Need

Government regulations require team members to fill in a Health Declaration form before each training session. Initially this was being done by printing out the form, filling it in and handing it in. This information was then manually entered into an excel spreadsheet by the sports club.

This requirement means players have to fill in the same form 2 or more times a week. If the player is under 18, this is done by the parent. If the parent has more than one kid doing different sport activities, filling in these forms can be quite time consuming. A simpler method was needed.

Solution

A website with links to the health declaration form and registration form was set up for the players and their parents.

Simple survey was developed so that the coaches could change the questions in the form easily if necessary, as Covid requirements are constantly changing!

Excel sheets were formatted so that coaches can easily see who is eligible to play and who has or hasn’t filled in the from.

Website

HTML5 UP template was used to set up the website which is hosted on GitHub pages. Allows players to easily access the health declaration form.

Form

It was necessary to keep the form as quick to fill in as possible. Initially all of the questions were to be answered, but after a week, it was decided to shorten the form. If nothing has changed for the player since the last time they filled out the form, the player just fills in their name and date.

This made the process much quicker, which was necessary, especially for parents who have to fill out multiple forms each week.

Google forms were used as it generated a spreadsheet that the couches can use to view responses easily before training.

Coaches

Excel spreadsheets were set up in a way that different teams had different tabs, so each coach would only be looking at their own team.

Depending on the players response to the health declaration, the excel pages were formatted to display “Can Play” or “Can’t Play” beside the players name. This made scanning the responses easy for the coaches.

What I learned

  • There is no point in developing something just because you can. Initially I had planned to have a health declaration form on the website, but as the coaches wanted to be able to change questions as they wished, this didn’t make sense.
  • Although very simple, Google forms & sheets were perfect for this project.
  • User feedback is alway necessary - The feedback shortened the time the player spent filling in the form from 2 minutes to about 15 seconds.

Client Feedback

"Anna did a terrific job for us at Tullamore Hockey Club. With all the extra procedures and requirements for a ‘Covid’ return to training, it was great to have a professional looking after the web based forms and documents we needed. Once we gave Anna the requirements she came back very promptly with the first draft of our health declaration and membership registration for contact tracing purposes. A few tweaks later we were up and running. She has been very helpful getting our end users up to speed and all queries are answered immediately. Would definitely recommend Anna for any similar projects.”

Player Feedback

"The form is a very efficient way of collecting data for training and matches. Makes the whole process a lot easier!"