It’s nice when a real world situation answers a theoretical question. Last month we heard from a rodeo organization admin who told us that she was in a panic. Her laptop melted. She had a rodeo where she was the primary secretary, and no other laptops or tablets available. She called us. We said just manage the whole rodeo from your phone. This included entering scores and times in results for all events, calculating payouts and points (automatically done by the software), posting results (with the click of a check box), notifying all competitors that the results were available (also the click of a check box), and marking the rodeo as official which then automatically updates the standings.
The Added Mobility Benefit
There was a quickly recognizable benefit from being mobile. Rather than toting a laptop around the rodeo grounds, searching for an electrical outlet and a WiFi signal, the phone was constantly connected, whether on WiFi or the cell data network. This gave the Admin ability to operate from the announcer’s booth, the front gate, the office, or anywhere else she was needed.
Multiple Devices = Sharing the Data Entry Load
In addition to gaining the benefit of being able to move about as needed, it was also quickly realized that with the phone as the device, and with multiple devices in various rodeo officials hands, that meant the opportunity to share the load of data entry. Using the Online Judges Cards, scores were entered and saved directly to the database by the judges, eliminating the need for hand-written scores to be keyed in later. Huge time savings and less opportunity for data entry error.
The Device Doesn’t Matter
The panic was well understood. Anytime you are faced with a time-urgent task and you don’t have the device you are most familiar with, it’s a bit unsettling. Here is where we believe a bit of foresight on our part was a benefit in this situation. (Ya, we are taking a little bit of selfish credit.) When we built the Rodeo Management System, we used a web development technique known as “responsive design”. Simply put, this means that the device doesn’t matter, it just needs to be a device with a web browser. That could be a desktop computer, a laptop, a tablet, or a smart phone, of any brand.
Cloud-Based = Any Time Any Where
Rodeo Management System, and the related Barrel Racing System and Team Roping System, are cloud based software programs. The programming code and data storage are all on servers in the Internet cloud. Anywhere, anytime access to the software and data. As in this case, when a device is not available, there is no loss of data. Login with another device and continue to manage your rodeo.
The Future of Rodeo Management is App Based
A short look into the not too distant future and we see the next generation of software from RodeoReady just around the corner. This future is App-based, whether you are using an Apple device or an Android device, the same cloud-based computing model continues to make the software, including all the computational formulas, and data storage, universally available from any location with web access. Think of your device as merely your remote control and all the smarts and guts of the system are safely operated on the central webserver securely in the cloud.