We get contacted quite often because of our past experience in developing rodeo management software. We are more than happy to offer our thoughts and opinions on rodeo management software best practices. Best practices are those which are carried out by the software provider and are seen in the form of customer friendly benefits and policies. In the end, the leading question for a rodeo software evaluation is "does it make managing your rodeos easier?"
Operational Efficiency
In comparison to cobbling together a set of online forms, spreadsheets and manual calculator, are you spending less time feeding the system and are you confident in the data and calculations? The term "end-to-end" is often used to describe a system that does not require any other systems to be used to supplement the processing of information. In evaluating rodeo software, keep in mind you will still other software (email, accounting, etc.) to manage your business, but a good rodeo management system won't need you to supplement with spreadsheets for draws or credit card processing for payments, these will be part of the system. Rodeo software should take you from the beginning of your season's rodeo schedule, member management, entries, draws, results calculations, and standings.
Admin Efficiency
In contrast to Operational Efficiency which minimizes the number of systems needed to handle a function, Admin Efficiency minimizes the amount of effort required by your people to manage the information. A good rodeo software program will never require the entry of the same data/information more than once. This is product of the system design, the ability to reference the data in one place throughout the entire system. Data entered by a member in their member profile should be available in report displays. Data entered by a rodeo admin in the rodeo schedule should be publicly available to the fans and members.
Ability to Scale
If there are limits, then the system eventually become unusable. Rodeo organizations are often expanding their membership, increasing the number of rodeos, and including more events. Your software needs to support the growth and expansion, in all directions, with no restrictions. An organization with 100 members and 5 rodeos should have the same quality experience as an organization with 1000 members and 30 rodeos.
Access to Historical Information
Year over year, various changes occur in a rodeo organization. Fee structures change. Event offerings change. The ability to go back and review accurate historical information is important. Most importantly, rodeo results and season standings are critical to keep track of. It should be a painless experience to access archived information past rodeo seasons. Your members may have sentimental reason to look back. Your executive will have a requirement to have these available.
Decreasing Bug Reports
All software has bugs. Some have more bugs. The trend should be towards a decreasing number of bug reports. That is a sign that your software provider has a dedicated development team and that issues are dealt with and eliminated. If the same bug appears week after week, rodeo after rodeo, it is a drain on your resources. Software developers need to be both proactive via extensive testing to catch bugs pre-release, and reactive, to fix bugs that have slipped through.
Painless Software Updates
Not just bug fixes. Software providers should be able to upgrade, update, and release new features to their users in a way that does not impact the users. Data loss due to an update or loss of features is a critical error. Updates should increase the value and functionality of the software.