Match signup questions

[toothandnail]

Just finishing up our 3gun range

We will be starting matches soon and need to decide which way to go for signup.

Use practiscore

or

setup signup & results page on or website.

We will be using practiscore for scoring, it's "free" to a point. CC fees would be about $1.00 (based on a $30.00 entry) per shooter more, than if we used our CC processor. I don't know if they get any of that amount or not.

If they do, I'd be OK with that as a "fee" for use of their program.

INPUT welcome

Edited April 25, 2014 by toothandnail

[Jim Norman]

Good question.

We have a signup form of our own on our website. We can amend it and we can add in those things that our host club requires as we can have any fields we want. We modify the form as the match type demands. We don't accept prepay except in very rare occasions as we don't want the fiduciary responsibility. We definately don not accept credit cards either first hand or through a processor.

Shoot-N-Score it is used by a couple club in our area and they like it. It does allow for squad selection, our form does not. There are some inherent problems with self squadding at a local match where you expect the squad to RO itself so we squad on match day as we take in the match fees. That is also another problem with pay ahead/self-squadding in advance. You THINK your match is full as you have full squads and payments, then on match day you have three squads that are half full. you have to deal with refunds and resquadding.

One of the things we do withthe output from our form is create a log in list, as the shooters arrive and pay, we log them in, we mark their payment and re verify how they area signed up for the match.

You may find other methods that work for you, but this has served us well for a number of years.

[ZackJones]

Currently clubs.practiscore.com is free because it's in beta. Our USPSA guys use it for registration and squadding. I tried to use it for steel challenge but there's bugs in it that prevent it from working when you download the registration information. I would create an account and setup a test 3-gun match and then download the registration to make sure it works before you tell everyone to register there.

The problem I see with developing your own registration page is getting the data from the page/database into PractiScore. What I do for steel challenge is when I sent out the match announcement I ask for shooters that want to pre-register to send me their registration information and I add them to the PractiScore match in advance. The remaining shooters I just register as they come through the registration desk.

BTW, I saw your post about holding off buying NST in your range thread - you want to go ahead and order them ASAP as they have been discontinued.

[Mark R]

I just switched over to clubs.Practiscore.com and have little experience with it. Prior to switching I create a web page that would allow competitors to enter the information I needed for registration and once they clicked on SUBMIT, the web hosting company, GoDaddy in this case, would "form forward" the information in a CSV file to my email. I would have to copy and paste all 40-50 CSV files I received into a single CSV file for import into Practisore. This all worked and works ok with a little work to compile, but the squadding wasn't available. As a result I would print out the CSV file for match day registration. As folks signed in to pay, I would put out a squad sheet. As they paid, they were directed to write their name in a squad. Someone would have the master table and put each competitor on a squad. During MAtch brief, the master would be sync'ed to the Nook and away we go.

I ran Practiscore registraton once and I like the squad capability of it.

If you need a website form for form forwarding, PM me and I'll send you a copy of ours. I have one for USPSA, Steel Challenge, and 3-gun.

[toothandnail]

Thanks for the input, keep it coming.

I did find 3 new NST for $37.00 ea, got those looking for about 5-6 more.

My dilemma starting off is, (probably wont happen but) I don't want 100 shooters show up at the first match, and it be a nightmare of problems.

We are used to hosting similar events, we ran a race track for many years, everybody signed up when they arrived. Just as with our races, we will have one of the best organized, operated matches out there.

I like the idea of PRE-reg so we have an idea of what to expect, also able to limit signups for the first few, but wondering about no-shows as well .

Maybe do it like we do our CCW classes, no refunds, but able to move entry to the next date. That has worked well there, but not sure how shooters would accept it.

Hoping the on-line reg. would cut out a lot of data input on my end.

I know we still have a lot of details to finalize, but I like to try and think through as many efficiency problems as I can.

[Mark R]

I'll get a majority of the shooters who pre-register to show up. Maybe 1 or 2 won't make it. Then with 40-50 shooters signed up, we will usually get about 5-8 walk-ons to add manually.

Entering 40 entries at match registration time is tedious and prone to errors. I'd rather have the majority as pre-registered shooters (you can easily delete the no-shows) and add just a few during registration. I think it's the easiest way to go.

[kmc]

I'll get a majority of the shooters who pre-register to show up. Maybe 1 or 2 won't make it. Then with 40-50 shooters signed up, we will usually get about 5-8 walk-ons to add manually.

Entering 40 entries at match registration time is tedious and prone to errors. I'd rather have the majority as pre-registered shooters (you can easily delete the no-shows) and add just a few during registration. I think it's the easiest way to go.

Exactly what we're doing. We haven't started pre-pay with pre-reg yet...that may complicate things a bit with refunds or credit balances. However, its much faster and easier to delete a couple of no-shows after the match that manual adding. clubs.practiscore.com has been great and (mostly) painless. And when not painless, the support team has been very helpful. The use of these tools has completely altered portions of the shooting experience...for the far better!