How does your Association handle membership directories?
 

Hey everybody! Long time, no see. I haven't posted here in quite a while. I've lurked from time to time over the past couple of seasons but have just been otherwise occupied. I hope you're all doing well. I see a lot of the regulars are still around and there are some new (to me) regulars as well.

I've got a question that I am hoping you all can help me with. I am the president of my official's association for this year. Traditionally, we have had a membership directory professionally printed and bound at a fairly significant cost. This directory contains pictures of each of the officials as well as contact information. We provide these to all of the members as well as coaches and AD's for our schools.

Invariably, there are errors in the information as well as changes to the data as people move or get new phone numbers, work numbers, etc. It is horrible to pay what we do for a product when, a week later, it is already out of date.

We are considering other lower-cost approaches. I have heard that you can print a roster, which could contain pictures, out of the Arbiter software which may satisfy our needs. Our Assigner just began using Arbiter last season so we are not very familiar with its capabilities. If we did something like this, it could be done more than once a year thus containing more accurate data.

Can you all provide some insight and suggestions as to what to do? Do you have any experience using the Arbiter software in such a way? All of your replies are appreciated.

Thanks.

Barry,

I've got a much better solution than arbiter.

Contact me by email: cbrust_web_0 AT comcast . n e t (formatting modified to protect it from harvestors) for more info.

Barry,

One real simple solution would be to set up an association website and put the personal info and pictures of your officials on your site. Then just password protect the site so only your members can get in.

It's easy to print official's personal info out of Arbiter. Your assignor can tell you how. Pictures can be put into Arbiter as part of each official's info. It's easy for your assignor to do that.

Any of your officials can print a roster of your officials (via Arbiter) but the pictures aren't included on the roster when you do that.

Z

We use the Arbiter here, and I know that if the schools are onboard they can see who will work their games. It's kind of nice because some schools will have your paperwork mostly filled out for you when you arrive. Perhaps they can also see the directory of officials?

The person with assignor power in Arbiter can set whether or not the AD's can see a directory of officials. You can also set whether or not the AD's can see who the officials are on the game (or you can just set it so that the AD's can see that the games are covered but not the names of the refs). Arbiter is very customizeable.

Z

We put our entire directory online on the association's website, and require a password to access it. The password's not a secret, really, it's just to keep out somebody who is merely curious.

Ah yes, unfortunately M&M is still around :D (Just kidding Jim ;))

This is what our group does. The AD's know where to access the information. There's also a feature on our State's website where the schools can get State wide information.

The key is several levels of security. I don't think its a problem to allow coaches and ADs to view their own schedules (of course) and officials' names and pics. I wouldn't include them viewing other information except perhaps city but even that's pushing it. Email addresses and phone numbers, are of course way out of bounds here.

Then, the chapter members can view most everything except perhaps specific individual's schedules. They might see a mass schedule. Of course, the chapter admins have full control. You need individual login rather than one big password as that gives you control over what people can see and can't see. Also, if someone were to leave, you can easily 86 their login. Or, if they don't pay their dues on time, suspend their login.

For non organization logins, I'd have them expire either every year or after the season and require renewal next year. That way, coaches aren't handing down logins if they leave. Also, I'd suspend or eliminate logins if outside individuals abuse the priviledges.