SuiteWorld was back this year, which also brought back the Social Impact event, the Hackathon 4Good. Over 40 participants teamed up to support a nonprofit customer, The Intrepid Sea, Air & Space Museum (opens in new tab). Centered on the aircraft carrier Intrepid, a National Historic Landmark docked in the Hudson River in New York City, the museum welcomes more than one million visitors each year. Its mission is to promote the awareness and understanding of history, science, and service to honor our heroes, educate the public and inspire our youth.
The Intrepid Museum presented a challenge, asking the mix of customers, partners and NetSuite employees to help find a better way to analyze the trends driving ticket sales by combining attendance data and ticket sales without having to access disparate systems. The museum wanted to understand the factors driving attendance, including day of the week, day of the month, holidays and even weather. Quickly accessing attendance data in one location in NetSuite would improve grant reporting and help bring in corporate funding.
“Not only do our Hackathon 4 Good participants get to give back by helping a nonprofit come up with potential solutions, but this also gives them a real framework to push the limits of their own NetSuite use and learn more by collaborating with a team to solve a new real-world problem,” said Steve Heye, NetSuite Social Impact Manager.
Nine teams worked with the Intrepid Museum throughout the day and then presented their prototypes in front of four judges. The winning solution, by team Smart Fish, included an extensive use of Suite Analytics connected to a single dataset with multiple views, combining custom and standard records. The team displayed the results on a comprehensive dashboard that provides quick access for the Intrepid Museum team.
Smart Fish team
The museum will now be able to capture and analyze attendance data in a timely manner, which will increase the accuracy of reporting. Instead of wasting time using spreadsheets, staff can now pull data based upon attendance trends and report out to key donors and board members.
"You can't put a price tag on today. To bring talent like this internally — we just wouldn't be able to do it. It gives us an opportunity to tap into resources that we would not have access to.”Laurie Scofield, director of internal audit at the museum, concluded at the end of the event.
To learn more about the Social Impact software donation, pro bono services and to refer a nonprofit visit www.netsuite/socialimpact (opens in new tab) or email socialimpact_ww@oracle.com.