arbiter.net question
 

I'm responsible for about 50-60 umpires and have always done the assignments by hand. I'm looking to maybe go to the arbiter but our first league games are in 2 weeks. Is this enough time to get it organized enough? We will have 2 more meetings before teh games start. Input and info needed. Also what's the approx cost for 50-60 officials?

Pay for the Arbiter use rights ASAP. Your skills learning how Arbiter works for the administrator and being able to explain to your umpire group Arbiter's game assigning role would be the determing factor for your meeting your assigning deadline.

As with any database, getting set-up takes the majority of time. You have to enter all of the teams, sites, and umpires. Once all of this is completed, entering the games by hand will take forever (appx 1-2 minutes per game). If you can get the games in an excel format, they have an import function that will import you entire schedule in a matter of minutes. The only gotcha with the import is that everything must match exactly (ie XXY High School, XYZ Hi School, XYS HS, and even XYZ high school are different enteries).

I will differ from the others. If you have reasonable computer skills, you can set up the basics in a 6-8 hour day, with game entry needing just a few hours, if you are organized, and computer proficient.

Cost is $5 per umpire (up to 150; you pick the top end you expect to need, and pay for that 'x' # of licenses), plus $25 for a secondary (backup) assignor (argue that it should be included in your contract!!!), plus $49 for payroll calculation (in my opinion, absolutely WELL worth the cost), plus $49 for combined checkwriting and 1099 module (this one depend on your needs).

Assuming you win the "You should include a backup assignor" argument, 60 umpires ($300) plus payroll ($49) is $349 per year. A really good value, I think (I buy 100 umpires plus payroll and argue about 2nd assignor every year). Set it up once, and it carries over.