How to Use Expo Management

With Aptify, you can track vendor participation at an expo and manage booth assignments. The following is an overview of how an organization might use the Expo Management application:

1. An organization plans an exposition as a stand-alone event or as part of a larger meeting.
2. If not already in the system, a user adds the location where the expo will be held as a new Venues record in Aptify.
   • See Creating Venues for Expos for details.
     
     
3. A user creates one or more floorplans for the venue. These floorplans specify the booth layout for a particular area of the exposition hall.
   • A user can create a new floorplan in one of three ways, as described in Creating Floorplans:
   1. • Creating a Blank Floorplan
      • Copying an Existing Floorplan Using New Floorplan Wizard
      • Copying an Existing Floorplan Using the Floorplan Copy Wizard
        
        
4. A user creates an Expos product for the event. This includes defining the per unit pricing for a booth that will be charged to exhibitors, linking the venue's floorplans to the expo, and linking a meeting to the expo, if applicable.
   • See Creating a New Expos Product for details.
   • See Managing Meeting Registration for Exhibitors for information on linking a meeting to an expo.
     
     
5. A user defines the booth layout for each floorplan associated with the expo. This specifies the number and size of the booths that exhibitors can rent for the event. It also specifies any surcharge that applies to a particular booth. Alternatively, if integrating with a third party Floorplan System, the user can run the Floorplan Synchronization wizard to download booth information from that third-party program.
   • See Generating Booths Automatically for information on how to automatically generate a standard set of booths to use as the starting point for defining a booth layout.
   • See Using the Booth Combination Wizard for information on how to combine multiple booths together to form a larger booth and for information on how to break apart these types of booths.
   • See Linking a Floorplan to EXPOCAD Desktop for information on how to synchronize an Aptify floorplan with an ExpoCAD event to manage booth layout and design. Aptify provides built-in integration for the ExpoCAD Floorplan System.
     
     
6. Order entry personnel use Aptify's standard Order Entry system to take orders for booth space from customer/members and assign a specific booth to the customer.
   • A user specifies a booth assignment at the time the order is taken or at a later date. See Assigning Booths to Customers for details.
   • Once a booth has been assigned to a particular customer, it becomes "Occupied" and is no longer available.
   • If applicable, exhibitors can register for a corresponding meeting and link their booth assignment to their meeting registration. See Managing Meeting Registration for Exhibitors for details.
   • If an exhibitor needs to cancel his or her booth reservation, a user creates a cancellation order that frees up the booth so it can be assigned to another customer. See Canceling Booth Assignments for details.