Having Artifax Event allows us to work remotely and still be able to access our calendar and continue to manage our four venues, even if we cannot be physically in the office. This is beyond important as we have many members of our organization who travel and need quick access to our calendar. The North American Artifax User Summit is an incredible opportunity to meet other facilities that use the software and learn from them, but it also allows us to meet with the members of the JCA team as well as a representative from Artifax.

After a very short basic training course it is easy for new users to start using Artifax to find information they used to have to ask for which streamlines requests and helps manage our time better. The ease of access with Artifax Event being on the web allows for travel or inclement weather to not slow down the fast pace at which we work. There is also a great community around Artifax and having a message board with information on how to use features as well as a place for users to suggest improvements.

There have been growing pains in our upgrade from our former Artifax edition, and trying to streamline the data that is incorporated with the new platform. Sometimes we cannot remove a field because it would delete all historical information, but we no longer have a use for it, so we have to find another way around that, however whenever we have encountered this the JCA team always provides suggestions on ways to work around the issue we are having, which is immensely helpful.

Artifax has allowed us to streamline many processes and ensure that everyone is working with the same information when making decisions. It's reporting functionality has also enabled us to auto-generate contracts, itemized invoices, schedules, letters, marketing materials, and much more with rich amounts of detail coming from different areas of the database. Best of all, Artifax is now so entrenched in our way of working that our end users often immediately ask (and hope!) that a business challenge they've encountered might be solved most easily by the software before considering other options.

Artifax's flexibility is one of the key reasons it works so well for our organization -- it's breadth of built-in features allow us to manage all facets of our work from booking spaces and capturing programming details to creating staff schedules and tracking guest travel and accommodation, and almost everything in between. But there's also a level of customization available in Artifax that allows us to tweak those built-in features to maximize how we work in the software in a way that is wholly unique to our needs as an organization.

Our biggest challenge with Artifax is managing user expectation; they're often so used to Artifax being able to do pretty much whatever it is they need that they're surprised by the odd occasion where we can't find an Artifax-based solution to a problem they might be having.

Horrible. We have realized zero business benefits. Even though it is the "official" calendar, many in this organization maintain their own separate calendars because it is so unusable for so many. This has actually made our situation worse than it was before.

lots of flexibility and options, and different ways to view things.

I don't even know where to begin. It's difficult to pick just one thing, so I'll just go with the interface. There is no standard calendar view that gives a decent overview of what's happening. There are multiple ways to enter certain types of information, but they are confusing, ambiguous and inconsistent. User interface is horrible, and navigation and data entry seem to require at least three times the number of mouse clicks than should be necessary. Will log you out after a period of inactivity, but doesn't notify that a logout has occurred, so you can continue to enter data, only to find out about the logout when you try to save, and of course, it's not saved. Has no in-app communication/notification tools, so any notifications of new events, changes, etc. must be communicated in other ways. Seriously, I can't NOT recommend this software enough.

Artifax 4 has been a marvelous addition for our staff. We are able to utilize the software for keeping our day to day calendar as well as using the documents function and custom reports to help us catalog information. Record keeping within the software continues to be valuable as shows make their way back to us after a couple of years. It gives our production managers a springboard for the show by having all pertinent information in a central location. I also love having the ability to now pull up our venue calendar on my phone through the new Outlook functions.

The biggest con is that at first sight, the software can seem daunting to new users. There are so many levels in the program, that on the surface it isn't always the most user friendly. It tends to scare off staff who are not as familiar with the program.

Allows us to manage a large number of events across a large number of spaces relatively easily

Artifax as an organization know their industry well, they have lots of experience and understand their client's needs. My experience is with their classic software, so can't comment on their latest release, but has been working for 10 years solid.

A little outdated and clunky, but again, that's based on an old version of the software, so not a true reflection of what the current version may be like