Information from GolfBox about the new tournament system 06-05-2014

Status in regards to the new tournament system

Since the launch of our new tournament software our support staff still receives quite a few inquiries. These inquiries can be categorized into 3 categories, which is "system errors", "missing functionality" and "learning curve issues". These are the main different inquires we have received during the past two months.  

System errors

We have along the way in our development process tested our system in many "live" tournaments and at the same time, conferred with several experts on the area. In spite of the use of extensive requirement specifications and function descriptions throughout this period, we have to honestly admit, that no matter how much you test, errors will occur in areas that you do not expect and which you would not find before the system are "live" with extensive usage. This is type of errors you may have been experiencing now, and we would like to thank you for your feedback and patience. We know this is very annoying and we apologize for the caused frustration. We can however, assure you, that we are working very hard on eliminating all known system errors and since the launch we have eliminated more than 125 of these bugs.

Missing functionality

We decided to invest in the new tournament software to provide our users, clubs and golf players with an even better experience in tournament administration than before. In the new system we have created many new functions that did not even exists in our previous tournament system. However, we are also aware that the new functions are overshadowed by things that does not work properly and functionality that the system is missing.

Since December we have hired 6 new programmers and we have added close to a 100 new functions to the tournament software since our launch a little over two months ago. Almost daily we upload new functions and our development is constantly evaluated and prioritized. It is important to mention that our new tournament software is very dynamic, which makes it much easier to suit the rising needs from our customers. So, we are in fact able to say that as long as our customer’s keeps developing a need for new functionality, we will never be done developing.

Learning curve issues

As often experienced, many new things introduced to the users of IT, it takes a bit of time and effort to learn and get comfortable. We are fully aware that our new tournament system will give users many frustrations, because everything is new and different than before, but we sincerely hope that our users will use some time to become confident in the usage and then experience that the new tournament system has many advantages. The system should, when the initial learning curve is passed, significantly ease the work for the tournament administrator and at the same time make it more enjoyable to administrate the tournament.

The first version of our tournament, which we released to our customers 10 years ago was developed in approx. 4 months by one programmer. Since then the requirement for tournament software have significantly changed. The new tournament software have been underway for 2 ½ years and more than 16,000 development hours have been used on the project so far by up to 5 programmers. The project has also surprised us in relation to our expectations.      

The new tournament software has both errors and missing functionality – and it takes time to become comfortable with software with so many setup options. However we know that the system has the potential to become a fantastic tool for our users. We sincerely hope that you are willing to assist us by showing us a bit of patience, while we intensely work to eliminate the minor errors and add the relevant missing functionality.

We thank your for your patience!

Kind regards,

Team GolfBox