Softix-InSight

2005 Consensus Software Awards

Product Description

InSight is a real-time, secure and easy-to-use web application, which allows users to view Ticketek’s ticketing system sales data via the Internet.

• InSight consists of three main components:

• Insight.NET is the name given to the Web Application installed on the MS2000 IIS server. This is essentially the front end of the application.

• Insightsrv is the UNIX server process that allows InSight to access S18 ticket system information, and communicate with the SQL database.

• MS SQL is where the data will be stored and accessed, this can be run from either the same host as Insight.NET or on a separate host.

Beginning to use InSight is an easy 3-step process:

1. Create a user login.

• Users are given access to report on sales figures for specific ticketing system shows.  There are several levels of user access.

2. Create watchlists

• Users log in and select the shows they would like to report on.  These shows are then grouped together in a watchlist.  A user can create as many watchlists as they like enabling them to view sales figures in varying ways.

3. Run reports

• Users are able to choose the way they view sales figures from graphs, pie-charts, tables or Excel Spreadsheets.

There are 4 types of reports that are available to view sales figures.  They are:

• A channel sales breakdown by show (eg telephone, box office, outlet, internet, groups) breaking down sales for today and sales to date.  This report includes ticket and sales revenue

• A price type breakdown (eg adult, junior, concession) which shows ticket sales by price type and price category

• A sales history report which shows ticket sales and revenue by sales date

• A channel sales breakdown (eg telephone, box office, outlet, internet, groups) which shows tickets and sales revenue by sales channel

The key benefits of Insight are:

• Access to Ticketing System Sales figures anywhere in the world, 24 hours a day via the internet

• No need for specialized ticketing system software to be installed to access sales figures

• Very easy to use with only a few minutes training required

• The user can handpick the shows they would like to report on and have the ability to group and aggregate the sales data

• The user can choose to view sales figures as a graph, pie-chart, table or Excel Spreadsheet

Innovation

The ticketing industry sector is a highly specialised industry with software vendors developing proprietary technology.  The consequence of this, is that access to real-time ticketing system data has always been a difficult process for Hirers of ticketing software.  In the days prior to InSight, promoters and venues were completely reliant on the ticketing company to provide them with ticket sale updates for their shows.  Clients would generally receive ticket sales updates via:

• A direct connection or a dialup connection to the ticketing system to view text based sales reports

• Email or Fax at specified times to view text based event sales reports

• An Account Manager who would give them a ticket and revenue update over the phone

While reliable and informative, sales figures and reports provided in the above forms lacked colour and graphics and did not allow the reader the flexibility to view the sales figures in varying ways.  The above three options also rely on technology not failing (dialup connection to ticketing system working or the email or fax turning up on time) and humans actually being there to answer the call which will only be the case during business hours.

Technical Innovation

Built using the .NET framework, InSight is the first online real-time web based application developed in Australia enabling users to view live Ticketing System sales via a browser.  A point of interest, is that all similar products developed by competitors rely on batch processing for sales updates.

InSight has an innovative security data model with multiple levels of security.  The levels are:

• User Level – each user has a distinct user account – and all activity is logged for audit purposes.

• Group Level - Access to performance information is based on Venue, Promoter and Event Manager “Groups”. Users are assigned to belong to Groups.

• Information sent over the Internet is encrypted using Secure Sockets (SSL) 128 bit encryption

Process Innovation

InSight has greatly improved operational efficiency for both Ticketek and its many clients.  Clients wanting ticket sale updates, which used to take minutes, now take seconds with InSight’s real time self service environment.  InSight has enabled Ticketek Account Managers to greatly reduce the time spent producing ticket sales updates.  This time is now able to spent on developing other business opportunities.

Over the last 7 months, 177 different clients have logged into InSight for a total of nearly 11,000 logins.  Many of these sales figure update enquiries would have ended up with a phone call to an Account Manager.  Ticketek is currently determining the saving in labour cost this represents.

Product Innovation

InSight gives the user complete flexibility when viewing ticketing system sales figures.  Users have the ability to customise their own sales reports.  They have the ability to group and aggregate sales figures from many events.

InSight enables the user view sales data in various formats including graphs, pie-charts, tables and Excel spreadsheets.

Performance

InSight was developed in close consultation with key promoters and venues, who are among the most demanding clients of ticketing companies.  Numerous client workshops and reviews were held throughout the Software Development Life Cycle to ensure the product was going to meet client expectations.  The Alpha and Beta trials proved a huge success and ensured a smooth deployment of the product.

To ensure the ongoing quality of the product, all requests for functionality (new or alterations to existing functionality), are evaluated by a change board.  All changes are fully scoped, developed and tested before deployment.

Security is key to any applications performance.  As discussed earlier, InSight’s multi level security and auditing ensures the reliable performance.

The number of concurrent users or the number of reports being run, provided your web server has sufficient capacity does not affect insight’s performance.  The average response time when running any of the 4 available reports is under 5 seconds.

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Potential

Ticketek’s software development arm, ‘Softix’ currently has clients in North America, South America and Europe.  We have identified through market research, that there is huge potential to launch InSight in North and South America, particularly as InSight is available in both English and Spanish.  One client in the Netherlands currently uses inSight.

Ticketek is currently reviewing the use of InSight by all of its clients.  Client surveys have revealed the creation of two more reports has the potential to reduce operational work of Ticketek staff by 40 hours per month.

The look and feel of InSight is completely customizable.  This gives clients the potential to create site branding to suit there marketing needs.  It also gives clients the potential to incorporate advertising material and newsletters.

Other information the judges should know

TickeTeK OVERVIEW

Established in 1979, Ticketek is the leading ticketing partner for the sports and entertainment industries in Australia and New Zealand.

Fully owned by Australia's largest media and entertainment group of companies, Publishing and Broadcasting Limited (ASX: PBL), Ticketek is affiliated with a diverse range of media, gaming, entertainment and e-commerce businesses and investments. These include Australia's leading free-to-air television broadcaster (Channel 9), magazine publisher (ACP) and the premier gaming and entertainment complex (Crown).

Australia comes first

The entire support, training and software development teams are based in this country and the development agenda is created with our clients for the local marketplace. Nowhere is this more evident than the internet.

We identified early on the value and future of online ticketing.Ticketek was the first Australian company to:

• offer real-time ticketing services online via ticketek.com.au (1997)

• give patrons the option to print at home tickets for shows they had bought on the internet (2001)

• ticket an official online charity auction for a PBL charity performance of Cirque du Soleil's Quidam (2004)

A $1.5million upgrade in 2003 was part of an ongoing commitment to lead the way.

Ticketek's website is consistently rated as the Number 1 Entertainment and Events website by Nielsen//NetRatings, measured monthly by the number of unique visitors.

More than one million online members have asked to receive information about future shows. This is a powerful marketing tool for our clients.

TICKETEK’S SERVICES

Ticketek provides:

• full ticketing services for venues and events

• complete real-time ticketing services across all channels: online, by telephone and in person at venue box offices and retail outlets

• membership management

• marketing services

• market intelligence 

• comprehensive client-driven reports

• hosted and stand-alone ticketing software through Softix, a fully owned subsidiary of Ticketek

NATIONAL COVERAGE

Ticketek is a national operation, with a strong presence in NSW, Victoria, Tasmania, ACT, Queensland and New Zealand. Ticketek also works in partnership with independent ticketing operators to complete its coverage of the country.

Our strength nationally gives clients:

• continuity and a national overview for tours through a national Call Centre and Agency network

• superior market intelligence in different marketplaces

• the added ability to pull audiences from further a field for major events

Table 1: Number of Ticketek outlets

AUSTRALIA'S LEADING BRAND

When Australians think sports and entertainment tickets, they think Ticketek.

An AC Nielsen Omnibus Survey (2004) found that 96% of people in Melbourne, Sydney and Brisbane know about Ticketek, with nearly three quarters mentioning Ticketek unprompted as the first ticketing company that came to mind.

This is why Ticketek has become Australia's leading ticketing partner for sports and entertainment. Each year it sells over 12 million tickets to around 13,000 events in more than 225 venues throughout Australia and New Zealand.

Further Information

Further information on the Ticketek is available at www.ticketek.com.au while information on the InSight product can be obtained from the Softix website:  www.softix.com 

Content Copyright©Softix Pty Ltd
Format Copyright©Consensus Pty Ltd

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