BeaSoft Event Entries System

This Event Entries Management system is designed to handle the entries to a British Eventing meeting, but can also handle unaffiliated or mixed events, and also Pony Club events. The system takes entries from paper, from a spreadsheet and from BE’s web entries system. It checks their eligibility and provides lists and tools to assist balloting and sectioning. Allocating times is made easy, as are printing out the times, sending them to the internet and producing running orders.

The system is also used for scoring. At any stage, the data in the system can be transferred to either of the other BE-approved systems, or data can be taken-in (in whole or in part) from one of them. The times and results can be sent electronically to BE and can be produced in electronic form for putting on the event’s own web site. This can all be done easily by the user.

The system is designed to be as flexible as possible. Details of classes and sections (for example the day a section runs, whether show jumping is phase 2 or 3, or adding a section) can be changed at any stage.

Features of the system include these:

· Entries can be taken whether horses and/or riders are on the BE library or not. This caters for early season entries when Registration is under pressure, and for foreign entries. And of course for unaffiliated events.

· Multiples are identified and flagged automatically.

· The BE library can be downloaded simply from a menu selection; it facilitates speedy input of entries. The library is held encrypted for data protection compliance.

· Where information on the BE library is incorrect it can be corrected for the event’s purposes and those corrections are not lost when the BE library is next downloaded.

· The system can handle all event types (1 Day, CCI, 3 Day etc) together as one event. JAS is not yet built-in but can be added if demand justifies it.

· Cash received for entries and stabling can be recorded and listed, an account is maintained and debts and overpayments can be identified. Cash expected from BE as received on internet entries can be listed. Stabling lists can be produced.

· Pony and Riding Club entries from a branch can be managed as a group and the fees responsibility allocated to a single person.

· The system can be self-loaded from a CD or a USB stick. Updates can be downloaded from the internet by making a simple menu selection.

· An online Help system is being written and a good deal of it is already available. Meanwhile the system has help prompts at every stage on the buttons and menu choices encountered when you use the system.

· Internet Entries can be downloaded directly from the BE site with one click. Refunds after withdrawals can easily be seen for notifying to BE on its website for action. Entry Confirmations can readily be sent by e-mail from the system, and so can Times, and a link to a fuller EC Letter can be put in the e-mail.

· Draft Time Charts for sectioning are produced by the system from basic information supplied about each section. As this information can be changed at any stage the system can generate revised time charts very easily. Sectioning remains a human process, but re-input of the resulting numbers against entries is quick.

· The system is designed to be helpful, intuitive and idiot-resistant. Where speedy working is most required (input of entries, and scoring) the system allows almost all actions to be done working from the keyboard rather than having to reach constantly for the mouse.

· The system is available for renting for a per-event fee, based on the size of the event. Renting the system entitles the user to telephone support from the developer. Currently, events running up to five sections can use the system for no charge. The developer prefers to walk the new user through the system and would expect to charge mileage only for doing so.

· The system can produce entries data for the printed programme in many different formats depending on the event’s preferences. The data can be sent by e-mail from the system to the printing company for them to set it, or the user can simply instruct the system to load the data into Excel and a first draft of the photo-ready copy is produced as a spreadsheet.

· Sticky labels for various purposes – ECL labels, addresses for the photographer, VAT receipts etc – can easily be produced in several standard label formats.

· Entries can readily be flagged for special lists and identification.

· The entries can be transferred into Excel for the automatic production of photo-ready copy for big scoreboard sheets. You will need contact with a suitable printing company and a name can be given for that.

· Renting the system gives the user the right to a standard web page for the year on www.beahorse.org/ from which web users can reach the lists of entrants, times and results, and can jump straight to BE’s web entries system and the event’s own site. These lists are uploaded easily by the entries secretary direct from this entries system.

· The system is also a full scoring package, used by BE scorers. It copes with mixed event types in one place (as noted above) and can have more than one event open at the same time. Results and similar files can be uploaded to BE simply and directly from the system. It is designed to be quick to use, flexible in its working. It produces the usual lists, including dressage analysis, all-scores lists in the layout for the class, and XC fence analyses.

· Data can be transferred easily in whole or in part (say, just one class) to and from users of other entry management packages (produced by Paul Harris and Lesley Hagerty): such a user may be your scorer. The transfer can be done directly by the user of this system, in the agreed Interchange File Format; note that only this system allows for part-transfers. The whole system (including cash, stabling and printed program parameters) can be transferred even more easily to another user of this BeaSoft system (including to the developer for problem solving!).

· There is a quick one-click backup procedure built into the system.

· For a small one-time charge a pdf writer can be added to your computer system. That makes it possible to produce printouts as pdf files that are simple to e-mail to others. The pdf writer works with your other software as well (like Word), not just with this Event Entries system.

This is a conventional menu-driven 32-bit Windows system, based on dBASE PLUS, written in an OODML, and working optimally in Windows XP, Vista and Win7.

Contact Bruce Beacham on 01395 568130 or bruce@beahorse.org