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Looking back on 10 years Yesplan with our first UK customers Gulbenkian and Insole Court

As a way of celebrating our 10th anniversary, we interviewed our first customer in every region. This week's turn: the UK. It seems that both Gulbenkian and Insole Court were our first UK users and since choosing is losing, we did an interview with both!

Taking you five years back in time!

Until five years ago, Yesplan was primarily active in Belgium and the Netherlands. However in 2016, we took the big leap across the channel and began making planning easier for UK venues as well! And who was the first to benefit from our venue management software? Both Gulbenkian and Insole court. So it only seemed fitting for us to interview both Heledd Jones, Bookings Manager at Insole Court, and David Haigh, Operations Director for Gulbenkian. 

David: “five years ago, most things were done on the calendar and people's emails. If some employees weren’t around and you wanted to work out what was going on, you needed to enter other people’s calendars and emails, which was a proper nightmare. We had a Yesplan demonstration and it actually did everything we hoped it would, and your software scored really highly on our criteria list. We went for it and the rest is history!”

The best added feature so far? Dataviews! 

 
When we asked Heledd and David if they saw our software changing in the past few years, they both agreed that dataviews is the best added feature! 

Heledd: “I think the primary change for us has been the introduction of the dataviews. It's really useful, because it allows us to take the information that we want from it. One that springs to mind, is to report on what catering our cafe will be delivering in terms of room hire catering. Now we run a weekly report that we deliver to the kitchen, so they know exactly what they're delivering throughout the week, to which room, who the customer is & what the dietary requirements are.”

David: “Dataviews have transformed how we look up information and how we can share that, particularly from a finance perspective, but also recording data for stakeholders. Since we’ve gone through the years, your software has been changing. We also started using the notifications, so we don’t have to send as many emails as we used to. We’ve actually been changing our business processes since using Yesplan for the better.”

What do you think are Yesplan’s three biggest strengths?

Heledd Jones, Bookings Manager for Insole court:

  1. Resource management: This is my number one. Thanks to the resource management in Yesplan, I know immediately if there’s a clash. For example, I get notified if we’ve given 50 chairs to one room, when they’re already booked out elsewhere.
  2. It’s a live system: If I were to change something on it right now, it would be live on everybody else’s view of the system, which I think is great!
  3. The way of working with the team at Yesplan: Yesplan is a young system. It’s been great working with the Yesplan team and giving our feedback to be able to develop this system for the benefit of everybody.

David Haigh, Operations Director for Gulbenkian: 

  1. The amount of users: The system is designed for everybody to be able to access it, wherever they want to. That was vital for me, as I’ve used software in the past where you’ve had to kick someone off, because you’ve only got so many licenses.
  2. The flexibility of the set-up: I learnt that I can set up my page differently to how I set up someone else’s page. Not just visually, but also regarding the information you want to gather.
  3. It’s cloud-based: This has been immensely helpful throughout the pandemic when our staff was working remotely.

Our birthday wish for Yesplan 

David: Congratulations for getting to 10 years! Yesplan is really one easy, easy spot for us to get hold of everything we need and reflect back on events. We're looking forward to the next 10 years! 

Heledd: Llongyfarchiadau mawr i chi, y tîm -am gamp! Penblwydd hapus yn ddeg oed i Yesplan :)
(or for those who don’t speak Welsh: Many congratulations to you, the team -what an achievement! Happy 10th birthday, Yesplan.)

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