Case Study: University of Waterloo achieves streamlined, real-time conference operations with Knack

How Knack replaced a few spreadsheets and ended up running an entire engineering conference

Waterloo IIE 2016, the 36th annual engineering conference at the University of Waterloo, needed a reliable way to replace years of manual Excel workflows and a risky custom build to manage registrations, housing, schedules, speakers, sponsors and on-site logistics. A two-person web team led by Phil Everson and Sitesh Patel required a flexible, stable database to coordinate attendees, faculty contacts, hotel staff and real‑time event operations.

They built a centralized Knack app with registration forms, room/roommate selection, NFC name‑tag check‑ins, and API integrations (Twilio SMS, embedded calendar) that replaced spreadsheets across the organization. The result was smoother check‑in and communications, real‑time scheduling, faster incident response and a more polished, personalized conference experience—Knack became an indispensable tool for the team.

University of Waterloo

Phil Everson

Media Lead