides for large scientific events. These events often have the biggest, most time-consuming, and complex schedules with extensive author and presenter lists. While the end result is a very informative app for attendees, they do require more effort to build than most other event Guides due to their complexity.

Many of our clients who manage scientific conferences rely on Ex Ordo to gather abstract submissions, complete peer reviews, register attendees, and build out a program. Guidebook and Ex Ordo joined forces to develop an integration between our platforms that makes it even easier to create and publish a mobile app for a scientific conference. Now, you can continue to manage your event data in Ex Ordo, then seamlessly sync changes to the app rather than maintaining updates on two separate platforms.

How does the integration work?

Use Ex Ordo to gather abstract submissions, complete peer reviews, build your program, and register attendees. Simply reach out to support@guidebook.com and let us know that you’d like to connect your Guide to your Ex Ordo account and we can help you get set up. Once the connection is made and you’ve built your program in Ex Ordo, syncing it to your Guide can be done by tapping the “Sync Guide” button in Ex Ordo. Within a few minutes, your entire schedule will sync into your event Guide. 

Benefits of the integration

After building many Guides for scientific events, I am well aware of the complexity of their schedules which have many sessions occurring simultaneously with even more sub-sessions or poster sessions within each session on the schedule. This can be built within Builder by assigning tracks to sessions and using linking templates to connect data. However, that can take hours—especially the first time. With the Ex Ordo integration, the data comes over with the click of a button and then the event organizer can organize the layout within Guidebook’s Builder. For many clients, this means that they may not need to purchase the pro-building option with Guidebook!

Another benefit is that as event organizers make edits to session details and presenters in the weeks leading up to the event, app content can be effortlessly updated by running another sync. This allows the organizers to manage only one system rather than trying to keep two separate systems up to date and accurate. 

Now that we’ve introduced the partnership, let’s take a look at the Guidebook + Ex Ordo integration in action:

Case Study: The Political Studies Association Annual Conference 2019

Organizers of the PSA Annual Conference 2019 (PSA 2019) built a richly complex program with multiple content streams. The integration between Guidebook and Ex Ordo made sharing it on mobile a cinch.

Avnish Patel, PSA 2019’s Events and Marketing Manager, shared: “For this year’s conference, we implemented a number of new processes including using Ex Ordo as the conference platform as well as the [Guidebook] mobile app. Everything was much easier this year, and we got great feedback from delegates.”

Syncing a complex program to mobile

The schedule for PSA 2019’s annual conference had 56 parallel streams and around 90 sessions per day. So the integration between Guidebook and Ex Ordo was a big time-saver. “On some days, we had 23 panels running in parallel, but getting that information from Ex Ordo into our mobile app was quite straightforward,” says Avnish. “And the syncing facility meant we could update our program whenever we needed to.”

The perks of mobile

Avnish found the Guidebook mobile app a great tool for a number of other reasons, too.  “It’s very easy to navigate, and it’s great for getting other information out like venue guides, accessibility information and a city guide. And on the communications side, being able to push out notifications to delegates was really useful.”

Avnish also liked how easy it was to upload pdfs to the app that had already been prepared for PSA 2019’s hardcopy brochure. “This functionality is quite easy to use and the files are also visually appealing on your mobile phone. Overall this will make it easier for us to produce eco-friendly conferences long term and go paperless.”

Ready to learn more?

To learn more about the Ex Ordo management platform, get in touch with Peter Casserly. For more on Guidebook mobile solutions, get in touch with a product expert. Both are happy to share more about the joint offering.

This article was written by Andrew Kaufman, Sr. Customer Success Associate at Guidebook and Dee McCurry, Content Editor at Ex Ordo.