Meet Margaret
Margaret Ohayon is the product owner for event technology implementation for Esri. When evaluating event platforms, she was looking for something that would meet the needs of the company’s large annual user conference — and the rest of its entire event portfolio. Esri User Conference draws more than 18,000 geographic information systems professionals every year and features over 1,200 sessions. Esri began using RainFocus in 2022 to modernize its entire event management process.
“We put out a very detailed and thorough RFP. RainFocus consistently came out on top in all categories.” — Margaret Ohayon, Esri
Meet Heather
As the event operations manager for Tyler Technologies, Heather Schneider helps manage the execution of Tyler Connect, which brings together more than 4,200 attendees to learn about software solutions for the public sector. After signing with RainFocus in 2019, Tyler Technologies began using the platform in 2021, following COVID-19 pandemic-related event shifts. Heather was drawn to RainFocus’ seamless workflows and integration points, as well as the enhanced service provided to clients.
“I liked the idea of having a fully dedicated service team as a true partner who understands our business needs.” — Heather Schneider, Tyler Technologies
Getting Started With RainFocus
As they began their work with RainFocus, Heather and Margaret were assigned RainFocus client success teams to help with the initial setup of their events. Together with their teams, they identified immediate needs and must-have features for their upcoming events. Heather’s team zeroed in on registration for Tyler Technologies’ user conference, seeking to provide attendees with a seamless on-site experience. Margaret’s team worked on building out multiple processes to meet their unique needs within RainFocus — all while actively running several events.
“Although there were still many things to work through, even as we executed User Conference ‘22, we knew that we had paved the way for much future success.”— Margaret Ohayon, Esri
What Success Looks Like: Year One
With RainFocus, both companies experienced 100% uptime throughout their events. In addition to providing reliability and stability, the platform also enabled Margaret and Heather’s respective teams to record major event wins in their first year.
Esri’s biggest early win was enabling RainFocus’ registration and content management for its company’s flagship conference. According to Margaret, this process saved time and enabled them to begin templatizing experiences for years to come.
“The efficiency gains that we’ve been able to get by using the RainFocus platform have been our biggest win. We have saved not just hours and days, but entire weeks of work for a single event.” — Margaret Ohayon, Esri
Heather said Tyler Technologies’ conference attendees enjoyed much shorter wait times with RainFocus — a significant early win. With their previous solution, attendees endured an average of 30 to 45 minutes of wait time to check in. RainFocus helped the team set a new record, checking in more than 2,000 people in 20 minutes. Additionally, RainFocus enabled Tyler Technologies to begin tracking leads from their event, benefiting the entire company.
“The real moment of truth for us was implementing RainFocus lead retrieval. Believe it or not, prior to 2022, we didn’t formally collect or track leads generated from this event. In 2022, we walked away with over 650 leads and tens of millions of dollars in opportunities.” — Heather Schneider, Tyler Technologies
Continued Learning and a Unified Platform
After their first year, Margaret and Heather continued to iterate with RainFocus and improve their events with their client success teams. Both have focused on maximizing efficiency, improving processes, and optimizing their integrations. Each year they use RainFocus, their events become more impactful.
For example, by templatizing their events, Margaret’s team can spin up new events quickly rather than creating an event from scratch. Meanwhile, Heather has found her marketing team even thinks of RainFocus as a “household name” — a central component of the marketing tech stack — instead of just an events platform.
“User Conference ‘23 was run more smoothly than any past User Conference had run for as long as our staff was able to remember.” — Margaret Ohayon, Esri
Like other RainFocus clients, Esri and Tyler Technologies can more easily share event data with appropriate stakeholders. Having this data at their fingertips aids their marketing teams in customer outreach — carrying the impact of events throughout the organization.
“Through the use of RainFocus, we have been able to simplify, streamline, modernize, and provide repeatable and consistent processes throughout an entire event lifecycle.” — Margaret Ohayon, Esri
“I am most excited about ways we are leveraging the platform to capture and visualize data in a way that my c-suite can digest it and that allows me to have a seat at the table for key conversations related to our meeting and events program.” — Heather Schneider, Tyler Technologies
