I took over as records officer for Royal Richmond at the end of last year.
When I took over the job I had a good look around at the different pieces of software (either commercial or free) to keep track of archers scores, classifications, handicaps and club records. There's no package that seems able to do all of these in a useful/good way.
One of the main issues is the fact that the copyright for the handicap tables is not owned by
GNAS but rather by an individual and thus there's only one software program that I found that has bought the right to use the handicap table. This particular program was only available on a CD from the programmer and looks 'old', by which I mean that it looks like it was programmed in Dos based language rather than a more up to date programming language. The fact that it's not available for download also indicates, to me, that it's rather archaic.
I'm using Joe Tapleys 'clubrecs' program which does most of what I need and is probably the best solution out there imo. The issues I have with it are as follows (and some of them are quite minor):
-You have to set up each round's classifications
-The handicaps for each round need to be entered but this is a copyright issue
-The export and reporting leave something to be desired. I'd like to be able to export archers records to csv files or to pdf reports etc. There's not many ways to get at the data
-There's a lack overall of shortcuts e.g. to find the round you're looking for in a dropbox you can't start typing N to find National, rather you have to scroll through the rounds. This issue is biggest when I want to change, for example, the classification scores for say a National longbow round for Under 16's. I have to scroll through each category of each round until I get to the round I want and then I can edit it.
- It won't work on Vista, presumably because I don't think it's been updated for a couple of years.
I also run a spreadsheet set up by the previous records officer where the handicap scores earned by each member are entered along with an indication of how many of each classification they've earnt in the current year.
Apologies to Joe (who I know is on these boards occasionally) if it seems like I'm criticising it. I am because there's several improvements that could be made but it is still the best option I've found and I appreciate the effort he put into programming this.
I've had thoughts, and a couple of conversations, with our clubs webmaster (Lewney on here who made Archery Organiser) about building a database system (presumably SQL based) into our website. I think this could provide a good way to enter classification changes (if it can read the new data in from an excel file) and be able to look up classifications and handicaps from data files when a score is entered. Also the data export should be a lot better using an SQL based system as I guess you can design the reports to extract whatever info you want from the database in whatever format you want.
The only thing is I know he's very busy and he's also in S Africa for the next few months so it's a bit of a pipedream atm.
One question to end with. Do other records officers doublecheck each score sheet they're given or do you just accept the score signed for as correct?