Engage your students from Admissions to Alumni - in one app.

Replace paper and save time with mobile guides for campus tours, open houses, new student orientations, commencement, and more.

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A best-in-class app building platform used by thousands of leading schools

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Explore how our guides are being used across a range of education scenarios

College nights

Send push messages to high school counselors and faculty on your route to your campus.

Awareness programmes

Customise your app with your logo and colors to increase brand visibility.

Open houses

Provide campus maps, directories of campus contacts and more.

Staff Resource Directory

Guidebook allows admissions counselors to stay connected to their peers wherever they are.

Financial Resources

Add your financial aid info to spare parents from website searches; apps are preferred for phone browsing.

What can you do with an education app?

Conversation UI
Conversation Icon

Get the conversation started

An interactive social feed provides a central place for attendees to discover content and engage in lively discussions.

Notification UI
Notification Icon

Send instant push notifications

Deliver important updates to attendees' home screens, even if the app isn’t active.

Update Notification UI
Update Schedule UI
Update on the go

Update on the fly

Your schedules, interactive maps, and speaker lists can reflect up-to-the-minute changes.

Schedule UI
Feedback icon

Provide an up-­to­-date schedule

Keep students on track by allowing them to create personal schedules and to-do lists based on your full events calendar.

Campus UI
Revenue Icon

Showcase your campus story

Use an interactive self-guided tour to help students and visitors navigate campus, even when you’re not around.

Data UI
Data Icon

Put data to work

Learn about students’ preferences and behaviors by monitoring app usage.

Team UI
Team Icon

Invite your team

Collaborate with others on a single platform - no extra licenses or costs necessary.

Ready to get started?

Take a look at our pricing or get a live demo from one of our dedicated product experts

Guidebook supports hundreds of university apps

NC State's New Student Orientation App

Students are welcomed to NC State's campus with a wonderfully detailed orientation app. Their orientation app features:

  • Pictures and bios of orientation staff
  • Easy­-to­-follow schedules for freshmen, transfers and parents
  • Social media integration to stoke school spirit

The University of Kentucky Going Fully Digital

The University of Kentucky's Admissions team switched from printing paper programs for their prospective and admitted student events to building a mobile application, with no coding experience.

  • Admitted Student Day schedules for students and guests
  • Lists of important resources
  • Maps to help navigate campus

Rutgers New Brunswick Adopt Guidebook Tours

Rutgers uses Guidebook to help students navigate around campus using the Rutgers self-guided tour app built with Guidebook.

  • View tours of different campuses and residence halls
  • Learn about various housing options
  • Connect with student tour guides

Charleston Southern University Year Round Student Support

Charleston Southern University uses Guidebook year round as a resource for students to find activities, sporting events, fitness schedules, and anything related to student life.

  • CSU Events schedules
  • Real time updates and live feed
  • Easy access to campus recreation, counseling services, career services, and more

The University of Manchester Goes Green with a Mobile App

Students are welcomed to Manchester’s campus with a wonderfully detailed Tour Guide App. 

  • Open Day information for prospective students
  • Easy­-to­-follow schedules for freshmen, transfers and parents
  • Self-guided tours for easy campus navigation

Royal Holloway’s Year Round Student Support

Royal Holloway University uses Guidebook year-round as a resource for students to find activities, union events, travel and local area information, and anything related to student life.v

  • CReal-time updates through push notifications
  • Information about health, wellbeing and safety
  • Resources for academic and learning support

King’s College London Welcomes Students with easele

The Welcome Team at King’s make onboarding seamless with powerful mobile schedules and reduced printing to almost nothing by using Guidebook’s no-coding app builder.

  • Complex and personalized schedules
  • Lists of important campus resources
  • Maps to help navigate campus

The University of Bournemouth simplifies Open Days with mobile

Students who visit Bournemouth’s campus have all the information they need in one easy-to-access mobile app.

  • Timetables of talks and exhibitions
  • Tours of campus facilities
  • Lists of local attractions

Frequently asked questions

Can I build this on my own? I’m not very technical…

Yes, you can. If you’re comfortable sending an email or putting together a few basic PowerPoint slides, you can build an app on our platform. Most of our customers would not describe themselves as ‘techy.’

Do you offer human support?

Of course. Guidebook’s award-winning customer success team has reps in the US and the UK. We pride ourselves on fast response times, and becoming a trusted advisor to you and your team.

Can I make changes to my app after I publish it?

Absolutely. If at any point you need to make a change, just jump right back into our system, make those edits, and hit Publish. Within seconds, your updates will be live. And, if you need to send any last-minute notifications to your users, you can do that straight from your phone or tablet with our Mobile Admin capabilities.

Can I really generate sponsorship revenue in my campus app?

Campus apps typically have some of the highest engaged audiences on the Guidebook platform and some of our university customers have been able to generate sponsorship revenue from other departments, or selected partners. You can allow them to get in front of students through banner ads, sponsored in-app social feed posts, push notifications, and more. Speak to us today to learn more about what you can sell and how.

I have an event coming up soon, do I have enough time to build a campus app with Guidebook?

It’s important to first understand what kind of app you’re looking for -- an app that’s neatly housed within a container app, like Guidebook, or a standalone app in the App Store. If it’s the former, you can move very quickly.

- Generally for newbies, you can expect to spend around 8 hours from start to finish on an app that’ll be housed in a container app. It's fun, creative work, and you and your whole team can simultaneously build the app - so that 8 hours will probably fly by.

- If you’re looking for a standalone app, however, there are other variables at play. When publishing any app to the Apple App Store, you’ll need to set up a Developer account with them, which can take a week or so. They’ll also need to approve your app once it’s complete, which further slows things down. All in all, you’ll want to be prepared for a lead time of at least a month, to be safe. To clarify, this expected time is the same for any event app platform or custom developer out there.Most higher ed institutions choose a Branded App, and can navigate this whole process in typically 3-4 weeks.

How do students download my app?

Upon publishing your app, you’ll have a custom landing page to share with your audience - as well as a unique QR code. Our app Builder also gives you tools like email promotion, posters, and social media templates (and more) to make promoting and downloading your event app super simple.

How do you support accessibility? We need to ensure that this information is available to everyone...

Guidebook is specifically optimized to be more accessible to users. We’ve worked directly with accessibility specialists at the College Board, AUCD, and Knowability to ensure our app can be accessed and navigated using the phone’s built-in screen reader functionality. You can read more in the regularly updated pdf attached to this support article.

What level of security is offered? My IT team is very strict...

Whether your event or association is large or small, building trust with your attendees is important. You want to make sure that their information and your information is secure. Guidebook takes security very seriously, and you can learn more about our approach here: Security | Guidebook.

Can someone build my app for me?

Yes - although Guidebook is easy to use, we offer Professional Services where we can set you up with a dedicated app builder to build your app from start to finish. Since events are in our blood, you know you'll be getting a beautiful app that your users will love. All you'll need to provide is your content (sessions, speakers, etc.) and we'll take care of the rest.

Do you offer any integrations?

Yes! We know how hectic using multiple campus softwares can be, so we integrated our app Builder with the tools our customers use most. We connect with software like Eventbrite, Marketo, Cvent, and Splash. Plus, our Zapier integration allows connections to 10,000+ systems. Want to do more? Contact us to learn more about how our Open API works.

Does your app work offline? Some students don’t always have internet...

As long as you’ve encouraged your users to download your app ahead of time (tip: following best practices for event promotion advises you've done this), most of the information in your app will work offline. In the unfortunate case of poor wifi at your event, all your schedules, maps, and lists will still be accessible. You will, however, not be able to use features like photo albums, social media, and messaging until users have an internet connection again.

Resources

webinar

New Student Orientation Apps Webinar

In-depth insight for professionals trying to choose the best event app.

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webinar

Mobile Campus Tours Webinar

Top-to-bottom Advice for throwing an event in the digital age.

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post

The 3 Elements of an Admissions App Strategy

Learn how to implement an app and make money with it at the same time.

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G2 Badge Award

Our commitment to mobile apps

Our mission is to make it simple to create and manage mobile apps. Over a hundred thousand organizations have used Guidebook to power their mobile experiences. While we’ve had a lot of success powering conference apps, corporate meeting apps, and university campus apps, our platform has been used for thousands of different use cases. Forward-thinking professionals are using Guidebook’s simple app builder to make interactive mobile guides for their student orientations, college campus tours, venues, corporate campuses, parks, and airports. Start going green with iPhone and Android apps built by the best event app company in the industry.