Connecting exhibitor applications, floor plan and CRM

The problem

An exhibitor application used to land in a form inbox. Someone retyped it into the CRM, matched it to the right company, and passed it to the rep for that territory. Later, once the booth was on the floor plan, someone created registration codes for the exhibitor’s staff and sent links out one by one.

Every step was a chance to drop a lead, duplicate a company or send the wrong link.

What I built

A chain of automations that carries an exhibitor from application to registered booth staff.

• Application to deal. A submitted application becomes a deal on the right company record, routed to the right rep by territory.
• Duplicate guard. If the company already has an open deal for that show, the automation updates it instead of creating a second one.
• One code per company. Once a booth is on the floor plan, the exhibiting company gets a single registration code its whole team shares.
• Links back on the deal. The registration and visitor-invite links are written back to the CRM, so reps can send them from where they already work.

How it works

1. 1 Application form Payment included
2. 2 Duplicate check Existing open deal?
3. 3 CRM deal Routed to the right rep
4. 4 Floor plan booking Booth assigned
5. 5 Codes and links Created and written back to the deal

Two lessons I’d bring to any integration like this:

• Join on an ID that survives year to year. Some systems issue new IDs every time an event is cloned. Key on the one that doesn’t change.
• One bad record shouldn’t block the rest. Each record is handled on its own, so an error on one exhibitor doesn’t hold up everyone behind it.

The result

More than 166 hours a year of manual work gone, and reps working from a CRM that’s actually current.