The Hidden Cost of Event Creation
Project Summary
CONTEXT
As a full-time contractor at ALSAC, the fundraising arm of St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital, I’ve spent three years as the sole UX designer on Event Central—a new application that serves as a hub for event teams across the country. Events generate millions of dollars each year, and Event Central is designed to provide the tools, data, and resources needed to run them effectively. The Event Creation feature was just one piece of this larger system, but it was critical: every administrator relied on it to generate the events that ultimately drive donations and revenue.
The Problem
Before Event Central, event administrators spent 16–24 hours annually creating 60–240 events per cost center. The process was repetitive, error-prone, and forced admins to enter false data just to satisfy required fields—hurting both efficiency and reporting accuracy. High turnover among event leads meant valuable event knowledge was also lost year over year, further impacting donations.
The SOLUTION
I redesigned the Event Creation process with two key improvements:
A simplified Event Creation form with fewer required fields and smart defaults to improve accuracy.
A Multi-Event Copy feature that let admins copy entire sets of events from the previous year at once, preserving institutional knowledge and eliminating redundant work.
Through research, iteration, and user testing, I ensured the new tools aligned with real admin workflows—validating counts, checking event codes, tracking progress, and handling interruptions. Enhancements like direct help-desk ticket creation reduced friction even further.
My Role
The Impact
The solution saved hundreds of hours annually, dramatically reduced human error, and preserved institutional knowledge from year to year. Event admins praised the new workflow as a game-changer, with one joking: “You just shaved so many hours off. I’m starting to wonder if you’re trying to make admins irrelevant!”
More importantly, ALSAC reclaimed critical time and resources that could be directed back to what matters most: raising funds to support the lifesaving mission of St. Jude.
Each admin spends 16-24 hours creating events for the upcoming Fiscal Year
And every dollar saved funds lifesaving research.
So, the time it took to create the 100+ events per cost center was time that pulled resources away from fundraising. Plus, the process was tedious, error-prone, and weakened data integrity.
This meant there was even more time wasted - time spent cleaning up reports from inaccurate data and time spent trying to understand how an event was set up and structured from the previous year.
The first challenge was fixing inaccurate and incomplete event data
By working with both event admins and reporting stakeholders, I mapped what information was always available at event creation and what was only required for downstream systems. This led to a redesigned Event Creation form with fewer required fields and smart defaults—like auto-populating City and State from the cost center—improving both accuracy and efficiency.
1 Show hint text
Detailed hint text reduces training time, but some are lengthy. The toggle allows power users to hide the text and move more efficiently through the form.
2 Event Umbrella
This concept is new with the form. A modal walks users through how to select an Event Umbrella and when to create a new one.
3 Primary Contact
This was one of the required fields that admins felt unsure about knowing who to select. In order to give the users confidence, I had it pre-populate with a default name.
Interesting finding from concept testing: Defaulting the Primary Contact to the Event Administrator to help them understand who is expected when an event lead has not been assigned failed because users felt that pre-filling the field might trigger them to skip it instead of selecting the correct person.
4 Event Location Name
To speed up the process and ensure more accurate data, we set up Google Maps to suggest addresses that the admins can select from. These also had to be editable in case Google Maps is inaccurate.
5 City and State
To help them navigate what to select when an event does not yet have a venue, I had it pre-populate with the selected Cost Center’s city and state.
6 Optional fields
Because many previously required fields are now optional, I made optional fields visibly different to reduce inputting inaccurate data.
7 Event summary
A summary section allows admins to quickly verify their inputs without having to scroll through the entire form.
8 create event button
After the event is successfully created, admins can immediately see and verify the event code has been generated and is accurate. They can easily copy and paste this into their spreadsheet, aligning with their current workflows.
Introducing multi-event copy
The real breakthrough came with a new Multi-Event Copy feature. Instead of creating every event from scratch, admins could copy all core data from the previous year’s events in one action. On the surface, it sounded simple, but my research revealed nuanced workflows that shaped the requirements and design for the tool. Insights that needed to be supported included:
Admins work cost center by cost center
Admins verify event counts
Admins are frequently interrupted
Admins update tracking spreadsheets
Step 1: Select Cost Center
1 Select Cost Center or Event Type
Admins work cost center by cost center
While the primary method of work was cost center by cost center, there was a subset of users that would need to work by event type so both workflows were supported.
2 Display number of events
Admins verify event counts
Admins are intensely aware of the number of events are associated with each cost center and with each event type within their cost center. Having a count going into the next step gives them a heads up and prepares them for possible issues.
Step 2: Edit List of Events
1 Checkboxes
Admins are frequently interrupted
Checkboxes not only allow admins to copy a subset of events, but it also serves as a method to keep track of where they are in the review process when frequently interrupted. They can jump right back in to where they were without losing stride.
2 Search & REMOVE
Admins verify event counts
Since Admins think in event counts, allowing admins to search for events they know are not moving forward and remove them from their list, they can easily ensure that they are on track.
3 Filter by event type
Admins work cost center by cost center
Admins need to verify not just total events for their cost center, but also number of events per event type. They also create events by event type, I supported this mental model by allowing them to check their events in the same way.
+ No timeouts
Admins are frequently interrupted
Because admins can sometimes get called away for 30 minutes or an hour to resolve an issue, I was adamant that they could not get timed out from the system or else they would have to start over, losing all of the time spent and negating the benefits of the new system.
Step 3: Confirm Events are Created and Address any Errors
1 Get Help
Admins are frequently interrupted
With dev help, I determined the only likely error will be due to session time out during the actual creation procedure. I provided a “Try Again” button to allow them to reprocess and resolve the issue.
In the event that it does not fix the issue, a button is available to easily submit a ticket and receive assistance.
2 View copied events
Admins verify event counts
Admins can again verify that the total number of events that were created matches their expectation.
3 Export to Excel
Admins work cost center by cost center
Currently, Admins were creating spreadsheets manually of all of their events to share out with the event teams. We made this easy by creating their spreadsheets for them.
4 Keep moving forward
Admins are frequently interrupted
Since admins will often generate events for multiple cost centers back-to-back, we make it easy to start their loop over from the beginning.
-Event Admin
