The Active Sports Group provides fun, healthy, and inclusive opportunities for young people and adults to engage in sport and leisure activities.
As an official Prince’s Trust partner, Active has coached thousands of children and their aim is to continue to improve access to sporting opportunities for young people across the UK.
The Challenge
Following a successful collaboration that included the development of several brochure websites and a rebranding exercise, CSI Media, a software development agency that specializes in the development of custom software solutions, was appointed to deliver the new project, ‘Sport Software’.
The original plan was to develop a solution that facilitated the planning and management of Active’s own events, and for affiliated schools to manage their sports classes via the solution. However, as CSI Media progressed through development, Active realized the potential of the software and how it could aid in fulfilling a markedly more ambitious business proposition: – building a UK-wide network of sports coaching providers that operate under the Active brand as franchisees.
Therefore, the new system needed to support the requirements of several unique stakeholders including Active’s management team, the parents & guardians of children who partake in Active events and lessons, schools, and Active franchisees.
The Solution
CSI Media assigned a designated team who worked closely with key personnel at Active to understand their specific business requirements and, given the scope of the project, carefully planned the architectural and implementation approach. Their team proposed a solution comprising of an online portal, a back-office system, and integrated booking functionality.
The portal is at the heart of the solution and is where key stakeholders perform fundamental tasks. Featuring a colorful UI, the design is instantly recognizable and reflects the energy of the Active brand.
Franchisees play a critical role in the development of the Active brand by providing sporting opportunities for children across the UK. Once they have been approved by Active and has made payment via the system, the franchisee will be granted access to a portal where they can add and manage their sports organizations & clubs, create events – paid or free, taster sessions, and single/recurring events – and assemble groups or ‘teams’ of children.
Moreover, their tutors and coaches can build custom lesson plans via a flexible content editor tool where they set the lesson’s objectives, activities, success criteria, and equipment, and assign participants to lessons (either individually or in teams). Alternatively, coaches can select pre-created lessons set up by Active Sports Group.
Tutors can also print a register of participants, and submit feedback on each child’s performance following each lesson. The same functionality is available for schools also, to help support the planning and management of curriculum-time PE, after-school clubs, and experience days.
Parents and guardians also perform several tasks via the portal; they can book events for their child and make the associated booking payment, give consent for their children to participate in events, view all upcoming events, lessons, training sessions, and games, and track their child’s progress via performance reports for each lesson.
The portal also incorporates a messaging service where tutors and guardians can directly communicate with one another; this allows either party to raise any queries, questions, or concerns.
The front-end B2C website focuses on event discovery and booking functionality through a multi-step process.
Active comprises a family of brands – Active Totz, Active Soccer, Active Sport – and CSI Media developed a search widget that has been added to each of the corresponding websites, allowing users to find nearby sports clubs, events, and activities.
When a user conducts a search, they are directed to the Sport Software website where they can choose a sporting event, for example, a football camp, view further information about the event, and book. Event landing pages provide detailed information of the event including cost, recurrence, and location displayed on a map via Google Maps integration. Users can book single/multiple places per event and can book onto a series of events that consist of multiple sessions.
The final area of the system is the back-office admin, a gated area where Active perform key managerial and administrative functions. Active’s management team can add new franchisees, manage site settings and credentials, and create global lesson plans that can be used and adapted by sports organizations.
Mark Whitwood – Managing Director, Active Sports Group said:
The software delivers an amazing, professional service to our users. CSI Media are a passionate team who invest in the idea and development which is really refreshing.
About CSI Media
CSI Media is an award-winning web development agency with 23 years’ experience in designing custom solutions that meet complex briefs.
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