Online Registration

[ajackson]

Is there a (good) reason why we cannot sign up for Ax's and other driving events online? Seems like it would help ease burden on the people handling it and make people more likely to register earlier.

--Alan

[MikeD]

Yeah! No body's done it yet. Are you volunteering? Send an email to webmaster@pcasdr.org and let them know you want to be on the web team and will develop the online registration system. The sooner the better as I am getting flack from the TT chair about this also .

[ajackson]

Email sent, we'll see what I can come up with.

[Awolf]

Alan,

I just wanted to chime in and say that it would be very nice if you were able to pull this off. Let me know if you need any help and I will do what I can for you.
-Andrew

[bill allen]

Alan,
GREAT! Thanks for volunteering for this project which has been needed for some time. Volunteers like you are what make SDR such a fantastic organization.

[David J Marguglio]

If you are able to pull this off, and I hope that you do, perhaps you should take a look at the way NASA allows you to register for an event. It is very slick and remembers all of your vitals (member #, car #, class, etc.) and your credit card number; it's a no-brainer.

[ajackson]

Thanks for all the encouragement, I'm talking with some of the web people now so we'll see what happens.

[ajackson]

I'll talk to whoever has needs/suggestions, but I need to know who they are (names, emails, phone numbers etc). Anyone with suggestions, please post them here.

[Kim Crosser]

Suggestions:

Allow people to have more than one "profile", where a profile contains at least the following:
Name
Address
Phone number
PCA Membership #
Region (default to "SDR" - nice to have a drop-down of region names)
E-Mail address
Instructor status (is/is not an instructor - checkbox)
Note - need different status options, I think - AX Instructor, DE Instructor, TT Instructor
Helmet status (needs/doesn't need helmet - checkbox)
Vehicle info (model, year, car #)

If secure, allow recording credit card #, expiration, security code in profile. Warn if expiration in profile <= event date.

Allow payment from Visa, MC, and/or PayPal.

Allow for "dual events" (AX followed by DE at a discounted rate).

Automatic fee increase if not registered by (Weds? Thurs? Fri?) before event.

On each event, pre-fill above info, plus event info, then allow selecting:
Want Instructor (yes/no)
Will Instruct (yes/no - only if "Instructor Status" above = Yes)
Co-Driver - if selected, allow entry of co-driver information (at least name, address, phone, PCA #, region)
Payment method (Visa, MC, or PayPal at least)

Payment entry MUST be secure.

Option to send confirming e-mail/print for records page.

Hmmm... maybe this is why nobody else has volunteered for this one yet.

[ajackson]

Why would someone want more than one "profile"? If the user really wants to (just like any other site), they could create two independant acounts...

[MikeD]

I'm not sure how this works, but I suspect board approval would be necesary for getting a PayPal account. Since we already have a way to process credit cards, I do not think it will be needed. However, if it is something the membership wants a spoksperson (i.e. Kim) should make a presentation to the Treasurer and/or board at the next board meeting.

[Robert]

I inquired on this once before and I believe the Club's current credit card processing arrangement is for the wireless terminal only. Someone will need to look into whether or not the processor offers an online service as well, and if not, what the best alternative is (be it PayPal or whomever).

Any online registration capability is really only helpful if the captured data will ultimately interface with Tom Brown's registration/timing software. That software already has a data structure for driver information. These suggestions and the volunteerism that are coming forward are terrific, but I highly suggest getting together with Tom in order to make the effort as useful as possible.

[Larry Clark]

The current credit card processing service can provide online processing via an optional (extra cost) option, but when we looked into using it for Witness billing, it turned out to be a bad deal. We found numerous other options that were cheaper, but are currently sending text information to Cecelia Knauf to process via her terminal. (No, we do not transmit the credit card information via email.)

[David J Marguglio]

I think the purpose of the online registration was to make it easier for the members to register not to make the processing of credit cards easier. The NASA online registration (as I alluded to in an earlier post) does not process credit cards in real time, it simply gathers the information. My credit card statements reveal that they process the transaction closer to the event (I suppose to save having to credit back those that withdraw in a timely fashion). Our system need only gather info and put it in a whippie format for the chairs to process.

[Robert]

I think the purpose of online registration is to make the entire process easier, benefiting everyone from the driver when they register, down to the web team member who posts the results online. I would suggest that registering today is pretty simple for everyone: just fill in an online PDF form and fax it in. Sure, saving the fax step would be great. But the big efficiency would come from getting that data validated first and then in a format that can be dumped straight into the registration/timing software.

In the events I've done registration for, about 40% of the entries need some form of manual intervention (missing info, incorrect info, etc.). This takes time away from the person doing the registration, as well as the driver, who has to be contacted -- sometimes multiple times -- to get the proper information. Sometimes it even results in a loss of track time for everyone because we can't get started until everyone is properly registered. Or there's a missing transponder number and we have to stop things to sort it out.

I agree that the credit card part is the least important (that said, I'm not the person punching the numbers into the terminal by hand).