Group routing
Route Engine plans arrivals, shuttles, sessions and dinners as one system — vehicle capacity, travel time and the walk from the breakout room included.
Solutions · Corporate travel & events
Offsites that survive the first delayed flight
Moving sixty people through three days of sessions, dinners and an afternoon outdoors is a routing problem with feelings attached. Nova models the group — arrivals, preferences, access needs, budget — and has the disruption playbook drafted before anyone boards.
Timeline
Countdown to a 64-person leadership offsite
Three days in the mountains, one client, one coordinator for every twenty attendees. A composite — but every event planner will recognize it.
- T–21 days
Registration closes
Dietary, accessibility and rooming answers sit in a spreadsheet with nineteen columns, three versions and one tab nobody can explain.
- T–6 days
The client changes the shape
Eleven attendees added, the team dinner moved to night two, and the CEO would like a half-day outdoors “if the weather's good”.
- T–2 days
Storms in the forecast
The excursion vendor warns about afternoon thunderstorms. Plan B is one line in an email: “we'll figure something out”.
- Day 1, 11:20 AM
Eighteen people miss the shuttle
A delayed connection strands a third of the group at the airport. Your coordinator re-sorts vans on the back of a printed manifest while the hotel asks about the welcome lunch.
- Day 2, 2:40 PM
Breakouts run long
The restaurant holding a table for sixty-four calls twice. The outdoor block shrinks, then disappears.
- Day 4
The report
The client wants to know who attended what, what changed and what it cost. The answers are spread across forty email threads.
What changes with Nova
Your planners keep the client relationship and every decision that shows. Nova carries the logistics underneath.
Preferences without the spreadsheet
Attendees answer a short consent-based form in their own channel. Dietary, mobility and rooming needs flow into the plan, visible only to the people who need them.
Playbooks before the storm
Every outdoor block and tight transfer gets a fallback drafted in advance, with suppliers and costs attached. When the weather turns, you approve; you don't improvise.
One message, the right people
Concierge tells the eighteen delayed attendees where their new shuttle is — and only them — by SMS, WhatsApp or email.
Budget and policy guardrails
Drafts respect the client's per-head budget and travel policy, and flag anything that would breach them before it reaches the client.
A debrief that writes itself
Attendance, changes, supplier costs and the reason behind each re-plan are logged as they happen, ready for the client report.
Recommended modules and services
- ModuleRoute EngineGroup-aware routing: arrival waves, vehicle capacity, session timing and pacing in one model.
- ModuleItinerary StudioTwo or three program options drafted for the client from your venues and suppliers, with logistics already checked.
- ModuleBooking FlowRoom blocks, venue holds and supplier confirmations requested, parsed and reconciled.
- ModuleConciergeTargeted attendee messages and live re-plans, with your coordinator approving every change.
- ServiceDisruption Response AutomationWeather, late-arrival and venue playbooks written with your lead planners and wired into the platform.
- ServiceResponsible AI & Traveler Data GovernanceAttendee health and dietary data handled with consent, minimization and clear retention rules.
Field report: an offsite planning firm
A corporate offsite planner asked for help with the two things that kept its coordinators up at night: moving groups between venues on time, and having a real plan B when weather or flights went wrong. The case study covers group routing, the disruption playbooks we wrote together, and how coordinators stayed in charge of every change.
How it works
From brief to debrief
A sample workflow for a three-day offsite.
- 01
Brief
Day oneThe client's goals, dates, headcount, budget and must-haves, captured in one structured brief.
- 02
Program options
Days, not weeksItinerary Studio drafts two or three programs from your venues and suppliers; Route Engine checks every transfer and session change.
- 03
Attendee intake
T–30 to T–14 daysA short form gathers arrivals and needs. The plan updates as answers arrive, and conflicts surface early instead of on-site.
- 04
Playbooks
T–7 daysFallbacks drafted for each risky block — weather, late arrivals, venue issues — and approved by your lead planner.
- 05
Live event
Event daysFlight delays and forecast changes trigger re-plans for the affected sub-group only. Your coordinator approves; Concierge informs.
- 06
Debrief
T+2 daysAttendance, changes, costs and the reasoning behind each decision, packaged for the client.
The storm on day two used to be a war story. This year it was a message on my phone with three options and a recommendation. I picked one, and lunch moved indoors.
Questions
Frequently asked questions
Do attendees have to download an app?
No. They use channels they already have — SMS, WhatsApp, email or a web link. Nothing to install.
How do you handle dietary, health and accessibility information?
As sensitive data. We collect only what the plan needs, ask for consent in plain language, limit who can see it, and delete it on a schedule you agree. Our security practices cover the details.
Does Nova book flights?
No. Most companies already have a way to book air travel, and we don't try to replace it. We read arrival details and flight status so the ground plan adapts when flights change.
Can it follow our client's travel policy?
Yes. Per-head budgets, approved suppliers, transfer rules and anything else that can be written down become constraints the drafts respect.
How far ahead do we need to start?
For a first event, a few weeks before attendee intake opens. Once your venues and suppliers are in the system, later events start much faster. For mixed groups with competing preferences, see group travel coordination.
Related
Keep exploring
- Use casesGroup Travel CoordinationGroup travel planning AI that weighs each traveler's constraints, splits and rejoins subgroups, respects vehicle and table capacity, and keeps the trip fair.
- PlatformRoute EngineConstraint-based itinerary routing that weighs opening windows, travel time by mode, pacing budgets, accessibility, weather and capacity, and explains each day.
- ServicesDisruption Response AutomationPlaybooks for weather, closures and delays that assess impact, draft a re-plan and prepare every message, then wait for a person to approve it.
- WorkCorporate offsite planning firmHow a corporate offsite planning firm cut shuttle-plan builds from six hours to 70 minutes and got approved storm-day re-plans to attendees in under 20 minutes.
- Field Notes · Operations & AutomationDisruption Playbooks: Re-planning a Trip Before the Shuttle LeavesHow to build disruption playbooks for weather, closures and delays: triggers, pre-approved options, decision deadlines, supplier terms and one clear message.
Plan your next offsite with plan B already written
Bring us a recent event — the program, the attendee list, the thing that went wrong. We'll show you how it would have run in Nova.