Resource Information and Control Corporation
| - | Explains where the ConCentRICs product can be used. | |
| - | A brief history of the ConCentRICs product. | |
| - | The purpose behind the ConCentRICs facility management system. | |
| - | What makes ConCentRICs better than the competitor's products. | |
| - | Take an interactive tour of ConCentRICs applications. | |
| - | Features available for your Facilities Website. | |
| - | Meeting Matrix, EMC and EventBooking.Com. | |
| - | Connections to third party devices and software. | |
| - | What kind of support is available for ConCentRICs. | |
| - | The hardware required to run the ConCentRICs system. |
ConCentRICs (Convention Center Resource Information and Control system) is the ultimate in facility management systems. Even though Convention Center is part of the name, ConCentRICs will perform well for any business that schedules events in their facility. This could be Convention Centers, Arenas, Auditoriums, Stadiums, Performing Arts, Theaters, Conference Centers, Banquet Halls, Resorts, Hotels, Universities, etc. You can use the Download option to get a copy of our Sales Brochure as a Word Document.
The ConCentRICs .Net Product Demo will give you a full presentation of the ConCentRICs .Net system. You will be able to see a description of each of the available applications in the system as well as information on what each section of the ConCentRICs .Net work space is used for. There is a shorter Summary Presentation available.
ConCentRICs can interface with any facility's web site. It can generate Event Calendar pages and post them to a web site automatically. You will be able to do E-Commerce for Exhibitor and Client Work Order forms interactively from your web site. There is even an area to post reports from ConCentRICs and keep them up-to-date automatically.
Facilities indicate which events will be posted on the web site and ConCentRICs will generate new event calendars every day. You can also add a detail section for each event that can include text, graphics, sound bytes, and links to other web sites. Several facilities are currently using this as a revenue source. Your website's event inforamtion can be shown in several different formats: Standard List Format, a Calendar Format or you could offer Multiple Calendar Formats, which provides a Monthly View, List View, Weekly View or Daily View the website vistor can choose from. They could also search for events by date, category or a search string. All of these are generated and managed automatically by the ConCentRICs system.
You can also have a Location Availability calendar that will show all of your major locations and the dates they are available. This will allow your clients to check to see if the locations they want to use are available 24-hours a day 7 days a week. Any location that is booked, the calendar will show the booking status code for that location so your clients can see the level of commitment of those locations. You can also generate a Promoter Calendar for you major clients. This will show the names of their events in the space they have booked on the appropriate dates and will show the booking status codes of all the other locations.
ConCentRICs can generate forms for a facility's web site that will allow your exhibitors to fill out Exhibitor Work Order forms on-line. Each form will be customized to a specific event. The system will collect this information automatically and process it directly into ConCentRICs without any data entry required.
Click on Exhibitor Work Orders to see to see a working example of this process. You can use a real credit card number if you like, since nothing will be charged to any credit card used with this test form, or, if you would like to use a test credit card number than you can use Visa: 4111111111111111 (one 4 and 15 ones), or MasterCard: 5555555555554444 (12 fives and 4 fours). If you would like to see an example of an Order Confirmation E-Mail message, then complete an order with your real e-mail address. Send us a message at tech_support@riccorp.com to let us know. We normally ignore all test forms submitted, but if you let us know we would be glad to process your request through so you can see the final results.
ConCentRICs has a Housing Adminstration portion of the system that can track the hotel needs of your clients. You can basically act as a travel agent for your clients. You start by finding out what the hotel needs are for an event. You then enter how many rooms you want from each hotel. The hotel gets notified automatically and they login to your website to confirm the rooms requested and the rate. The attendees can then come to your website, click on the housing link. You could give them a list of the upcoming shows with housing established. They would select the event they are going to attend and they will get a list of their hotel options. There is also an option for a secure login where they would need to enter a Housing code to get to their hotel options. In either case they select the rooms they want and submit their request. The system will then review their requests, will verify the rooms are still available and ask for their credit card information to complete the transaction.
Click on Hotel Reservations to see a working example of this process. This is the page the event attendees could see to actually make their room reservations. You may use the Secure Hotel Reservations instead. If you try the secure option then you can use Housing Codes of Event Id 9908001 or Event Id 9908005. Be sure to click on the hotel name or logo to see a profile of that hotel. The page the Hotels themselves would use would have a different link on your website, or it could be a private link where they will only be able to find that page if you give them the address. When they get to that page it will present them with the Hotel Login Screen This page will ask for a Hotel Id to identify the Hotel they are with. You can use Hotel Id 200 for the Hilton or Hotel Id 272 for the Marriott.
Show Management can have their own section on the website, so they can track the reservations made for their hotel blocks. They would go to the Show Management Login screen. You can use Event Id 9908001 or Event Id 9908005 for your Show Manager Ids. The Show Manager Administration page will recap the confirmed and actual reservations per day for each of the hoitels along with the percentage filled for each day. Show Managers can also get to their event's housing page, can see a list of current reservation holders and can also download the current reservations as an Excel spread sheet. Feel free to look around and play with these functions. You can play attendee and make hotel reservations, you go in and play a hotel manager and check on the status of the housing with your hotel or be a Show Manager and see the kind of information you can get about your event.
ConCentRICs can maintain an area on your facility's web site for your clients. A Client can come to this page and enter their Event Id to give them interactive capabilities to their event. They will be able to review their Payment Schedules, Payment History and make a payment to the event on-line. They can upload files and have them automatically attached to their event in Attached Objects. They will also have a link to each of the locations they have booked for their event. When they click on the Location link they can see a CAD drawing of how the room will set and a list of all Equipment/Services already scheduled for that location. There is also an order form, so they can request additional equipment and services for each location.
Click on Client Service Orders to see to see a working example of this process. This section will ask you for an Event Id to identify the Event you want to see. You can use Event Id 9908001 or 9909004. Feel free to look around and play with these events. You can even place orders for additional equipment and services if you like. At your descrection, items ordered here do not have to be paid for but payment can be deferred to final invoice.
ConCentRICs can post Event Reports to your website and keep them up-to-date automatically. This would be ideal for Contractors or even Employees who do not have access to ConCentRICs or even your intenal network. You indicate which reports you want to have posted, what criteria they will have when they run and what order they will appear in. You can even give it existing files that you would like to have posted on that page. When this option runs in ConCentRICs it will recreate all of the reports associated with the page. It will compare the new version to the version already posted on the website and will only repost the report if it is different then the version already posted. The webiste page will show the date the report was last changed, so operations people can tell if they have any updated information or not.
Click on Event Information to see an example of this page. Inorder to secure this information from the general public you would not have a link to this page on your main website. You will give the people you want to have this page the exact address to the page. Only the people who have the address will be able to see the information. We have added the ability to produce Event Documents in HTML format that can be produced in the Standard Format or a new Location Orientation Mode and the single Location Form. Having the Event Documents in this format allows you to do text formatting and include pictures and Room Drawings. Be sure to check out examples of these reports on the Event Information Page.
ConCentRICs can put a page on your website where you vendors can go to automatically setup their bank information so you can send them ACH Payments instead of issuing checks. Click on Vendor ACH Payment Setup to see an example of this feature.
RIC Corp has partnerships with other leading vendors in the Event Management Industry. This allows ConCentRICs to have automatic interfaces for these vendors, so the system will work seemlessly with these other products. We have partnerships with the following companies:
MeetingMatrix International, Inc. is the premier provider of both drawing application software and room diagramming solutions for the global event management industry. MeetingMatrix International serves 7,000 venues representing over 18,000 users, and 82 million square feet of measured and certified event space in 63 countries. MeetingMatrix International offers a wide array of interdependent and complimentary products that are considered the industry standard for room diagramming software throughout the world. ActiveMatrix, another MeetingMatrix solution, is the only interactive online room diagramming tool in the marketplace. ActiveMatrix links directly to a facility's MeetingMatrix Certified Room Diagrams and allows Event Planners to have immediate access to the function space for that facility without having to download software.For more information on MeetingMatrix technologies call (603)610-1600 or visit www.MeetingMatrix.com.
Event Management Communication delivers real-time solutions for exhibitor management and visitor services. With our online software emsystem, we offer a complete event management service, customized and branded, backed by order processing and efficient administration. Our independent status and extensive exhibition experience make us a unique central focus for the events industry. No other exhibition management service company offers what we do. EMC has been operational since 1999 and currently services more than 100,000 exhibiting companies worldwide. We have offices and service partners in Europe, North America, Middle East and the Far East, and manage the online operations for over 500 national and international exhibitions. For more inforamtion call +44 1252 395540 or visit www.ExhibitorKit.com.
EventBooking.com (EB) is a high-tech company dedicated to using technology to better the lives
of professionals in the events industry. For anyone who schedules, produces, hosts, promotes,
represents talent, or is involved with events, we have services that can enhance your productivity,
marketing and research efforts. Our products include:
Productivity Tools - Get more work done, in less time
Marketing Tools - Get the word out about your events!
Research Tools - Obtain the information you need, when you need it
For more information call 865-966-4900 or visit www.eventbooking.com.
ConCentRICs can interface with external computer devices and third party software packages. The system has a built-in interface for Palm Pilots. Just about any report in the system can be transfered for viewing on a palm pilot. There are also built-in interfaces for sign systems, telephone switches, and the Internet.
There is also an interface for Microsoft's Task Scheduler (System Agent) that will allow all reports and processes to be automated. You can select the ConCentRICs application you want to run automatically, run that option, and preset the answers to all of the questions required. You then tell Task Scheduler when you want it to run and how often, and that report can then be generated on any printer in the facility, or passed to a third party application for further processing at the designated times.
ConCentRICs takes the responsbility of interfacing with third party software systems. This means that ConCentRICs does not require anything from third party software and will adapt itself to whatever format the third party software requires. There are data definition wizards built into the system that will allow you to tell ConCentRICs what format the data being received is in, or to export the data in any format. When data files are created, the system goes into the External Interface mode. This allows a third party software application to be started and the appropriate paramaters and data files will be passed to it for further processing. This feature allows ConCentRICs to interface with almost any other application including all Microsoft Office products.
Any report in the system can be outputed to a special RIC Corp format. This allows anyone on the system to view this report without having the access to generate that particular report. Many facilities will pregenerate the reports that the staff needs on a daily basis. These reports can be automaticallly stored in a common directory by ConCentRICs. Then, each staff person can access these reports instantly by going to the common directory to retrieve them. The RIC Corp formated files are very small and can be attached to e-mail messages and sent very quickly and easily. Even if you send them to a person who does not have a ConCentRICs system, they can still view the report by downloading a free viewer from our web site. The reports in the system can also be generated as HTML output files and posted directly to a web site. The system has other Internet Interfaces that are described in the ConCentRICs Product Demonstration section.
The ConCentRICs system is fully documented. Even though traditional paper manuals can be purchased for all applications, they should be used sparingly. The reason being, the system is subject to frequent changes and updates, and certain information in the manuals can become out-of-date very quickly. All of the documentation is available on-line when you need it. Whenever you are in an application and you need help, just press the F1 key. The help documentation for that exact area you are in will be shown. You can also get context-sensitive help by clicking on that button on the tool bar. The very next item you click on will bring you help on that item. You can get to the full help area by using the Help pull down menu. There you can use the Index option to get to the full manual on that application. You can also use the ConCentRICs option to see the documentation common to all applications, and the What's This? option will start context-sensitive help. You can access all documentation for ConCentRICs in one place by clicking on the Books About ConCentRICs icon on the main ConCentRICs menu.
It is recommended that you try using the on-line help first, but if you can not find an answer to your question or otherwise solve your problem, then contact RIC Corp directly for support. With only a few exceptions, you can get support from RIC Corp 24-hours a day, 7-days a week, as long as your support contract is current. You can call us at (260) 432-0799, or send us a fax at (260) 432-9155. You can also contact us via e-mail at tech_support@riccorp.com.
There are a wide range of support options available with the Support link on this web site. The first section on the support page is Custom Downloads. This is a tool that will let you know if any of your ConCentRICs applications are out-of-date and need to be updated. The web site will keep track of the last time a CD was cut for your facility and when you used the Custom Download option last. The web site will present you with a list of applications that have changed since your last update. Click on the date of the update to see what has changed from the version you have. Click on the application's name to start a download. Download it to a directory on your computer. You should create a special directory just for this purpose. You can put it in the riccorp directory and call it updates. Once you have the file downloaded, just double click on it in your updates directory and it will be installed automatically. New on-line documentation is always included with the download application so all of the on-line help will always be up to date. You can also update your system automatically in the System Administration application of ConCentRICs. Just use the System Applications icon and push the Check for Application Updates button. This can also be added to Task Scheduler so the updates are done by themselves at set intervals.
The Wish List Items will allow users to enter a new wish list request. Enter a description for your request and click on the Submit button. This section will also allow you to vote on-line for the Wish List requests that are presently outstanding. You can vote Yes, No, or Abstain. You could also enter any comments you have on the item, and your comments will be added to the wish list request on the next day. If you vote No, then you must enter a comment as to why you are voting No.
The Bulletin Board section connects users to the IACU's official Bulletin Board feature. Here you can post questions, inquiries, or messages to other IACU members. You should review this from time to time and provide opinons or answers when appropriate.
The Who is Using What section shows users the other IACU members and which ConCentRICs applications they are using. Select an application and the web site will show you which facilities have purchased that application and how many licenses they have for it. If you want to see all the applications that one facility has, then you can click on their name in the contact section and the applications will appear at the bottom of their profile.
The Knowledge Base section contains a description of all changes made to the system. If you are having a problem with the system you may want to check here first. Select the application you are having trouble with and get a list of changes for that application. There is a good chance your problem may already be fixed. If there is a fix for your problem, then download the lastest version. If you do not see a solution then contact RIC Corp. You can also get to the description of changes by clicking on the date of the application on the Download screen.
The IACU Activities section will show all up coming meetings that are taking place for the IACU. You can double click on any one to get more information on that meeting. If you want to attend a meeting, then you can register right on-line.
The Related Support Links contains links to other web sites that
we feel users may be interested in. There is a link here for the Pervasive Database home page.
We also have a special link to the Microsoft Support section. This is information available
to Microsoft Developers.
The License Key section allows users to review and update their license keys on-line. This will give you a list of all the ConCentRICs applications. It will show how many licenses you have for each application. You can increase you licenses quickly by entering how many more you would like. The system will issue you a license key right away, and you will be invoiced for the cost. You enter the license key code in your License Key option in the System Administration application. Your system license keys will be updated immediately. If you would like to try out an application before you buy it, you can get test licenses by clicking on the Test button and indicating how many you need. The web site will issue temporary license keys that will expire in 90 days.
The last section is Facility Profile. This will show most of the information that is on a user's profile. You can change any of the values on your profile. The changes you make will be reflected on the web site the next day. It is recommended that you check this information at least once and update it as needed after that.
ConCentRICs system requirements are really quite simple. You need to be running some version of Microsoft Windows. As long as you are running any version of Windows, you will be able to run ConCentRICs. The system is network independent and can run on virtually any network, from a small peer to peer to a full blown enterprise network. We do have some recommendations based on experiences from our current client base.
Network - The wiring of the network or the speed of the network have no real impact on the ConCentRICs system. It can operate very well on a 10 megabits-per-second (Mbps) network, but if you have a large number of work stations, 100 Mbps or faster is always better.
Network Server - ConCentRICs has very few requirements of the network server. ConCentRICs uses the server primarily for print and file services. The base system takes about 300 megabytes (MB) of storage. You can figure on another 700 MB for 20 years worth of data. This totals to 1 gigabyte (GB) of disk space requirements. The system allows it to be stored in various places on the network, so all the disk space for the system does not have to be on one drive. It can be spread across the network for security, speed, or logistical reasons. Currently the servers giving the best performance right now are those running Windows NT.
Database Engine - The ConCentRICs system uses the Pervasive SQL database engine, formerly known as Btrieve. This is the fastest, most cost-effective database available that follows all the SQL standards. The system comes with a client version of the database but it is highly recommended that you run the server version of the database engine. This will allow the system to operate up to 5 times faster, since the server would be performing the database tasks instead of each work station. You can find out more about Pervasive by going to their corporate web site at www.pervasive.com.
Work Stations - The individual work stations must run some version of Microsoft Windows. Intel based machines are the best logical choice for a work station, but the system can run on Apple machines running a Windows emulator. The system can operate on any speed processor but the faster the processor, the faster ConCentRICs will run. The system has only one small file to be placed on a work station that requires less than 1/2 K of space, so disk space is not a consideration. Memory is always a consideration in Windows environments. ConCentRICs does not require any more memory then any other Windows application. A ConCentRICs application is equivalent to Microsoft Word for resource requirements. If the user at the work station only opens one application at a time and then closes it before opening the next application, then the amount of memory required is minimal. If they have a number of Windows applications open at one time, or are using the graphics portion of the system, then more memory is required. If you have a work station running slow, the first thing to try is to increase the memory. The system will operate on any brand computer, but currently the ones with the most reliable performance for the money has been Dell computers.
Questions or problems regarding this web site should be directed to tech_support@riccorp.com or you can contact RIC Corp directly at:
RIC Corp
Copyright 2010 Resource Information and Control Corporation. All rights reserved.
Last Modified: Saturday, January 02, 2010 at 12:00 AM.