UCLA Events Online 2.0
UCLA’s System for Producing Successful Events
Submitted by: Betsy Metzgar, Assistant Director, Information Systems and Scheduling,
UCLA Events Office, BMetzgar@events.ucla.edu (310) 206-3274
Project Leader: Betsy Metzgar, team members listed on page 4.
Project Description
UCLA Events Online 2.0 (EOL) is the University’s official application for producing and communicating all
extra-curricular activities sponsored by UCLA. This first-of-its-kind application consolidates all event
reservations into a central database via a user-friendly interface that coaches event organizers with key
event planning instructions and “to do” lists. At the same time, it ensures necessary administrative
approvals and compliance with University event policy and facilitates ongoing and managed
communication between event organizers, venue owners, and related campus service departments
(parking, fire, police, etc.) throughout the event production process. EOL also provides data services
that enable the efficient and consistent publication of event information to various event calendars and
feeds information to the UCLA emergency management system.
Background: Why we needed to develop UCLA Events Online 2.0
Real Life Scenario One:
A UCLA professor reserves a campus venue for a guest speaker but does not inform any campus
personnel that the speaker is the foreign minister of a country with a volatile history. The day of the
event, supporters and non-supporters of the foreign minister gather outside the venue and an
altercation occurs requiring police to be called in. When the professor’s department is presented with
the bill, the chair says he knows nothing about the event.
Real Life Scenario Two:
A campus research center invites the Secretary General of the United Nations to speak on campus at the
Faculty Center. No one informs the Chancellor, and thus he does not meet and greet the Secretary
General, which is a breach of protocol.
Real Life Scenario Three:
A major donor to the College Library holds his daughter’s wedding and reception in the quad outside the
Library. During the reception, the automatic sprinkler system comes on.
“What we got here is failure to communicate” to quote the film Cool Hand Luke. Centralized advance
notification and events approval would have forestalled all of the above. In 2000, an interdepartmental
committee sought “off-the-shelf” software that could address UCLA’s event management issues.
Unable to find such a product, the committee pooled their resources to develop a very basic intranet
system that began to tackle the problem of communicating and coordinating events across the UCLA
campus. That was UCLA Events Online 1.0., released in 2001. In November 2010, a completely new
system was launched: UCLA Events Online 2.0. With a remodeled backend, redesigned user interface
and numerous added features requested by EOL 1.0 users, the new system provides an efficient,
innovative solution to producing successful University events so the scenarios above do not occur again.
Objectives and Solutions: Steps to produce a successful event using UCLA Events Online 2.0
Sample Players:
Scheduler – Rosy Reservationist who schedules the reservations for the Alumni Center
Event Organizer – Professor Sage who is organizing a guest speaker event
Facilitator – Polly Protocol, Stan Security and other campus services staff
Authorizer – Arthur Authorizer, the Management Services Officer (MSO) of Professor Sage’s department
Consolidate event reservations from all the campus’ proprietary venue reservation systems
 Professor Sage asks Rosy Reservationist to reserve the Alumni Center for his guest speaker event.
 Rosy initiates the EOL process for the event by entering the date/time/location from her proprietary
reservation system into the EOL system.
 Rosy informs Professor Sage that she has made a tentative reservation and it will be confirmed once
the EOL process is completed.
Guide the Event Organizer through University policies and procedures pertinent to the event
 Professor Sage receives an email with a link to the EOL form that Rosy Reservationist initiated. He
accesses the EOL form via his UCLA Logon (Shibboleth single sign-on).
 As he fills in the EOL form, he is prompted with a series of questions and checkboxes to provide
specific details about his event. Among the boxes Professor Sage checks off are: VIP, Foreign
Dignitary, and he is prompted to enter the name and affiliation of the dignitary.
 Professor Sage submits the EOL and is presented with a customized Task List of event procedures on
his Event Summary screen. The Task List is generated by the checkboxes Professor Sage checked off.
Among the items on his Task List are: Notify the Campus Police and the Chancellor’s Protocol Office
that his speaker is a foreign dignitary.
 A customized list of event policies appears on his Event Summary screen. That list is generated by
the checkboxes Professor Sage checked off. His list includes the policy for inviting a VIP to campus.
Notify the people who need to know about the event
 While Professor Sage is reading over his Task List of whom to contact to facilitate his event, those
same Facilitators, such as Polly Protocol and Stan Security, receive emails with the Event Summary.
 If the Facilitator has concerns about the event, he can logon to the EOL and add a written stipulation
that’s emailed to the Event Organizer, or he can contact the Event Organizer directly. For example,
Stan Security from Campus Police adds the stipulation that he must meet with Professor Sage to
arrange for adequate security for the foreign minister event two weeks prior to the event.
 An individual Facilitator only receives emails for the events that pertain to his services. The EOL
Facilitators include staff from Parking, Facilities, Emergency Management, Media Relations,
Community Relations, Fire Division, Food Safety, Protocol Office, Ticket Office, UCLA Store and
campus building managers.
Obtain authorization from a senior official
 After the review process by the Facilitators, the EOL is emailed to Arthur Authorizer. In addition,
when Professor Sage first submitted the EOL, an event advisory was sent to Professor Sage’s
department chair so the chair knows what his faculty is planning.
 Arthur Authorizer clicks on the link in the email to access the EOL and views the Event Summary that
provides links to all the pertinent event policies. He confirms the EOL with an electronic
authorization, vouching that the event complies with University policy and providing the
department’s recharge ID to guarantee payment. Or Arthur can deny the EOL.

If the Event Organizer is a student with a Registered Campus Organization, then the EOL is
automatically sent to the organization’s assigned staff advisor at the Center for Student
Programming (CSP) for authorization. EOL receives a daily batch job of the updated CSP database of
1000+ organizations and their assigned advisors.
Export event information to other campus databases
EOL data is exported via Web services. Only events authorized through EOL 2.0 are allowed to be
displayed on the following calendars.
 Master Operations Calendar – Comprehensive listing of all events, public and private. Access via
UCLA Logon granted by System Administrator to staff and faculty who organize events and provide
services.
 Happenings Calendar of Public Events (happenings.ucla.edu) ̶ Access available to general public.
 MyEvents Calendar of Student Events – Access via UCLA logon to students, faculty and staff on the
MyUCLA student portal. Release date: June 1, 2013
 Emergency Response Database ̶ In the event of an emergency, this provides a special view of the
Campus Map for first responders that allows them to click on the campus building or area where
there is an emergency and view details of all events and classes in that location. This is critical
information for timely response planning. Release date: July, 2013
Innovation – EOL has unique features that are unavailable in commercial event management software:
EOL takes each player “by the hand” and provides the customized information each player needs in
order to produce or facilitate a particular event. It does not require a centralized venue reservation
system. In addition, EOL delivers only authorized event information to calendar databases.
Usability ̶ As a class project, 4 students from the Graduate School of Education and Information Studies
conducted usability tests on the proposed screens for EOL 2.0 with a cross section of EOL 1.0 users. The
graduate students presented the EOL 2.0 development team with a 26 page report with suggestions on
enhancing the user interface and those suggestions were incorporated in EOL 2.0. The result is a system
that is intuitive to navigate by users with varied levels of computer skills.
Accessibility – 508 compliance was a priority in the design of EOL 2.0. The EOL development team
consulted with UCLA Disabilities and Computing Program consultants throughout the design process to
assure accessibility.
Collaboration – By its very nature, EOL is a collaborative effort. All EOL Facilitators meet regularly with
the EOL System Administrator to fine-tune “their” EOL checkboxes so the Facilitators are receiving the
event details they need. The EOL team works with other departments to create data transfers to and
from their databases. During the initial design phase, a professional usability expert conducted a series
of focus group studies with a wide range of EOL 1.0 users to create their “wish list” for EOL 2.0. The vast
majority of the items on the extensive wish list were implemented in EOL 2.0.
Sharable – Member schools of the Association of Collegiate Conference and Events DirectorsInternational (ACCED-I) expressed interest in the EOL software so EOL 2.0 was designed to be generic for
use by other institutions. Currently, the purchase license is being written for our first customer, Indiana
University.
Measuring Success ̶ EOL 2.0 has proven to be so effective in managing campus events that it is now
considered “mission critical,” funded by Central Administration Fees and is required by UCLA
Administrative Policy 860 to be used to register every University event.
View EOL 2.0 Screens – Access to the EOL intranet is only available via UCLA Logon, but a sample EOL
event can be viewed here: http://www.transportation.ucla.edu/portal/presentation/EOLScreens.pptx
Technology Utilized
UCLA Events Online 2.0 is a Web-based application, built upon the .Net framework supported by a
MSSQL database. The EOL application was specifically designed to be easy to maintain, using
standardized coding practices, n-tiered architecture, and a functional business layer. The database was
designed using appropriate normalization, relationships, and transactions, resulting in an efficient,
scalable, and overall manageable system.
Key features of the application include:

Integration with the IAMUCLA Shibboleth single sign-on service for application authentication.

Interoperable with other campus databases. Two standard .NET Web services allow real-time
interaction with the public and student calendars enabling structured review process and
posting of key campus events. In addition, this integration provides real-time event data to
support the Campus Emergency Operations Group’s disaster recovery response. A scheduled
process is integrated with the UCLA Student Affairs systems to pre-populate key student
organization information. This interface significantly streamlines the processing of the large
number of events generated by these groups in EOL 2.0.

A robust set of administrative interfaces that allow easy customization of all reference tables,
general look and feel, user and role management, and more.

The application has specific codes to provide transaction logs for troubleshooting and
performance tuning efforts.
Timeline of Implementation
Focus groups with EOL 1.0 users to determine EOL 2.0 features: May 2008
Develop System Requirements and Functional Specifications: June - December 2008
System programming and testing: January 2009 - September 2010
Set-up accounts for “power users”: October 2010
Sent instructions for using new system to “power users”: November 2010
Launched EOL 2.0: November 10, 2010
UCLA Team Members
Betsy Metzgar, Assistant Director, UCLA Events Office
Gordon Anderson, Applications & Systems Development Manager, UCLA Events & Transportation
Charlie Yang, Programmer/Analyst, UCLA Events & Transportation
Kyle Holtan, Web Advisor, UCLA Events Office
Jack Raab, Director, UCLA Events Office (retired 2012)
Customer Satisfaction Testimonials
Prior to EOL, there was not a simple way for the UCLA Police Department to stay on top of events and be
involved as appropriate. EOL made a significant difference in the planning process. We are alerted to
events falling within certain fields, event organizers contact us as part of the scheduling process and we
easily can check to see what is going on around campus. And, the program only gets better with
upgrades and fine-tuning of the systems. Concerns with an event can easily be addressed as it is clearer
who will need to be contacted. If an event is truly inappropriate, that too can be discussed and the event
denied. EOL works, lightens the load for many units and has enabled us to more efficiently serve the
public while protecting the community.
Nancy Greenstein, Director, Community Services, UCLA Police Department
With the Events Online process, it has allowed the Fire Division on this campus the ability to go to a
single, on-line location and discover, verify and assist us in dealing with the numerous events and
activities held on the campus. Reviewing the applicants EOL web page for a particular event gives us a
comprehensive snapshot of the information necessary to assist the requestor with processing a
Temporary Use Fire Permit, or assuring they are in compliance with fire codes for their assembly
gathering, concert, reception, or fundraiser event. This system and its information has allowed us to
make direct points of contact with not only the requestor, but their Center for Student Programming
Advisor, the Venue/Event Manager and other stakeholders involved with the event, without having to
search for these contacts or find out who is involved. We do appreciate this technology provided us.
M. Steve Jurado, Cpt. Assistant Fire Marshal
EOL is a truly remarkable tool that allows for effective communication and understanding of events
happening on-campus. EOL allows all of us to have a baseline frame of reference so that we can quickly
start conversations about what will be occurring, when it will be happening, and where it will be. In
student activities, the transferable skill that students gain from putting on events is one of the primary
aspects of our role at the University. EOL is an excellent tool that facilitates how students learn to plan
events, prompts students to take into consideration what they need to consider in putting on an event,
then provides avenues of information on how best to proceed and what further steps are needed.
Kristopher Tadashi Kaupalolo, Staff Advisor, UCLA Center for Student Programming
EOL has been an incredible tool in our work to develop a comprehensive, personalized calendar of events
produced by and for students. A large-scale project like this would have been impossible without a
comprehensive database of information about every program on campus already created and utilized so
effectively and efficiently. The gathering of that information would have been the biggest challenge for
this project and having this tool that is already so utilized and understood by the student body was vital
to the success of our project. It is a tool that the campus knows about, understands, and is easy to use (a
hard feat for a community of 80,000 students, staff, faculty, and administration) and is tremendously
helpful to always be able to track what is happening on campus.
David Bocarsly, UCLA Student Body President
Beginning in 2000-01, the member departments of the Campus Facilities Coordinating Committee (which
I chaired at the time) worked together to develop and fund the Events Online system (EOL).
This online application was designed to provide a user-friendly interface for event planners and service
providers. This system was quickly embraced by the campus and had greatly improved the efficiency and
effectiveness of planning events on our campus.
Robert J. Naples, Associate Vice Chancellor, Student & Campus Life