1) User Registration
When users of the site visit the "Reception" they will be given the option
to register as members of the club. There will be 2 links - "Register as
a player or coach" and "Register your facility".
Register as a player or coach
Players will need to enter their:
-
name - free text - mandatory
-
address - free text - mandatory
-
town/city - free text??? - mandatory
-
email address - free text - mandatory
-
phone number - free text
-
fax number - free text
-
postcode - free text - mandatory
-
date of birth - drop lists
-
sex - radio buttons
-
other interest - drop-list of around 10 interests which may or may
not be connected with (racket) sports
-
Standard - There are 8 categories of standard (1.1, 1.2, 2.1,...,4.2) which
will be presented with a text description of the level of play associated
with each standard. We will need to ask users to register their standard
for the 3 main racket sports being handled by the club - tennis, squash
and badminton. Users will pick their standards using radio buttons. We
must allow a ninth option for each sport - "non player".
-
"How did you hear about us?" - free text
At the end of the registration form there will be a link to a subsidiary
form which will allow coaches to register. At present there is no
specification of the data required for coaches. Slazenger/Dunlop will provide
data for coaches registered with themselves. We will need to obtain
a specification of the data which they hold, although we can specify
the exact format in which data will be delivered to us. One field that
will be needed is a "published" boolean field (see next paragraph). Also,
they will need to enter their qualification and where they are based. TSL
(in consultation with Slazenger/Dunlop and Paneris) will specify this
data.
The "player" details will be entered into the database and will be immediately
available for use in the "Find a partner" search (see point 4 below). Coach
details will be entered into the database but will not be available
to be searched until a member of the RacketClub staff check the credentials
of the coach (including, initially, checking that the coach is not registered
with any competitor to Slazenger/Dunlop.) and set the "published" field
to true to allow searches on that coach's data.
At this point players and coaches will be directed to the search page
(see service 4 below).
Register your facility
Managers of facilities will need to enter data about their facilities
including
-
Name of facility
-
Address
-
Numbers of different courts (in 3 categories - squash, badminton, tennis)
-
prices
-
opening times
-
any coaching they can provide
-
any other services they provide
-
etc
Note that the specification for the data required for facilities in not
finalised. It is not intended, however, to link from facilities to coach
data - the data will be independent. It is intended that much of the details
of services provided by facilities will entered in a free-text format.
We will need to check that facilities (and also players/coaches) do not
enter HTML in free-text boxes. TSL (in consultation with Paneris)
will specify this data.
This data will be entered into the database but will not be available
for searches until a staff member of RacketClub has verified the data (and
collected membership fees, if necessary) and allowed the data to be published,
as with coaches.
It is not currently defined where we should then direct facility managers
after registration.
2) Updating membership information
When members re-visit the site they will have access to a "Update your
details" page. This will be the same as the user/coach/facilities registration
screen but with the current data for the member pre-filled-out. All alterations
made to the registration information will be written to the database.
At present there is no restriction about which data can be changed,
although it is sensible to not re-present the player's "Where did you find
out about us" field. TSL in consultation with Paneris will specify
any other restrictions.
4) Search for Partner, Coach or facility
There will be a search page with 3 links:
-
Search for a partner
-
Search for a coach
-
Search for facilities
These will search the players & coaches, coaches and facilities
databases respectively for records which match certain criteria.The criteria
which have been identified are:
-
By Location
-
By Sport
-
By Standard
-
By Age
Location - members will usually want to search for partners/coaches/facilities
in their local area. At present there is no fixed idea about how we can
calculate if a partner etc is near to the member performing a search.
The simplest solution is to see whether the first part of the postcodes
(e.g. OX4) match. A preferable solution is to use a database of postcodes
which will allow us to calculate approximate distances from member to member,
or a GIS (geographical information system) which will do the same. Note,
though, that there are problems with associating a (free-text) address
with a position in the country and so using a GIS might prove to be unworkable.
TSL will do further research to establish a preferred solution.
Example categories for this criterion include:
-
within 2 miles
-
between 2-5 miles
-
between 5-10 miles
-
any
Note that the exact categories will depend heavily on the method used for
calculating proximity. These categories should be selected from a drop-list.
Sport - members will be allowed to specify which of the 3 main
racket sports they are interested in finding a partner, coach or facility
for. These will be selected by clicking on check boxes (if none are checked
then an error is returned).
Standard - members can specify the playing standard of potential
partners. Example categories include:
-
Same standard as me
-
Within 1 grade above or below me
-
Any
These categories should be selected from a drop-list.
Age - member could specify age ranges for potential partners.
It is suggested that this criteria should not be included in the search
mechanism initially.
There has been some discussion about which of these criteria should
be automatically assumed by the search system and how we could alter these
criteria to produce new searches dynamically according to the results of
previous searches. For example, any search could by default look for partners/coaches/facilities
within 2 miles of the member. If there are less than 20 hits then the search
could be re-run looking for partners/coaches/facilities within 5 miles.
It is suggested that initially all search criteria are explicitly selectable
and the searches will not be re-run depending on the results. This allows
members to have complete control over the search performed and will allow
members to better understand the results being presented.
Results
When a search is run, a list of hits will be returned with a brief
description of players/coaches/facilities. The brief description will include
the name, location and standard (if applicable) of hits as well as the
sport concerned. There will also be a summary of the search performed.
There has been some discussion about how results should be sorted -
by location (proximity), sport or standard (if applicable). It is suggested
that initially results are presented ordered by sport, then location and
then standard.
Members can then click on any of these hits to see more details about
the potential partner,coach or facility. This should include most of the
details recorded about each type of user, but should not include the (home)
addresses of players or coaches (but should include the town/city). There
has been some discussion about whether these details should display contact
information or whether members will have to click on another link to obtain
this information by e-mail. This will allow TSL to track which coaches
and facilities have been "looked at". It is suggested that initially contact
details are displayed on the details screen.
E-mail
There will be a facility to send an e-mail from the RacketClub site
to potential partners and coaches (and maybe facilities). Some sort of
log of e-mails sent should be kept - see service 9).
6) Bulletin Boards
There will be a number of bulletin boards available for use by members
and non-members. These will be based on the idea of threaded newsgroups.
The exact specification is open, but it is intended to use bulletin board
software already developed by Paneris (see the implementation
plan).
9) Activity monitoring
Some facility is required to monitor how often a coach or facility's details
have been consulted. It is suggested that this should be done initially
by searching the web server log files for calls to the "display details"
script(s) where the URL chosen will contain the id of the coach/facility
being displayed.
10) Administration
A number of administration activities need to be undertaken by RacketClub
staff. For the first stage these are:
-
Coaches - there must be a facility to allow a coach's details to be published
(i.e. allowed to be a hit in a search) or not
-
Facilities - there must be a facility to allow a facility's details to
be published (i.e. allowed to be a hit in a search) or not
-
Bulletin board - there should a facility to allow the addition and deletion
of bulletin boards. It is also possible that at some point in the future
we will need to administer (alter/delete) individual postings.
There is some data for the coaches which will be supplied by Slazenger/Dunlop.