Club Records

[Zippo]

Hi Guys (and ladies)

I was just wondering, how do your clubs keep the score records of each member. Do you all do it in hard copy, soft copy? Does each member have a personal file, or are they all tabulated together weekly/monthly/etc? Do your clubs have a dedicated record keeper who keeps the record of each member?

I'm just interested in how you guys do it. My club doesn't have a record keeper or such. Our team captain wants to do the record keeping. Ever since my club was started, probably 10 years or so ago, we do not have a proper, systematic method of keeping scores. So recently I've suggested to my team captain a system which I think will be very efficient, once established.

I suggested that every member has a score file(in soft copy) created for him/her. This file would contain scores which would be updated every month. In the file, it would also show the highest score, the lowest score, and the average score. Also, it'll contain a trend to show how the member has been doing.

I was thinking to have all the files uploaded to our club's website so that members can access their scores as well as others' so they can know how they're performing, but apparently there are people who think its a bad idea and do not want their scores published and such. So, does anybody know a way to make this happen? Like a way to have it uploaded, but to access it, a password is needed? That way the scores are only accessible to our club, and not others.

Any thoughts welcomed.

[moo-mop]

Yep, I amongst others have designed a online database for personal, club and tourny results records and it's more complicated than at first it might appear. Open results are available for all to see (but only by comp not by individual) practice ones and details of pbs etc are not.

As examples:
First there are over 120 different rounds.
Records are often only OK for validated results so there has to be a way for the record officer to validate them (ie check through submitted score sheets).
Some clubs only accept scores shot in open competitions.
Many records are only available to certain age groups yet they are shooting in different age groups for the comps.
You need distances records for FITAs and metrics.

However, it works well enough for tournament reports
eg example report and and the Club records (I do have a new version now that works for the juniors better than this but I need to test it). It was designed to make most of the RO job obsolete and to store everybody's results but it's the data entry that becomes prohibitive when you still have to check every non-practice score. You do run into data protection issues too I guess.

I think that's why most record officers only get as far a spreadsheets, you need to have a lot more of information in your database to make use of the data than mots keep: simple 'round', 'score', 'date', 'handicap' isn't good enough.

[Zippo]

WOW! .. I must say that the system your club uses is VERY impressive. Anyways in Singapore, I don't think we have as much to worry as you guys. We only have a few types of rounds, and we don't have stuff like handicaps. I'm not really too worried about validated results and such as these records are meant more for personal use. So if a member takes score on his own and submit it, it'll just updated into his record accordingly.

[moo-mop]

There are better systems than mine up and running that will allow just that eg archerslog.com - The online archery log book. It only gets difficult when you've got to design something for club use.

[Zippo]

Thats a nice website. I've totally forgotten about that. I've got an account there but I haven't been using it since the time I first opened it LOL. I thinking of something like that, but where people can view others' scores and that everyone won't have to register an account for themselves. I'm still with the idea of spreadsheets, since they can have graphs and such, but its how to store them thats got me thinking.

[Little Miss Purple]

we have 2 books... one for indoor & one for outdoor... it is the archers responsibility to put their scores in the book!

[Vae]

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?

[moo-mop]

Originally Posted by Vae

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.

It's not the programming that hampers the task it's the complexity.

Until you run up against it you forget the possibility of (as examples):
second sessions which count for records but not classification or handicaps;
the fact you have to complete all four distances to get distance records;
the need to link the two single rounds to a double round;
you need to know which h2h the match rounds are to work out finals totals records.

In fact issues like this come up constantly and as a result the amount of data you have to enter for just one round can be high (there's over 20 fields) and to be able to do field would mean I'd need to know a lot more.

For displaying tourny reports I've still not got around 9s in FITA rounds perfectly, or when juniors compete as adults, or when the results are based on results over two days but is not a double round.

On your specific points:
I can scroll through the rounds but I actually found you need to use two linked scrolling menus to do this (see what happens if you don't by looking a hants archery asso records, as scrolling through 120 rounds is not fun).

My database will do classifications as it has a table (or now two) to store those and it knows the type of comp the round is shot at for MB and GMB. I still have issues around it working class though as I'm often not sure of an archers age and I've not sorted it for a change in age group properly. Handicaps are another issue as you say.

It is easy enough to get things to export.

However, the main thing is it is a work in progress as sadly for many aspects there's as yet no web interface (ie I'm still using SQL direct)...

[Furface]

Originally Posted by Vae

... 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....

This is Archrecs (http://www.mike-douglas.co.uk/) and is what I use at Adel. It is Access-based, works, and makes life a heck of a lot simpler. My main gripe is that individuals have to be entered once for each bow type they use, but I can live with that. It handles normal club activity very well, and manages club records. And, the big plus is that it does work out handicaps and classifications.

[moo-mop]

Originally Posted by Furface

and manages club records.

Just as a matter of inetrest becuase of the huge pain I've found these issues to be:

Does it do finals totals and cope with with allowing second sessions for those rounds where they are applicable? How does it do juniors records? Most systems I've come across don't work correctly as they will pull up records that GNAS do not allow, and our clubs and counties follow GNAS' lead eg they tend to pull out a u12, u14, u16, u18 junior gents york record when there should be just one junior gents york record. Does it do the FITA junior and cadet and masters age groups?