Target Rifle Australia is the premier body for the sport of small-bore rifle and air rifle in all disciplines. Target Rifle Australia Limited is the organisation responsible for the Olympic & Paralympic sports of Small-bore & Air Rifle Shooting.
In line with key operational deliverables, Target Rifle Australia organises and manages competitions at a national level on an annual basis. Needless to say, an event of this scale and complexity required a high level of planning and multiple resources to co-ordinate not only the competition entries, but manage their game/shooting selections, and accommodation requirements (for visitors).
Creating an integrated view of data-flow into and outside of a system is the key to determining and improving the efficiency of a system. With the competition management system, Cornerstone Alliance understood the data journey and were able to introduce efficiencies throughout the process.
Prior to an integrated online event management system, the competition management process heavily involved using Microsoft Word, Excel and manual emails to receive and collate registration information, validate entries, create squads, receive payments manually (via cheque and bank deposit). Needless to say, the process was laborious and inefficient and led to multiple double-handling errors and provided no visibility into the overall scenario.
Cornerstone Alliance partnered with TRA director Nick Sullivan to define and scope the value targets that could be achieved from an integrated competition management system. These value targets centered on reduced manual processes, improving efficiency to all stakeholders and maximising the value of data collected.
The competition management system for TRA was developed using a robust mix of open-source technologies with PhP as the scripting/programming language, JavaScript for client-side validation/functionality and MySQL as the database.
Cornerstone Alliance developed the integrated competition management solution, which met defined value targets and led to the realisation of the following benefits:
Web and mobile-friendly entry forms.
Users are now able to make online payments, which improved overall usability.
Competition admins have a real-time view of entrants, payments, and entries across various game disciplines.
The system administrators can create additional competition event forms independently by setting event properties and adding events with dates and times.
All user and competition information are integrated to maximise.
Changes to the competition program are easily updatable to the online entry forms.
End users are seamlessly kept in the loop in relation to their entries, payments, and important event milestones.
The competition forms incorporate business requirements and ensure these rules allow for a more streamlined data-gathering process, e.g. displaying men's, women's, and mixed events based on selected gender; factoring multiple event-based discounts, etc.