Category: Development

EventReg Team seeks feature request feedback

Earlier this year, due to the ongoing SARS-CoV-2 pandemic, Orienteering USA waived the EventReg fees for local club use through the end of next year (2021). This gives clubs the opportunity to utilize the online system to streamline registration & administration at their local events to help maintain social distancing protocols while still holding regular events.

We realize that every club has slightly different procedures and protocols for holding their normal events and that adapting to the new online system is not always as seamless as it could be. The EventReg team is actively developing new functionality to ensure all clubs are able to utilize the system in a simple and effective manner.

We would like to get feedback from club officers, registrars and event directors on the features that would make it most expedient for you to adopt the system at the local level. Please take a moment to fill out our Feature Request Form with your feedback so that we may prioritize our ongoing behind the scenes work to make the system work for you. This form can also be used to report bugs with the system if you come across them.

You can also check out the current list of enhancements currently in the development queue. If you think something on this list should be a higher priority, let us know!! Feedback from you is the best resource we have to make sure the system works for everyone.

New Technology Capabilities for Member Clubs

Orienteering USA is pleased to announce new technology capabilities available for its member clubs.  Due to licensing stipulations, these capabilities are only available for certified nonprofit (501(c)3) clubs.  All of these capabilities are provided for free.  Orienteering USA will assist with setup of the capability.

Capabilities

Subdomain of orienteeringusa.org

Your club can have the option to use their own unique clubacronym.orienteeringusa.org subdomain and point it to their website. (A subdomain is the portion prior to the ‘.orienteeringusa.org’ portion of the URL.) This option can save you from purchasing your own domain or having to pay to add a second address to your existing domain. Some clubs currently use the ‘.us.orienteering.org’ URL for this same.  Shifting to .orienteeringusa.org would keep a better continuity of websites.  (e.g. eventreg.orienteeringusa.org, but ‘eventreg’ would be your club’s acronym)

Google team drive for document storage

A Google team drive is a shared space that allows teams (organizations) to store documents and easily search for them.  It also allows all members to access the drive.  This drive belongs to the entire team instead of an individual as in the personal drive.

Benefits

  • 500GB data storage
  • Club’s self management of access
  • OrienteeringUSA support upon lockout/loss of access
  • Anyone can access any document with appropriate permissions
  • Individual files sharable with anyone
  • File version control is integrated

Limits

  • Only individuals with a google account can modify documents

Google group for group mailing list management (e.g. contact list / group inbox)

A Google group is a group of email addresses that can be used for a specific purpose.  A google group can be configured to act as a group inbox (e.g. where a question is sent to an email address and is then distributed to multiple people instead of one) or as a contact list (e.g. an announcement is sent by a club representative to all those in the club wishing to receive those announcements.

Benefits

  • Club’s self-management of access
  • @orienteeringusa.org group address (not @googlegroups.com)
  • Restrict email addresses that can send out/receive to the contact list
  • OrienteeringUSA support upon lockout/loss of access
  • Individual subscribe/unsubscribe available

Limits

  • Only individuals with a google account can modify the entire distribution list

Google Calendar

Clubs can also manage their own Google Calendars. Share event, meeting and training schedules or whatever is most useful for the club.

Benefits

  • Club’s self management of access
  • Allow anyone to view calendars as desired

Procedure for requesting support

Send an email to tech-committee@nullorienteeringusa.org containing:

  • Subject: Google Workspace for our club
  • contact information of the person or people in the club who will receive admin accounts in the secondary domain.
    • First name, last name, OUSA member email (to receive invitation)

For a subdomain:

  • IP Address of the server, if redirecting to your existing site
  • Or let us know if you’d like to use Google Sites

For Google Groups:

  • Refer to the user documentation for managing groups

Draft Orienteering Development Model

Review Period through January 31, 2020

The Youth Development Working Group has completed its initial draft of the Orienteering Development Model (ODM), a long-term athlete development model based on the U.S. Olympic and Paralympic Committee’s American Development Model.

The framework document is available for community review and comment here (Google Doc). Please provide feedback either through comments in the document, or by emailing vpyouth@nullorienteeringusa.org by January 31, 2020.


We recognize we are not effective graphic designers.  If you can do better with either (or both) of our graphics, please do so.  The first is embedded in the framework document; the second is available for download here. (Don’t try to open it in Google; it is a PowerPoint file and can only be edited in PowerPoint, although you are also welcome to recreate it in a different file format.) If you have suggestions to share or problems with download, email vpyouth@nullorienteeringusa.org.

Thanks in advance for your input and suggestions!

Tori Campbell
VP, Youth Initiatives
Orienteering USA