NC State Streamlines a Complex Summer Conference Season with StarRez C&E

Turning a 10-Week Summer into One Connected Operation

During a typical summer, NC State’s Conference & Guest Services team supports more than 130 conference groups and between 11,000 and 14,000 guests—all within an operating season of roughly 10 weeks.

Those conferences generate more than $2 million in annual revenue, but the scale of the operation is only part of the story. The team manages the season with a relatively small professional team and approximately 30 student employees, many of whom are new to conference operations each year.

Every group brings its own combination of housing assignments, arrival and departure schedules, dining needs, meeting spaces, parking, transportation, recreation, linens, keys, billing requirements and campus contacts. Details can change repeatedly as rosters evolve and arrival dates approach.

“Conference planning involves so many different moving parts—from dining to logistics, billing and communication—and sometimes they’re all happening simultaneously,” said Olivia Sachtleben, Assistant Director, Conference and Guest Services at NC State University.

For NC State, successfully managing that complexity requires more than storing reservations. It requires an operational framework that helps staff understand the current status of every conference, identify what still needs attention and move information efficiently between the teams serving each group.

Maintaining Visibility Across a Complex Conference Lifecycle

NC State’s conference planning process begins months before guests arrive. The team must account for residence hall availability, maintenance and renovation schedules, academic-year transitions and the needs of internal programs, external clients, and research experiences.

Once a group is confirmed, the number of operational details grows quickly. A single conference can involve multiple sessions, staggered staff arrivals, individual or bulk check-ins, accessibility accommodations, hundreds of keys and access cards, linen deliveries, meal schedules and charges from several campus partners.

Historically, maintaining visibility across those responsibilities could require reviewing individual conference records, manually updated spreadsheets, and separate task lists. When information changed, staff sometimes needed to update the same details in multiple locations to ensure campus partners had current information.

That repetition consumed time and introduced the possibility that one tracker would be updated while another would not.

The seasonal nature of the workforce added another consideration. With many student employees learning conference operations for the first time, NC State needed processes that made responsibilities visible and understandable without requiring every team member to hold the full conference season in their head.

The challenge was not simply to collect more data. It was to make the right data accessible to the right people at the right point in the conference journey.

Configuring StarRez Around the NC State’s Operation

NC State uses the StarRez Conference & Events solution as the operational center for its conference program, connecting information from initial planning through arrival, departure, and final billing. The solution is designed to bring together group details, housing, dining and meeting-space needs, communication, billing, and reporting within a connected platform.

“For our team, the greatest value of StarRez has been the ability to customize the system around our existing operational structure and create a more centralized, transparent approach to conference management.”

- Olivia Sachtleben, Assistant Director, Conference and Guest Services at NC State University

Turning Custom Fields into Actionable Workflows

NC State has developed custom fields that capture the operational details attached to each conference, including:

• Contracting and billing status

• Emergency, on-site and financial contacts

• Arrival and departure plans

• Housing assignments and accommodations

• Dining, parking, transportation, and recreation needs

• Key preparation, exchange, return, and audit status

• Linen quantities, delivery locations, and collection status

• Rosters, access cards, and other preparation requirements

The team then uses those fields to power customized dashboards covering the conference lifecycle. Rather than opening each individual record to determine what needs attention, staff can see outstanding tasks across multiple groups in one place.

Dashboards can distinguish conferences that are still confirming details from those with contracts sent or executed. Separate views track roster collection, campus partner requests, key preparation, linen needs, building access and billing.

“The dashboards allow our team to identify outstanding items across multiple conferences simultaneously rather than reviewing each group individually,”

- Olivia Sachtleben, Assistant Director, Conference and Guest Services at NC State University

As a status changes, the conference moves into the appropriate dashboard view. A key workflow, for example, can progress from preparation to exchange, return, and final audit. Billing can move from missing details through invoice preparation, submission, and payment.

This structure gives professional staff a broad view of the season while allowing individual employees to concentrate on the conferences and responsibilities assigned to them.

Extending StarRez Reporting Through Automation

NC State has also created an automated reporting process that connects scheduled StarRez reports with the operational spreadsheets used by campus partners.

Using Google Apps Script, the team takes scheduled StarRez reports received through email and automatically updates the appropriate spreadsheet. The process reduces the need for staff to enter the same information in two or three different places whenever a roster, housing assignment, arrival time or other operational detail changes.

“This has significantly reduced the need for staff to enter the same information in two or three different places,” said Olivia.

NC State estimates that the automation saves between 30 seconds and three minutes each time a record is updated. Using an illustrative average of 10 updates per conference and 90 seconds saved per update, the team estimates approximately 32 hours of administrative time saved during a summer season.

The process is a strong example of NC State using StarRez reporting capabilities not only to view information, but also to create a more efficient flow of data between Conference & Guest Services and its campus partners. StarRez reporting tools support configurable reports, real-time dashboards, scheduled communications and role-based access to information.

“The combination of customized fields, dashboards, reporting capabilities, and automated integrations has allowed us to reduce repetitive administrative tasks while making operational responsibilities more visible and accessible to our entire team.”

- Olivia Sachtleben, Assistant Director, Conference and Guest Services at NC State University

More Time for Operations and Guest Support

An Estimated 40–65 Hours Reclaimed Through Dashboards

Before developing its customized dashboards, NC State staff often needed to review individual records, update manual trackers and separately confirm the status of contracting, preparation, and billing responsibilities.

The team estimates that its dashboard-based approach may eliminate approximately 40–65 hours of manual status tracking and reconciliation over the course of a conference season.

While that figure has not been measured through a formal time study, it reflects a meaningful change in how work is managed. Employees can now scan the season for missing information or delayed tasks rather than checking more than 130 conferences one at a time.

That visibility is especially valuable for a team supported by approximately 30 seasonal student employees. Clear statuses and role-specific responsibilities help new staff contribute more quickly while giving professional staff a practical way to monitor progress.

Approximately 80% of Invoices Completed Within Three Weeks

NC State’s goal is to issue final invoices within three weeks of a conference’s departure. The team estimates that approximately 80% of invoices are completed within that timeframe.

The remaining invoices generally depend on outstanding information from campus partners or additional details that must be confirmed before charges can be finalized.

“StarRez helps us track billing statuses and outstanding responsibilities, making it easier to identify where an invoice stands and what information is still needed.”

- Olivia Sachtleben, Assistant Director, Conference and Guest Services at NC State University  

The dashboard may not eliminate every external dependency, but it makes those dependencies visible. Staff can identify whether an invoice is awaiting a charge, needs internal review or is ready to be sent rather than relying on memory or searching through separate documentation.

Stronger Documentation for Key Accountability

NC State had already established billing reconciliation and key-management practices and then used StarRez to strengthen the documentation supporting those processes.

Customized fields give staff a central place to record key exchanges, returns, and discrepancies. When a key is missing after departure, employees can consult the conference record rather than relying exclusively on a paper form that may be stored at one of several service desks.

This more accessible record helps the team investigate discrepancies, confirm what occurred, and determine the appropriate follow-up.

Consistency Through Changing Conference Volumes

The strongest measure of success is the team’s ability to preserve consistent processes as volumes and program mixes change.

“StarRez’s value has been in helping us maintain operational consistency and efficiency across changing conference volumes.”

- Olivia Sachtleben, Assistant Director, Conference and Guest Services at NC State University

That operational resilience allows NC State to support a multimillion-dollar conference program without allowing seasonal changes, staffing transitions or fluctuating demand to fragment the way work gets done.

A Trailblazing Approach to Conference Management

NC State’s success is not based on one dashboard, one report, or one automation. It comes from treating StarRez Conference & Events as a configurable operational platform and continually adapting it to the needs of the team.

The university has connected custom fields, dashboards, scheduled reports, and locally developed automation into a working model that supports professional staff, seasonal employees and campus partners. Information becomes more useful because it is not simply stored—it is transformed into visible responsibilities, clear handoffs and actionable next steps.

The approach also recognizes that guests do not experience housing, dining, parking, recreation, and billing as separate departmental functions. They experience one visit to NC State. By connecting those operational components, Conference & Guest Services can spend more time coordinating that complete journey and less time maintaining the systems behind it.

“Ultimately, StarRez allows us to spend less time maintaining information and more time actually managing our conference operations and supporting our guests.”

- Olivia Sachtleben, Assistant Director, Conference and Guest Services at NC State University

For other institutions looking to modernize conference operations, NC State provides a compelling model: centralize the data, configure workflows around the way the team actually works, and use automation to turn repetitive administration into time that can be reinvested in people and the guest experience.

Interested in learning more about how you can streamline a complex conference season? Explore StarRez Conference & Events.