Client Profile
Mildura Rural City Council
Located in Victoria, Australia’s picturesque Mildura region, Mildura Rural City Council serves a thriving community of approximately 55,000 residents. The council oversees a range of public venues, including community venues, recreation centers, event spaces, parks, courts and sports grounds. As a key local service provider, the council is committed to boosting community engagement and ensuring efficient management of its diverse venues.
Mildura Rural City Council
The Mildura Sporting Precinct stands as a cornerstone for sports and events in North Western Victoria, offering a comprehensive array of facilities spread across its expansive grounds. The precinct serves a wide variety of groups, teams, societies, and clubs within the community. At its core is a purpose-built, two-story stadium designed to cater to a variety of sports and seamlessly transform into a versatile event venue.
Key facilities include function rooms that provide sweeping views of the ovals, offering a prime vantage point for observing activities on the show court. These flexible spaces are adaptable for both large-scale events and smaller gatherings, accommodating formats ranging from conferences to community gatherings.
The precinct boasts six multipurpose indoor courts distributed across two halls, with Court Hall 1 designed as a premier show court featuring excellent viewing options from elevated seating and adjacent function rooms suitable for elite events. Additionally, outdoor netball courts equipped with competition-grade lighting enhance the precinct’s capability to host competitive matches.
Two AFL-standard sporting ovals form the core outdoor facilities, featuring amenities such as six turf cricket lanes, high-quality broadcast lighting, and premier pavilions with dedicated cricket practice nets. Indoor squash courts complement the offerings, ensuring a diverse range of sporting opportunities within the precinct.
Furthermore, the Football Pavilion provides essential infrastructure including coach and timekeeper’s boxes, competition-grade change rooms, a canteen, and public amenities, underscoring the precinct’s commitment to supporting both players and spectators alike. The Mildura Sporting Precinct not only serves as a hub for local sports enthusiasts but also as a venue capable of accommodating a wide range of events, from grassroots competitions to high-profile tournaments and community gatherings. Its strategic design and comprehensive amenities make it a vital asset in enhancing sporting opportunities and community engagement across the region.
Challenges Faced
Before partnering with OptimoGov, Mildura City Council faced several challenges in effectively managing venue bookings. The existing system was largely manual, leading to inefficiencies and hindering smooth operations. Key issues included limited accessibility, as the absence of an online booking platform made it difficult for residents to browse and book venues conveniently. Administration was time-consuming, with council staff spending significant time managing bookings manually, impacting their ability to focus on other tasks. Additionally, real-time data on venue availability and booking status was not readily accessible, and clubs, schools, and regular hirers faced challenges in managing complex bulk bookings through the manual system.
The OptimoGov Solution: Implementing a New Venue Booking System in Mildura
Diary & Corporate Booking
To address these challenges, Mildura City Council entered into a partnership with OptimoGov on March 1, 2021. OptimoGov’s comprehensive online booking system was customised to meet the council’s specific requirements. Key features implemented included Diary View and Corporate Booking, which allowed staff to manage bookings efficiently through a centralised system. OptimoGov’s Diary module enhances the booking processes for council staff and facilitates online payments for residents. It includes a multi-venue calendar for real-time bookings, allowing direct booking through an interactive interface. The calendar supports features like copying and rescheduling bookings directly, along with dynamic pricing options such as Hourly, Half Day, Daily, Session, Monthly, and Yearly rates. Users can choose from various calendar views including weekly, monthly, and advanced views. The system supports recurring bookings, seasonal bookings, and ad-hoc reservations, offers status tracking and capacity management, and allows allocation of maintenance and blocked timeslots, thereby improving venue management and the overall booking experience.
Furthermore, the OptimoGov Booking Builder seamlessly integrates with the diary system, providing unique booking references for each reservation. Council staff can efficiently manage customer profiles, customise bookings by adding upsell items and extras, provide specific information, create automated task lists and event run sheets, maintaining complete control over the booking flow. The Booking Builder also supports a document repository for items like application forms, licenses, insurance, questionnaires, and booking confirmation letters, which can be emailed directly to customers. It manages payment terms, cancellation policies, discounts, payments, bonds refunds, forfeits, and enables staff to generate automated invoices based on customisable templates, which can be emailed to customers directly from within the system.
Public Casual & Regular Booking Portals
Public Casual & Regular Booking Portals
Public Casual & Regular Booking Portals
The OptimoGov Public Casual Booking Portal empowers local communities to effortlessly browse and book council-owned venues and spaces. It features a user-friendly interface for self-service booking, real-time availability checks, virtual tours of venues, customisation options for adding extras, secure user profiles, and seamless online payment processing. All public-facing portals are directly integrated with the council’s internal systems, such as the Diary and Booking Builder. Any updates made to bookings are instantly reflected on both the council and public sides of the system, facilitating efficient decision-making for both parties. Community members receive automated notifications as bookings progress through various stages.
On the Public Casual Portal, residents can complete questionnaires provided by the council, upload required documents, and provide event-specific instructions. They also have the flexibility to modify or cancel bookings later as needed.
The Regular Booking Portal caters to the council’s frequent customers such as clubs, schools, and other recurring users. It offers all the features of the Casual Portal with additional options like recurrent and rollover bookings. This allows users to easily duplicate bookings into the next season or year when necessary.
Both the Casual and Regular Portals ensure secure online payments for residents, seamlessly integrating with Bpoint, and BPAY for transactions.
Integrations
Integrations with existing systems played a crucial role in ensuring smooth and efficient operations. The finance integration with Civica Authority was instrumental in automating the process of reflecting bookings and payments directly within the council’s financial system. This integration streamlined financial reconciliation and reporting processes, providing accurate and up-to-date financial data.
The document repository integration with HPCM9 provided a secure platform for storing and retrieving booking-related documents. This ensured that all necessary documents, such as contracts, insurance certificates, and permits, were easily accessible and well-organised, enhancing operational efficiency and compliance.
Azure Active Directory integration was implemented to manage user access securely. This integration allowed for centralised user authentication and access control across the system.
Implementation and Outcomes
Since its implementation, OptimoGov has processed tens of thousands of bookings through the system, ushering in a significant transformation for Mildura City Council’s venue management practices. Configurations included defining granular user roles and permissions, along with a detailed setup of all bookable venues. Booking options were customized through the creation of function types and packages, and clear payment and cancellation policies were established. Standardized documentation processes were implemented, incorporating questionnaires and document templates.
These configurations resulted in enhanced efficiency by automating workflows, which in turn reduced administrative burdens and streamlined operations. The improved user experience empowered residents to effortlessly book and pay for venues online, while custom reports generated valuable insights to guide informed decision-making and resource allocation.
Future Collaboration
Mildura City Council is eager to extend its partnership with OptimoGov, with the goal of achieving continuous innovation and improvement in venue management. This ongoing collaboration will ensure the council remains at the forefront of delivering exceptional services to its community, driving efficiency gains, and fostering deeper community engagement. By leveraging this successful partnership, OptimoGov is proud to support Mildura City Council in achieving its goals and providing outstanding service to its residents.
Visit https://optimogov.com/ for more information.