wp-SwimTeam

The MacDolphins summer swim season ended this past Tuesday but there are few things I wanted to fix while they are still fresh in my mind.

Our volunteer coordinator had asked me if I could make it so she could export the Job Assignment Report to Excel.  When I got into it I realized that the approach I was taking with the original Job Assignment Report was based on an old report and I really should have based it on the Users report.

Since the Job Assignment Report leverages the User information, I was able to base the new Job Assignment Report on the classes for the User reports.  This was absolutely the right decision as it saved me from writing a bunch of new code which would be similar to. if not exactly the same as, the code for the User Report.

This release fixes a couple of minor nits but mainly it introduces a new Job Report which can be exported as a CSV file which is easily manipulated with Excel.  The report can also be generated as a HTML table and allows the user to specify which fields are to be included in the report.

Progress, download download, MacDolphins, Release, Report Generator

I have update the wp-SwimTeam demo site with a preliminary version which includes the new jobs module.  I expect I will release it over the weekend at some point.   You can see what a sample page or post would look like for a swim meet.  From the Administrative perspective, a similar report is available but includes more details (e.g. phone numbers).

I had a chance to show this to the woman who coordinates volunteers for the MacDolphins and she was pretty excited about it.  It should make her job much easier and it will also make it much easier for parents to know when they have signed up to volunteer.

I want to do a little more testing on it before I release it but I am pretty confident it is working pretty well.

Development, Featured, demo jobs, MacDolphins, volunteers

I have had a couple people ask me for the MacDolphins WordPress theme to use as a starting point for their own swim team.  The MacDolphins theme is built on top of the Sandbox theme framework and I am happy to share it.

I have toyed around with a couple of themes but this is the first one I think is robust enough to share.  It does have a few issues left to fix (e.g. sticky posts) and I hope to do that soon.  If you end up using this theme, please make sure to credit the Sandbox theme as without it, this theme isn’t possible.

MacDolphins Theme – updated 5/28/2009 @ 11:10 PM

Themes, download download, MacDolphins, theme

Last nigth the MacDolphins had our kickoff party – a fun event before practice starts on Tuesday. In getting ready for the event I ran into a couple things that I will fix over the next couple days. These are the things that I found don’t work correctly:

1. Swimmer labels can be reassigned even when the labels are locked for a season.
2. Swimmers labels are not exported to CSV from the Swimmers Report.
3. CSV export for Roster fails from Roster Tab.
4. Scratch fails with array out of bounds error.

I also changed how the registration e-mail works yesterday. Instead of filling out the e-mail template with the information from the user actually doing the registration, it uses the information from the Primary Contact.  I am finding that a number of parents are asking if I can “just take care of it” for them.  This change allows them to receive the e-mail even if the Admin performs the registration on their behalf.  This change is already committed and I used it last night but hasn’t been released in a build yet.

Bugs, Development Bugs, labels, MacDolphins, reports

This afternoon I posted v0.1.371 of the wp-SwimTeam plugin on the download page.  This build cleans up some UI issues and adds the baseline functionality for Opt-In/Opt-Out (aka Register and Scratch).

I have been noodling on how to implement the MacDolphins need for an online scratch sheet solution since I started this project.  It was one of the areas we really struggle with.  We’ve had a scratch sheet posted on the bulletin board for people to sign up on but it was ineffective.  We’ve tried using e-mail which worked better but getting the information from the collection point to the heat sheet continued to be problematic.  Hopefully connecting it to the web site will be a good solution to this ongoing problem.

The basic functionality is now working.  When a swim meet is entered into the system, it is characterized as either Opt-In or Opt-Out (the labels can be set from the Options menu).  An Opt-In meet requires all swimmers to register in order to participate.  An Opt-Out swim meet assumes all active swimmers are participating unless the swimmer withdraws from a meet (or subset of meet events).  For the MacDolphins, all dual meets are Opt-Out events and our local invitational city meet is an Opt-In event.

In addition to the new Opt-In/Opt-Out functionality (which doesn’t include reports yet), I made quite a few improvements to the UI, particularly with the messages which are displayed after an action is executed.  I also took care of some CSS issues which were most notable when using the default light blue Dashboard color scheme.  I prefer the grey one which is why I hadn’t noticed the problem previously.

The next phase of Opt-In/Opt-Out will be reporting followed by exporting a meet specific roster in SDIF format.

Development, Ideas, Release, download CSS, MacDolphins, opt-in, opt-out, Options, scratch, wp-SwimTeam

Since I am into the second season of using wp-SwimTeam for the MacDolphins I am running into families who swam last year who don’t plan on swimming this year.  When I started building wp-SwimTeam I made the decision that I didn’t want to delete swimmers or families so pool records and a history could be kept easily.

The wp-SwimTeam plugin handles inactive swimmers and families just fine however the E-mail Users plugin we’re using to contact our swim families doesn’t know anything about active or inactive families so people who aren’t interested any more are getting copies of e-mail they shouldn’t really receive.  Most ignore them but some don’t want to be bothered.  I don’t want to build an e-mail system into wp-SwimTeam, there are plugins that already do that.  I am not really interested in building a custom role manager either but that might be the solution.  By default I have all users as subscribers now, I could also look into assigning inactive users to have “no role on this blog” and see if that prevents them from receiving e-mail.

Development, Swim Team active, e-mail, inactive, MacDolphins, role manager, users, wp-SwimTeam

There is a bug in the Report Generator and the Roster CSV export which prevents the CSV file from being sent to the browser for download.  I ran into this with the MacDolphins this morning as I was working on our 2009 Registration.  I have fixed the problem and committed the changes, I will post an update later this afternoon of this evening.

Bugs, Progress Bug, CSV, MacDolphins

I have been asked to present the experiences of the MacGregor Downs MacDolphins with WinSwim and our team web site at the March board meeting of the Tarheel Swimming Association (TSA).

Our experience with Hy-Tek and ultimately WinSwim were significant drivers in the development of the wp-SwimTeam plugin.  I have made the presentation available for download.

Development, News, Swim Team Hy-Tek, MacDolphins, TSA, WinSwim