ezSteel Improvements

[blind bat]

I run the stats at a couple Steel clubs in NH. I just had one of the clubs spring for a license of Dave Olhasso's World Class Steel Scorer (WCSS) program because the new ezSteel program is missing a couple critical features required to run our local club matches:

In short:

- Only the 8 official SCSA stages can be used

- Only the official SCSA division can be used

- Results are better formatted in WCSS

Dave's program is nice because most of the key aspects of a match are customizable and when the DB needs to be messed with (sometimes shooters ask for more detailed stats than what the stock reports output) I can open it up the Access DB and easily run a custom query.

One club likes to have a made up, SCSA-like stage at every match to keep shooters on their toes. I can't add my own stages to the new ezSteel software like I could with WCSS.

Both clubs run stages for rim fire rifles and pistol caliber carbines. I may add a J-Frame divisions as well. One of the nice things about SCSA is the loose set of rules that allows local clubs to try new stages and divisions.

Additionally, it isn't clear to me what the "official" SCSA divisions are. If you read the current rule book it would appear that the IDPA divisions have been rolled into Iron Sighted Pistol or Production. However, the World Shoot applications includes the IDPA divisions and IPSC Production (in addition to standard "Production").

What other features or corrections would you like to see added to ezSteel?

[gng4life]

Hi Blind Bat,

Actually, you can create custom stages but you have to do it before you start the stage selection, since it won't be there yet. I have made several of them and while it's not flexible, it will work. Yes, only the official divisions can be used and I called SCSA about that and talked to a guy who was the technical lead on that project. He told me that they had hundreds of different divisions in their system and they are trying to have official clubs use on the official divisions. Yeah, I didn't like it either but we have adapted.

Yes, I have to agree again, the results are better formatted in WCSS. Yes, it looks like they are using Sybase proprietary and I can't do anything with it, I do like the WCSS better.

How much is the license?

My other major gripe would be that it is not very intuitive and it is not clear what match you are putting scores in for. Yes, it should be for the recently created match but it's not clear. I have many more minor gripes but will save that for later.

Thanks for sharing...

[Flexmoney]

Please keep the feedback coming.

[blind bat]

gng4life - I found the custom stage option in EzSteel. Thanks.

For WCSS pricing, see: http://www.worldclasssteel.com/dnn/ScoringSoftware.aspxs

The initial software license is $70/1 year, $100/3 years, $130/5 years. Renewals are cheaper however, I think there is a typo in renewal info on their web page. They don't have an online shopping cart so a check or money order needs to be sent to World Class Steel. Dave then sends out a USB dongle that unlocks the software. Updates available on the web site for free. However, I believe he has removed the ability to upload scores to the SCSA website because they can change that their format at any time.

As Flex said, please post your feature requests/gripes so we can give SCSA a "To Do" list.

I think the "killer feature" is going to be whomever can come up with a iPhone/Android based scoring solution.

[amish_rabbi]

gng4life - I found the custom stage option in EzSteel. Thanks.

For WCSS pricing, see: http://www.worldclasssteel.com/dnn/ScoringSoftware.aspxs

The initial software license is $70/1 year, $100/3 years, $130/5 years. Renewals are cheaper however, I think there is a typo in renewal info on their web page. They don't have an online shopping cart so a check or money order needs to be sent to World Class Steel. Dave then sends out a USB dongle that unlocks the software. Updates available on the web site for free. However, I believe he has removed the ability to upload scores to the SCSA website because they can change that their format at any time.

As Flex said, please post your feature requests/gripes so we can give SCSA a "To Do" list.

I think the "killer feature" is going to be whomever can come up with a iPhone/Android based scoring solution.

DAA has an iphone steel app, going to be using it at my clubs first match next month so will see how it goes

also if you know someone good with excel its not to hard to code a spread sheet that you punch numbers into

[tobydog]

I've been doing the steel stats for our club this year. We recently affiliated with steel challenge. EZsteel is not so easy to use. A palm option would be nice. We had 72 shooters last weekend, 31 of them new. It took me 5 hrs to enter times into the EZsteel program so we could post the results. Granted, I type slow and I'm not a computer wizard. What am I doing wrong? Is there a way to speed this up? Does SCSA accept results in any other form? We're trying to get up to speed on this, but appears to be a time consuming program. We used to use an excel speadsheet before we signed up with SCSA. Then we could have an overall combined results as well, vs seperate main match, rimfire scores. EZSteel does not have a combined score available that I have found. The link to dave's scoring program no longer works. I tried Google, but only came up with scores, no program access.

[blind bat]

Here is the link to WCSS:

http://www.worldclasssteel.com/dnn/ScoringSoftware.aspx

What kind of score sheets are you guys using? I used to find we ended up with a lot of missing or illegible score sheets because we used one sheet per shooter, per stage. We now use a single sheet per shooter. The advantage is not having to juggle nearly as many score sheets. The problem is it makes scoring during the match a little slower and if a sheet gets lost you basically lost an entire shooter.

Whenever possible, I like to shoot the day before or I'll cut in and shoot rather than squading. Then I'll grab my laptop and sit down on a stage and start entering scores as the shooters go through. That will get me at least half the scores entered before I the end of the match.

[tobydog]

We're using a score sheet I built. Has all 8 stages, with flight times, misses, and total boxes. We shoot 6 stages at any given match, so everyone gets their own score sheet. Have different ones for centerfire or rimfire. We have to set up and tear down same day, so shooting before isn't an option for us. Before EZSteel, we had people totaling the score sheets as they shot them, and entered later. When I checked 1 match to convert it to EZSteel, approx 75% of the sheets were incorrectly filled out, miss-added, marked wrong, etc. Now we just have then write down the 5 strings, and however many misses were on each run, no totaling by shooters. Many less mistakes. With EZSteel, I don't have to recheck every score, just entering them takes time. Will look at Dave's program to see if it will help us. Thanks. Tried to attach my score sheet, won't let me. Says not permitted for this type of file. It's on an Excel spreadsheet. PM me if you want to look at it.