AutoLink Switch Mines Data For Meetings Management

<B> AutoLink Switch Mines Data For Meetings Management</B>

By Lauren Bielski



A PC-based software switch that can extract and unify digital information from sources including CRS systems, Electronic Data Interchange and the Internet also can extract data from meeting management systems and relay it to support automated bookings and pre-populated registration pages.

Called AutoLink, the digital switch and task management software developed by The Eastman Group, Newport Beach, Calif., enables data to shuttle from a computer reservation system to a proprietary SAP accounting expense reporting solution or meetings registration package without rekeying, and also can deposit information in a relational database to generate reports.

Although not developed explicitly for meetings, the switch can help to automate processes like itinerary creation, said company president Richard Eastman. Currently, AutoLink supports such varied applications as Deloitte & Touche LLP's western region, where it compiles corporate travel management data, and Lufthansa Airlines, where yet another flavor focuses on data mining applications. Currently, Eastman is in talks with a mega agency to possibly develop a marketing and distribution partnership.

But this versatile translator is flexible enough to work in a variety of corporate and vendor settings to support travel applications, and Eastman said his company is beginning to get the word out about how it can automate meetings management functions as well.

"AutoLink is fundamentally an engine with a communications front end that allows it to communicate with virtually any of the electronic solutions in the marketplace today," he said. "It doesn't matter where we take our information from, we can take it from faxes or touch-tone calls. It also doesn't matter where the data is going next. In the old vernacular of computing, it's data in, data out."

AutoLink, which also can be thought of as a communications gateway, is run from a library of objects that executes data management commands. The solution can be deployed on a local area network in relatively low-cost DOS, Windows and Windows NT platforms in RAM memory, which makes it scalable to fit a variety of service requirements.

"Basically, you can achieve mainframe speeds at PC prices," Eastman said. Among the factors that differentiates TEG's system is its independence from agency or CRS affiliation.

For planners, it can automate inventory management tasks, including booking, updates, cancellations, scheduling changes and ticketing, by sending data to pre-populate a variety of proprietary systems. "The switch can run at night on a small travel agent's PC, or it can run on a very large networked environment for managing travel, or meetings, worldwide," Eastman said.

AutoLink can even be set up to utilize workstations left idle at night to extract and create meaningful information, which can be generated in real time, batch-processed time or strictly controlled time slots.

In one sense, AutoLink functions as a data mining solution and competes with similar systems developed by the CRS companies and Unisys Corp. (<I>BTN</I>, June 23, 1997). But a traditional data mining capability, such as supplying demographic information, is just one application for the equipment--and routines can be executed at a lower price point using the Windows system platforms that Autolink makes accessible.

The Eastman Group's airline adaptation, called /Pass, can help airline managers monitor abuses in passive booking segments, a capability lacking in CRS systems, Eastman said. "We really don't compete with the mining systems any more than we compete with meeting planning packages themselves, because we can be used to enhance their functioning," he said. "As an intelligent switch, or interpreter, AutoLink can integrate several systems."

With respect to meetings, the packages generally fall into two camps: simple registration systems and more complex registration, budget and consolidation-supporting management tools. AutoLink can extract data from either type to support a consolidation, Eastman said.

"Further," he said, "our agency productivity tools might be useful to a planner. One application, for example, automatically upgrades VIP airplane seating, so that if a planner is working on a board of directors meeting or incentive trip and doesn't want to have to manually arrange for a good placement in the plane, the tool can book to fit that requirement."

The system also can fax itineraries--with customized greeting and instructions--for e-tickets, and integrate data pulled from the CRS with data generated by meeting planning software.

"Our CRS-ticket is a fullblown agency customized travel solution that can be integrated with meetings or corporate e-mail solutions. TravelAnalysis is a utility that captures all known data on a traveler, market or destination," Eastman said. "The data it finds in a PNR can be triggered to look for related data in the meeting management tool."

Eastman said the tool also could extract data from e-mail to coordinate the best city-pair links. "For a meeting in Mexico City with 100 people coming from the East Coast, 100 coming from West Coast and 50 from the Midwest, it will look at what can be a good gateway city," he said. "The solution can automatically reverse-book from gateways to multiple origins, so that a planner can secure three blocks at the gateways--and lower the total cost of the trip."

It sounds good to Norm Rose, a Belmont, Calif.-based travel technology consultant. Still, he wonders why such a tool would be necessary if TCP/IP--the protocol of the Internet and corporate intranets--becomes adopted across the travel industry. He said, though, that travel suppliers have been slow to adopt TCP/IP--although the CRS and many airlines are striving to change that.