TenpinResults fast becoming Volunteer’s Best Friend
By Tenpin Bowling Australia
TenpinResults has long been the home for bowling tournament results in Australia, but with improvements implemented in 2021, it is fast becoming a volunteer’s best friend.
Since the introduction of TenpinResults in 2013 by IT service provider Simpler Technology, the platform has served as Tenpin Bowling Australia’s (TBA) results portal and membership database.
In early 2021, TBA in conjunction with Simpler Technology, ATBSO and Strike 3 Bowling joined forces to upgrade the TenpinResults platform to assist with event administration. The expansion aims to provide a streamlined process for tournament organisers to deliver events. With many volunteers helping deliver events across Australia, TBA’s National Manager of Bowling, Morty Douglass wanted to remove some of the heavy lifting around the administration work involved.
“My goal is to make delivering events easier for the volunteers and automate the administration of events utilising the natural evolution of TenpinResults” explained Douglass.
“From personal experience running the tournament room at ATBSO nationals, tasks such as setting up squads, correcting players information, and trying to read handwritten entry forms was a huge investment of time.
“Fast forward to now, and a single click provides a smooth transition from entry information to a completed ready-to-go event program. For me, that alone is a game-changer,” Douglass added.
Volunteers are the backbone of tenpin bowling in Australia. Many of the tournaments such as QTour North, QTour South, NSW Regional Tourn, Qld Association Challenge, and Emerson Shield are delivered by volunteers.
Speaking on the collaboration, Simpler Technology Managing Director Jeff Whitty, who has first-hand experience volunteering at Tenpin Bowling events, understood the frustration of entering information manually.
“I felt the pain firsthand and saw the days of effort everyone was putting in to make the magic happen…there had to be a better way, so we made it,” Whitty said.
“Working with these industry stakeholders has given both sides the flexibility and power to evolve the Simpler Tenpin suite of products collaboratively, delivering maximum value to the sport,” he added.
Combining membership data with past event history and a secure payment gateway will allow volunteers to significantly reduce time spent and lessen human error.
The new additions to TenpinResults have already been put through their paces with the Tournament Coordinators of Qtour North Tyson Jones and Qtour South Carl Womack praising the system as a “time saver” that has assisted in the management of the squads and making payment more efficient.
The roll-out of the new platform has also seen Nationally Ranked Events in the Kegel QLD Open, Hammer QLD Seniors Classic, NT Tenpin Cup and Werribee Youth Cup take up the new service. The stats from the first few events have been encouraging.
“The feedback we are getting has been great,” said Douglass. “We will continue to learn about the intricacies of the system and how it relates to different formats, but as more events continue to use the service, the service will continue to improve and provide greater assistance to the volunteers.”
While the Online Entries Portal has been constantly improved over the last 12 months, TBA’s CEO Rohan O’Neill says they’re always exploring new ways to streamline the process and make it easier for members.
“TBA will be looking further to improve and enhance the services that we can deliver from a technology standpoint. Morty’s understanding of Information Technology opportunities that TBA and Simpler Technology can collaborate on will vastly improve our services to members and assist our Event organisers in delivering better events more easily,” he said.
Quick Stats from the first three ranked events
- The Average time from logging in to selecting a Squad is 58 Secs
- The Average time from logging in to Paying is averaging around 8 minutes.
- One Entry put in 4 bowlers and paid for the deposits in 119 secs, less than two minutes.
- Kegel received 60 entries in 15 minutes with 88 of the possible 108 spots taken in four hours.
- Both Kegel and Hammer have Full Deposits paid – Expressions of Interest are now open
