AXwear

[Jayson Woodruff]

Can we start thinking about how to fix or ditch AXwear registration. I have trouble every freaking time, and am not alone. I know if you use it once a week like our guru's do it becomes 'intuitive", but we should really be thinking about what a pain in the ass it is for part timers and newbies. Not only is registration difficult, just looking up events is too.

I don't have a solid solution, but I'd seriously be in favor of going back to stamps if needed. What ever happened to Will's set up? Was the non-early pay just too much of a detriment?

Jay W

[Rick Brown]

The programmer is pretty responsive. If people would just contact him with their concerns/complaints (with suggestions on fixes) he may make more changes. I'm not sure what the difficulty is. Is it just new people not realizing they have to select CSCC SOLO as the club? I find it pretty intuitive, but that's me. A big plus is the direct download of registrations and direct upload of results with the timing computer. Connect the timing computer to the internet, a couple of clicks and either one is done. No importing, exporting or conversions necessary.

[Aaron Goldsmith]

Can we start thinking about how to fix or ditch AXwear registration. I have trouble every freaking time, and am not alone. I know if you use it once a week like our guru's do it becomes 'intuitive", but we should really be thinking about what a pain in the ass it is for part timers and newbies. Not only is registration difficult, just looking up events is too.

I don't have a solid solution, but I'd seriously be in favor of going back to stamps if needed. What ever happened to Will's set up? Was the non-early pay just too much of a detriment?

Jay W

Will doesn't want to support that stuff for the rest of his life, we're trying to move what we can onto 3rd party provided services. This isn't me defending AXware, i've said my piece about what needs to be done to fix it, the way it compartmentalizes every step is poor.

[Jayson Woodruff]

When the solo2 site is back up I'm going to try and register from the new person perspective and will list it out.

Jay W

[Rick Brown]

When the solo2 site is back up I'm going to try and register from the new person perspective and will list it out.

Jay W

I actually think that's part of the problem, having the solo2.com site with flyers. Creates confusion as to where to look for info. When you click on an event in the Calendar or Upcoming Events, it should take you straight to that event in AXWare. Practice flyers can easily be made on AXWare, too.

[George Schilling]

When the solo2 site is back up I'm going to try and register from the new person perspective and will list it out.

Jay W

I actually think that's part of the problem, having the solo2.com site with flyers.

Ummmm, Rick is usually not this delusional.

[Sebastian Rios]

It was an annoyance for me as a local, but I'm downright embarrassed when I see how many guests are having issues too. I think we need to either dumb our registration rules down enough so that there are no issues, or start looking at another solution.

[Jason Isley BS RX8]

I find motorsportreg.com much more user friendly.

[KJ Christopher]

It was an annoyance for me as a local, but I'm downright embarrassed when I see how many guests are having issues too. I think we need to either dumb our registration rules down enough so that there are no issues, or start looking at another solution.

Only replying here and not picking on or disagreeing with Seb.

I think we need to define our problems and address them individually. Real quick (not complete):

1. Unique numbering - we seem to have issues with that for the 600# people and an occasional newbie.
a. Would motorsportsreg solve this? Not sure how it would. People could still enter what ever number, right? Is the solution moving our points card system onto the AxWare system? (if this is an option.) I don't see the too much of an issue with people pre-picking 600#s. The system won't allow duplicates - when they walk up and preregistered with 648, just flip through the stack and hand them 648 instead of what ever is next. No-reclassing required for that and no danger of picking a number that someone else already registered with.
b. Personally, I see the garage system as not too different than what we did on solo2.com. You have a car and a number. You register it in the event. In AxWare, you have your car/number in the garage, you register it in the event. (The import of the class is a separate issue.)

2. PayPal payments
a. People have problems with paypal when they try to register more than one driver at a time. (One of our convenience features is creating an inconvenience?) Maybe we get rid of the linked driver option so that it is all separate transactions. That would be similar to the old Solo2.com way, right? Except that you would still be allowed online payment.
b. Does everybody click that link to return to AxWare after paying with PayPal? I used PayPal for the first time in a long time (with solo$, etc., I've been paying at the event) and saw the link to complete the registration. It was rather small. I'm guessing that it let's axware know the loop has been closed on the payment? I'm not sure. Would need to ask Vitek.
c. Should the system go back to not allowing non-points card holders to pre-register? I think we get a lot of benefit from pre-registrations, even if they are a little goofed in the import.

3. How many guests are really having problems?
a. seriously, how many? And how many of those would have problems with anything other than pen/paper?
b. Are out written instructions not clear enough? Christine/Aaron/Rick have been updating the procedures for registering - i thought they were good. Are they confusing? Is there a better way to display them? I would imagine AxWare (as the old solo2 site) would be pretty intimidating to a newbie without those instructions.
c. Should we have a stack of directions at registration to hand out to any person who says they had problems or didn't pre-register? They get a $10 break in price if they figure it out. Seems worth it to me.
d. would it be easier to kill the garage and have everybody enter all the info each time?
e. I'm not sure why we keep the event section on solo2.com. we can set up events for practices on AxWare and just not allow registration. Then everyone uses the same system for each event and we can get rid of the info in two places problem.

4. Import problems
a. this is a more serious issue that is being addressed. through some testing that rick and i did at the TB event, we identified what we thought was the problem. It would appear that there are other problems too. Rick is discussing with Vitek. My opinion is these need to be fixed or the system scrapped. it is a royal pain for registration and is completely obvious to any participant who walks up. Yes, we're beta testing software, but some bits should be more stable.

Anything else?

1 - not sure if there is a real problem here.
2 - we can scrap paypal, but it is convenient for those who do it. And only a select few seem to have issues and it appears to be those with linked drivers, plus a few others who may or may not be following all the links. I don't care on this one - require payment on site if you wish. But a lot of our people use it and don't have problems.
3 - open to ideas?
4 - got to get fixed.

What problem are you (whoever responds) addressing, what is your specific solution and can you think of how it might impact other areas of event management?

We'd love to have everything pretty with a bow really soon. And I'm not opposed to trying new stuff. I'm also not opposed to modifying what we are doing to address specific issues. But we need to compartmentalize the problems and the bitch/moan sessions are too generic to be helpful.

Let's discuss! Help us help you!

[Sebastian Rios]

Good post KJ, I think you summed up most of the issues.

I have no idea how many guests had trouble registering, but I would venture to say it is a high percentage. I think most of it springs from our requirement of prepayment via PayPal.

I notice that the trophy/$ field is unreliable, as is the tire brand field; the shirt size is a new field, but is also unreliable. Having to go back and edit entries every time is a pain.



Edit: I just checked out motorsportsreg, I almost had forgotten I'd used it before...probably because it worked. Looks much more polished that axware, but is probably much more expensive.

[Aaron Goldsmith]

Motorsportreg has come a log way in the last 2 years
check it out:
http://www.pukkasoft.com/tour/autocross/

http://www.pukkasoft.com/tour/


Their member database and number tracking system is pretty darn multifaceted and robust at this point. Which would be a huge deal if it works well for us since that's the last major item that we haven't been able to move off of the main solo2.com site. It looks to be more robust than our current member system in that it allows you to track driver experience over time.

They can take CC, Paypal, etc and will do the deferred charging so they don't charge until after the event if you chose. Has built in discount managment and account report functionality.

For schools it allows you to map out instructors for students directly.

At a glance event masters can see how many totally new never run with us people they'll have to worry about.

Allows waitlisting, etc for Practice style events.

Allows you to setup required questions (like T-shirt Size) on a per event basis with just trying to use some random fields.
http://www.pukkasoft.com/wp-content/upl ... stomq2.gif

My main question left would be can thier system handle registration for pax'd classes like SK, but knowing the regions that use it already I think it must...

[George Schilling]

Once the garage is set, it's a piece of cake to register. It's getting to that point that seems to frustrate people. I still have a payment pending from my initial registration before we required payment that I can't figure out how to get rid of. And I've got admin status allowing me to see behind the curtain and I still can get it erased. Axware has some pretty cool features, just seems difficult from the end user POV and unreliable from my POV. I'm still concerned that we may have issues going forward at the divisional although Rick seems to think it will be fine.

[George Schilling]

Motorsportreg has come a log way in the last 2 years
check it out:
http://www.pukkasoft.com/tour/autocross/

http://www.pukkasoft.com/tour/


Their member database and number tracking system is pretty darn multifaceted and robust at this point. Which would be a huge deal if it works well for us since that's the last major item that we haven't been able to move off of the main solo2.com site. It looks to be more robust than our current member system in that it allows you to track driver experience over time.

They can take CC, Paypal, etc and will do the deferred charging so they don't charge until after the event if you chose. Has built in discount managment and account report functionality.

For schools it allows you to map out instructors for students directly.

At a glance event masters can see how many totally new never run with us people they'll have to worry about.

Allows waitlisting, etc for Practice style events.

Allows you to setup required questions (like T-shirt Size) on a per event basis with just trying to use some random fields.
http://www.pukkasoft.com/wp-content/upl ... stomq2.gif

My main question left would be can thier system handle registration for pax'd classes like SK, but knowing the regions that use it already I think it must...

At first glance, this looks pretty kool.

[KJ Christopher]

So, what is the impact of moving to motorsportreg? Assuming everything they say on the site works. It is definitely different than when we first decided NOT to use it.
1. Still imports. No change there.
2. People who don't preregister would need to be entered into the system on site. No change there.
3. Results would need to be posted somewhere else? Wouldn't be as easy for Rick to get those out? Or can Motorsportsreg keep a history?
4. Can it handle special pricing? Might actually be easier to have two choices: $30 or pay at event....
5. Other implications? Rick - chime in please.

[Aaron Goldsmith]

So, what is the impact of moving to motorsportreg? Assuming everything they say on the site works. It is definitely different than when we first decided NOT to use it.
1. Still imports. No change there.
2. People who don't preregister would need to be entered into the system on site. No change there.
3. Results would need to be posted somewhere else? Wouldn't be as easy for Rick to get those out? Or can Motorsportsreg keep a history?
4. Can it handle special pricing? Might actually be easier to have two choices: $30 or pay at event....
5. Other implications? Rick - chime in please.

They allow you to post results. Might have to go back to pdf results. Pricing seems super customizable, did you look at the site?

Main plus would be having an interface that takes into account the advances in web design in the last 10 years. Looks like it was made by a web designer not an application programmer.

[KJ Christopher]

They allow you to post results. Might have to go back to pdf results. Pricing seems super customizable, did you look at the site?

Main plus would be having an interface that takes into account the advances in web design in the last 10 years.

Yeah - poked around there for a few minutes. It seems to cater to most of our needs/issues. Trying to think of what we're not thinking of. Would be nice to consolidate our points card numbers/registration in one place. That people seem to like. And that purports to do what we want.

[Don Salyers]

Once the garage is set, it's a piece of cake to register.

I have almost as many cars in my garage at Axware as I have in my red-neck back yard and they are all the same car! I just keep adding cars with different #'s, different T-shirt sizes, different T/$, different cakes (plain chocolate, German chocolate). I think I'll add a Yugo since Axware seems to be the Yugo of software....

Don

[Doug Kott]

I have no real problems with AXWare, but I'm probably the simplest case...one car in the garage, single driver, and I was already signed up for PayPal. Compared to vying for a spot in the practices, signing up was a breeze!...with instant gratification of seeing my name on the "registered" list.

--Doug

[Leonard Cachola]

different cakes (plain chocolate, German chocolate).

I was disappointed there wasn't a pie option.

[John Stimson]

The database used for the axware registration site seems to be very unstable. Entries from months ago events showed up in my shopping cart briefly when I registered for the divisional, but fortunately disappeared when I went to check out.

Some data fields from the garage don't get transferred to the registration. Data that is entered in some fields at registration doesn't get saved once registration is completed. Club, T/$, T-shirt size, emergency contact, and tires. I entered each of those three times (except the ones that Rick entered for me on the third time).

The software allows you to do things which place a registered entry into a state that the software cannot deal with. For example, I started to register Ellen, then realized that I had to create a new car for myself. I continued to register myself, then tried to add Ellen under "linked drivers", and she showed up as already registered. However, her entry fee was in my shopping cart and the system allowed me to pay for her entry. After that was done, her entry status was "I"ncomplete according to Rick. If the software is going to allow me to perform some action, then it should be capable of following through on that action. In this case, if it does not know how to handle Ellen's entry, then it should not allow me to pay for it.

In programming principles, input that does not have a pre-determined output should not be accepted.