Automating your recreation department.

It's the beginning of the summer swim lesson season. Late the night before, on your way home, you notice a large number of people gathered outside Southside Pool. You sleep fitfully that night, get up at 5:00 a.m. the next morning, and drive to the pool. Sure enough, your nightmare has become reality. Outside the pool building, several hundred parents are already in line, waiting to sign up. They've been there for hours and are already upset.

Before the day is done, you've already broken up several fights, broken ten pencils, used up five pens, sweated off five pounds, and raised your blood pressure 15 points. To make matters worse, come Monday morning, you know you will have to spend the entire day fielding complaints from all those citizens you sent to Northside, Eastside, and Westside Pools because the classes they wanted at Southside were filled after they waited seven hours in line, and of course the classes they wanted at the other pools were also filled. On Monday, they will be demanding your blood as a sacrifice--or maybe just your job.

If this is reminiscent of something you've just been through or will soon go through, then perhaps you've been wondering what you can do this year to avoid last year's registration nightmare. Maybe you've heard glowing tales of the joys of computerized registration. What a great idea! "Let's computerize!," you think. You quickly leaf through your NRPA Computer Buyer's Guide and make a few phone calls. You discover that for only $1,995 you can automate your registration process plus computerize your facility booking process. After all there's an old IBM 286 computer that someone donated that isn't being used all the time; it would be perfect! Before you get too excited--let me warn you, this dream can be just another nightmare.

Most likely the situation above doesn't portray the problems that registration and facility reservations pose for your agency. Chances are you have many different problems with registration and facility reservations. And, chances are you may have been dreaming about how wonderful it would be if only you could computerize the process. If you work in recreation you have probably faced some real challenges posed by the need to register people in your programs and reserve and rent your facilities. If you are among the majority of agencies still doing those functions by hand, you have probably thought about automating.

In today's Information Age society, the pressures to deliver highly responsive and efficient services are affecting public park and recreation agencies as well as business and the corporate world. Our patrons demand more--they are modern customers who value convenience and efficiency. Our customers are the same people who regularly use Federal Express Next DayAir, FAX machines, order products by phone for delivery in 48 hours, and have excellent 24-hour customer service from American Express. Clearly, lining up early on a Saturday morning to register for classes is not what they want to do.

Likewise, today's modern manager is concerned with using technology to improve service, decrease costs and maximize his or her staffs efficiency. Certainly, processing registrations manually, in notebooks, with hand receipts, is not one of the shining examples of contemporary management practices. The increasing demands of our market combined with the pressure to increase organizational productivity create a real need for solutions to our registration and facility reservation challenges.

Why automate? It's easier, of course! Although that may be the first thought that comes to your mind, it is not always accurate. The City of Santa Clarita, California, purchased an automated system when it first incorporated five years ago. For a variety of reasons, the system purchased was not really easier than doing it by hand. After three years of struggling with an inadequate system, the city is ready to throw away its initial investment often of thousands of dollars and expand another $50,000-plus to obtain a system that will meet our needs.

So why automate? I suggest you put some real time and effort into thinking through that question in detail. However, in general, some good ADVANTAGES include:

* Improve accuracy

* Speed up the registration process

* Enhance customer service

* Ease staff burdens

* Enhance reporting capabilities

* Provide demographic information

* Connect to general ledger system

* Complete financial accounting capabilities

All of these benefits are possible depending on what you choose and how you implement your choice. But beware! Choosing a system that doesn't match your unique needs may cause the following PROBLEMS:

* Increased mistakes

* Slower registration process

* Decreased customer service

* More staff work

* Inadequate reporting capability

* Inability to work with existing hardware or software

* Can't be adapted to changing needs

* Inability to work the way you do

Over the past decade, as computing technology has developed and the cost of computer hardware has dramatically decreased, there have been a number of software programs created for parks and recreation applications. It is vitally important that you give concerted thought and effort in selecting the particular program that will best meet your needs and fit into your department's situation.

The entire process of deciding whether to automate and then choosing which system to automate with is a seemingly unending series of questions. In deciding whether or not to automate you must consider a number of factors including:

* What is our current volume of registrations?

* How much does it cost us to do it manually?

* How much money is available to automate?

* Is the expenditure worth it (cost-benefit analysis)?

* What staff resources will be required to handle the new system?

* Does automation fit in with the department or city's strategic computer plans?

After you have decided that you need to automate and have convinced the necessary decision makers in your organization (this could be quite a project in itself), then it's time to decide the scope of what to automate.

Recreation Automation Modules

* Class Registration

* Facility Reservations

* Membership Maintenance

* Work Order Tracking

* League Scheduling

* Catalog Creator

* Graphical Analysis of Data Interface

* Mailing List Management

* Demographic Analysis 

* Point of Sale

* Tele-Registration

* Budget Interface

There are a number of vendors with a variety of products on the market. The biggest challenge to automating is finding and selecting the product that is best for you. I highly suggest that you NOT do either of the following:

* Call a neighboring agency, ask what they use and buy it. Don't! Your needs are different from theirs!

* Go out to bid for a "registration and facility program" and purchase from the lowest bidder. Don't! It is impossible to create a bid spec that identifies all the specifications you need, that will guarantee you the best product for your situation. Besides, cheapest usually isn't the best.

My suggestion for the method of making your selection is what's known as an RFP (Request for Proposal). In a RFP, you are soliciting suggestions from vendors as to what they can offer that will meet your needs. The process is competitive and allows you to select a vendor based on a variety of factors besides cost, including best fit to your needs, quality of product and stability of company. The major benefit of this process is that you can define the criteria for selection. You should discuss your organization's specific requirements for this process with your purchasing department.

Developing your RFP document is a large and complex task. It is important that you communicate as fully as possible your needs to the competing vendors so they can address your specific concerns in their responses. Developing the RFP forces you to do a comprehensive analysis of your needs and the manner in which you hope the program will meet your needs.

The RFP generally includes some background information on your organization, its current computing environment, the problems which the organization hopes to solve and the basic objectives of the system you are looking to purchase. The RFP also should include information on what contractual requirements the vendor will need to meet to win the contract-- frequently the purchasing department determines these. By far, the main portion of the RFP is a series of questions you ask the vendors about the capabilities of their system and a list of the minimum requirements you will accept in any system. The City of Santa Clarita's recent RFP consisted of 54 pages of information, containing approximately 300 specific questions, and our general requirements.

If you don't have much background with computers, computer registration system, or writing RFPs, I suggest strongly that you spend some time talking with those who do. Another valuable resource to obtain is a copy of any RFP issued by other organizations with needs similar to your own. We were able to obtain a copy of an RFP from a city of similar size and needs that had recently purchased a computer system. Their RFP provided the foundation for ours. Another word of warning! Do NOT just copy another RFP and just change the names. To get what you want, you must go through the laborious process of exploring in minute detail the specific needs of your organization.

It is usually best to develop the RFP with the assistance of a team. Possible members include: parks and recreation staff, registration staff, computer services staff, purchasing staff and finance staff. Assign appropriate portions of the RFP to the various members.

Prior to finalizing the RFP, you will want to develop a list of vendors whom you will invite to participate. Do not limit your invitees to this list. The market is constantly evolving and new companies are emerging on a regular basis. Look through professional publications for ads and consult NRPA and other professional organizations for potential vendor lists.

When the time comes to release the RFP, send out invitations to participate to your list of potential vendors and be sure to publicize the release in publications likely to attract vendors. Be sure to include your purchasing department in the release process. It is in your best interest to allow the vendors enough time to prepare a complete and professional response; eight to ten weeks would probably be sufficient. Enjoy the wait--the next phase is just as intense as the RFP development phase.

After receiving all of the written submittals from the vendors, it is time to reconvene your committee. By this time, preferably in conjunction with developing the RFP, you should have developed evaluation criteria and a method for conducting an initial screening of the submittals.

The evaluation criteria utilized by the City of Santa Clarita included the following:

* Compatibility with city's computer environment.

* Training and support What will the vendor do to ensure we successfully implement their program?

* Satisfaction level of other clients--Be sure to get a list of all clients and then select those most similar to yourself.

* Financial stability of the vendor This can be difficult to measure in the case of privately held companies.

* Technology--Is the program technologically advanced and does it support alternative registration methods (e.g., telephone registration, bar code registration, remote registration)?

* Functionality--Does it do what we need it to? Elements of this part include: flexibility, general system features, quality of accounts receivable system-- customer account management, registration processing capabilities, facility scheduling capabilities, reporting capabilities, type of receipts utilized and inquiry capabilities.

* Warranty provided--Some companies offer a satisfaction guarantee.

* Ability to meet city's implementation timeline.

* Adherence to submittal format specified in RFP--If they can't follow your directions in seeking your business, how will they follow your directions after you have hired them?

* Price--How much will the total package cost including licenses, training, additional programs required, installation and maintenance costs?

We assigned various evaluation criteria to specific members of the RFP committee based on their interest and expertise. Each submittal was ranked on each criteria with a score of one to ten. Weightings were assigned to each of the evaluation criteria, except price and financial stability, which were considered more on an acceptable/not acceptable basis. The three vendors who had the highest weighted scores were selected as finalists.

The preliminary evaluation serves to narrow down your choices. It is based on hard data submitted in writing by the vendors--their evaluation of their capability to meet your needs, This is not a sufficient basis on which to make your ultimate selection.

We invited the three finalists to participate in the finalist competition, This consisted of three major parts:

* Vendor Presentation--We required the vendors to come to the city and make an all-day presentation on their company and a demonstration of the software they proposed to meet our needs.

* Software Trails--We required the vendors to install their software (a demonstration version) on our hardware so that city staff could experiment with these programs on their own.

* Clarification of Terms After the presentations and trial period, both the city staff and the vendors better understood the city's needs and the capability of the vendor to successfully address these needs. At this time, we clarified some points, discussed price and value, requested some modifications and requested a revised quote from the vendors.

Then we ranked the three vendors again, based on the following criteria:

* Functionality--Does it really do all we need it to?

* Ease of use--How does it do what it does, and can we use it easily?

* Final reference checks--Who is doing what we want to and how satisfied are they?

* Training and support-- an the company effectively serve us?

* Price--Can we afford it? How does the value of one compare to the others?

At this point we were ready to make a final selection. Also at this point, the recession caught up to the city and at the mid-year budget the funding for the system was redirected to meet the city's other obligations. Although I can't tell you how it all worked out, here is what would have been our next steps:

After making our final determination as to which vendor we preferred, and after negotiating the final terms of the contract, we would have submitted the contract for approval to the city council. Congratulations! At this point your organization is the proud owner of a computerized class registration and facility reservation system, along with a bunch of other nifty modules that promise to make your life easier and deliver improved service to your customers. But wait, the work is just beginning.

After purchasing a new system there is an incredible amount of work to be done prior to going live with your first registration:

* You must purchase, install and configure the necessary hardware.

* You must install the software.

* You must train your system administrators, who then need to orient the program staff and together develop the internal organization structure for your programs and facilities necessary to begin inputting the base information.

* You must put in the base facility and financial information.

* You must train the regular users to develop a high level of competency.

* You must put in and verify the program detail information.

* You must link the various modules of your system.

* You must define internal policies and procedures or refine them to work with your new system.

* You must train the registration staff.

* You should conduct a trial run and de-bug.

Finally, you are ready to go live.

It's the Friday before swim lessons start. Two years ago, you would have been experiencing an acute anxiety attack in anticipation of the next day's registration at the pools. Not this year. Since April, your new automated registration system has been efficiently and silently processing not only aquatic registrations but registrations for all programs. Customers can phone in 24 hours a day, input their ID codes and select the classes they want. Payment may be taken over the phone, by credit, or the customer may request billing. In that case, the system automatically prints an invoice ready for mailing. When a customer submits payment by mail, your staff need only key in the invoice number and payment amount. The system confirms the customer's balance and issues a registration confirmation ready for mailing. If no payment is received, the system automatically drops the person from the class and informs you that a space is available and tells you who is on the wait list for the class.

Customers can confirm which class they are in and obtain class information over the phone 24 hours a day. The system generates class rosters and attendance lists at the start of each session for the instructors. At the conclusion of the program, the system compiles attendance data and processes payment requests for payroll to issue contract payments to your instructors. Customers satisfaction has dramatically increased and you sleep soundly tonight.

Automating your recreation department can be a real blessing to you, your organization, and your customers. However, to achieve the best results, it is necessary to spend the time and energy researching your needs and seeking the best solution available to you. Costs vary greatly depending on the specific applications you need. It is possible to spend anywhere from $2,000 for a stand-alone registration system for a single user with existing equipment to $200,000 for a complete package with all modules, telephone and bar code registration, and all the necessary hardware and training to ouffit a 40-user multi-site setting along with all necessary equipment. What ever the size or cost of any system-- remember, the benefits of that system are substantially related to the quality of process used in selecting that system.