Case Study
Conference Registration SaaS Platform
Bringing America Back to Life, a nonprofit organization based in northeast Ohio, hosts an annual 2-day conference welcoming approximately 1,000 attendees each year. After a decade of managing registrations manually through Excel spreadsheets and email coordination, their conference manager, Joe, approached Honeyguide for help. The result was a digital transformation that has evolved over four years, ultimately enabling BABTL to transition leadership while maintaining operational excellence and real-time decision-making capabilities.
The Challenge
Joe was overwhelmed by a completely manual registration process that had become a full-time job for three months each year. A team of 10 registrars managed group registrations (75% of attendees) while individual registrations (25%) came through their marketing website. Everything was coordinated through Excel spreadsheets sent over email, creating a nightmare for change management, frequent human errors, and a single point of failure. After researching existing solutions and receiving a $200,000 proposal from an established agency, Joe needed a custom solution that could handle their unique complexity within their nonprofit budget constraints.
Our Solution
We proposed an iterative approach designed to transform the greatest areas of opportunity first, at a price point the organization could budget for. Step #1 was to centralize the registration system, creating a single source of truth with a single point of entry. We developed a multi-tenant web application on cloud infrastructure, accessible by each team member with oversight controls for comprehensive management.
We successfully rolled out the new system in time for the 2021 conference and provided comprehensive training for the team. As we used the system over the following months, we identified opportunities for enhancement. We added an activity log for detailed oversight of every change and enforced rules and limitations previously impossible with Excel spreadsheets.
Step #2 addressed name badge printing management. Previously, this required maintaining a separate system and duplicate registration data. We created intelligent functions to alert when badges needed reprinting as changes occurred and automatically produced new badges for printing, eliminating manual tracking during the critical pre-conference period.
The Results
Over four years of continuous improvement, the system evolved to include external registrar access, intelligent duplicate detection, master switches for sold-out items, and one-click import of individual registrations from their marketing website. Most importantly, Bringing America Back to Life gained real-time data-driven decision-making capabilities with all historical and current data accessible through a single interface.
By 2024, the system supported 29 registrar users managing 1,043 unique attendees with 2,465 registration changes throughout the year. The platform successfully maintained the 78%/22% split between group and individual registrations while dramatically reducing manual overhead. Registration management was no longer a full-time job for the first quarter of each year.
The transformation's ultimate success was demonstrated when Joe felt confident stepping back after 15 years, successfully transitioning responsibility to Bringing America Back to Life's executive director and team. The system had codified the entire process into a largely automated solution, enabling seamless leadership transition while maintaining operational excellence.
"Honeyguide did a fantastic job in transforming our convention registration system! We launched the convention 15 years ago with one standard offering of 12 presentations spread over 2 days with all three meals included. And one person with emails and spreadsheets was able to handle all the registrations. The Convention was a resounding success, and it grew rapidly to some 1500 individual attendees. Simultaneously with the attendance increase we also started offering a smorgasbord of customized meal selections, tailored group discounts, assigned seating, etc. This led to an exponential increase in complexity & effort required for registration. It also generated a huge risk of registration system failure! The whole registration system was dependent on one person with Microsoft Office tools, and the standing joke became: “What happens if Joe (the registration guru) gets hit by a bus?” Bottom line: we knew we needed professional help. So, we reached out to Honeyguide, and they were able to move us rapidly from a completely manual process of spreadsheets and emails to a distributed web application where group leaders in any location can enter (& edit) their own attendees, see how much each attendee owes, & how much the group owes. At the same time, attendance & meals (including changes) are immediately reflected in the centralized database. And the system also accommodates individual attendees (not associated with a group) to register & pay for themselves online for the days and meals of their choice. The Honeyguide system then generates secure individualized name badges with visible markings indicating the day of attendance and meals purchased. Furthermore, “day of” registration changes can be made and new name badges generated “on-the-fly” Through the whole transition process Honeyguide was and still is always available to coach the whole team with online training sessions and/or troubleshooting. This all culminated in the ultimate success story which took place in March 2025 when the entire Honeyguide registration system was transitioned to a new team leader and registration for the 2025 Convention ran seamlessly."
