Please Help With Testing

[mcoupemindy]

We have some very interesting entries for the 3 events so far.

Do you think we should limit the available car numbers to 1 thru 30, or 35 (whatever), although I guess it really doesn't matter. Will your system prevent more signups than the heat limit?

Viewing who has already signed up is a real nice feature. It would be even better if it gave the car and class.

Woody,

Once I get a final determination on how many we can have in each heat (probably 40) I will limit the numbers (e.g. 100-139).

I'm putting together a list of revisions, and will implement them all at the same time after the initial testing is over.

On the revision list so far is:

An input for car color;
Limiting the number of participants per heat to 30;
Adding class information to the view registration page;
Remove novice question;
Remove first time question;
Add unique identifier to cancellation email (COMPLETED);
Add disclaimer that car numbers and heats are not guaranteed;
Add waitlist option (COMPLETED);

Is there anything else that you would like to see?

[AG]

Is there anything else that you would like to see?

From what I remember, the link to the home page (and probably the others too) from the confirmation page open within the registration frame and not the browser page.

Not sure if the old registration form had this, but I didn't find any indication of what constitutes a novice (not that it seems to matter anyway). Also for first time at autocross, is that any autocross or just NCC events?

Other than that, it looks good.

Couple of things for the future:
1) Will confirmation e-mails still go out before the event?
2) Haven't tried this, but how are number clashes going to be handled? Will the form prevent you from registering until an unused number is selected?
3) Someway to unregister outside of the confirmation e-mail. Maybe optionally linking registration to the forum account/handle, similar to driving school registration?

[woodym3]

I see no need for the Novice question since we don't have a novice class at this time.

Did you mean limit numbers to 1 to 40, not 0 to 39? For a while we were limiting heats to 30 cars. That seems to have been eliminated this past year.

[mcoupemindy]

I see no need for the Novice question since we don't have a novice class at this time.

Did you mean limit numbers to 1 to 40, not 0 to 39? For a while we were limiting heats to 30 cars. That seems to have been eliminated this past year.

1-40 or 0-39 ... Both ways give you 40 numbers!

You're right, the novice question can definately be eliminated.

[mcoupemindy]

From what I remember, the link to the home page (and probably the others too) from the confirmation page open within the registration frame and not the browser page.

This has been changed. Can you do another registration to confirm?

Not sure if the old registration form had this, but I didn't find any indication of what constitutes a novice (not that it seems to matter anyway). Also for first time at autocross, is that any autocross or just NCC events?

Both questions don't mean much. I might just delete them both.

Other than that, it looks good.

Couple of things for the future:
1) Will confirmation e-mails still go out before the event?
2) Haven't tried this, but how are number clashes going to be handled? Will the form prevent you from registering until an unused number is selected?
3) Someway to unregister outside of the confirmation e-mail. Maybe optionally linking registration to the forum account/handle, similar to driving school registration?

1) Registration confirmation emails will most definately go out atleast once again before the event. I want to make sure people have the chance to use the cancel registration feature if they won't be attending.

2) Every number is unique to every event. The form will not provide numbers if there are none left.

3) The point to doing the form the way I did it was to keep it simple. To unregister using a page rather than an email would require the creation / using of a username and password. When we make people use passwords, etc., most people will just walk up and register the day of the event rather than helping us by preregistering.

Registration the driving school way wouldn't work. Why? Because I would estimate about 40% of our participants at AutoX do not have a username / password to the website. Gets back to that keep it simple idea. Maybe in the future, when we have too many participants (every heat filled up at every event) we can start being picky who we market our AutoX's to.

Also, with the form, as simple as it is, will let us upload to AXWare with minimal reformatting. I'm sure exporting out of the huge forum database would be terrible and confusing at best.

[AG]

This has been changed. Can you do another registration to confirm?

Fixed

1) Registration confirmation emails will most definately go out atleast once again before the event. I want to make sure people have the chance to use the cancel registration feature if they won't be attending.

Ok. BTW, you might want include the car number as part of the cancel link. If the same e-mail address is used to register multiple drivers (or cars), all registrations for that address get wiped out.

2) Every number is unique to every event. The form will not provide numbers if there are none left.

Didn't realize this until I went and re-registered.

3) The point to doing the form the way I did it was to keep it simple. To unregister using a page rather than an email would require the creation / using of a username and password.

Having a form/page on the website that requires the same info as contained in the link could work too. It would be nice to have an alternative method in case the confirmation e-mail is nuked. My initial concern was more along the lines of "security". If you know someone's e-mail, you can easily unregister them, though the confirmation e-mail that goes out once canceled does seem to address this.

[mcoupemindy]

BTW, you might want include the car number as part of the cancel link. If the same e-mail address is used to register multiple drivers (or cars), all registrations for that address get wiped out.

That's easy to correct. Thanks for the suggestion. It will be done with the next revision.

Having a form/page on the website that requires the same info as contained in the link could work too. It would be nice to have an alternative method in case the confirmation e-mail is nuked. My initial concern was more along the lines of "security". If you know someone's e-mail, you can easily unregister them, though the confirmation e-mail that goes out once canceled does seem to address this.

I could make a web interface, that's not a problem. I just thought that it would be a tad more secure if there was just a link in the email. Because the email should match the person, etc. If there is a greater need for a web interface, I can do it.

Also, when registering, the registration is written to a backup table that is not modified anywhere in the process. If someone's registration accidently gets deleted, I can easily restore it. Redundancy, the key to sanity.

AG, by your comments, it seems as if you are extremely proficient in PHP / MySQL scripting. I have a few other projects up my sleeve - want to help?

[1996 328ti]

AG, by your comments, it seems as if you are extremely proficient in PHP / MySQL scripting. I have a few other projects up my sleeve - want to help?

I hope to have some specs laid out by next week for 'my' project.

[mcoupemindy]

I hope to have some specs laid out by next week for 'my' project.

I wasn't talking about that project yet! Let me know when you know.

[AG]

AG, by your comments, it seems as if you are extremely proficient in PHP / MySQL scripting. I have a few other projects up my sleeve - want to help?

haha, not quite. Never touched the stuff (though I should learn at some point). I'm just a hardware engineer with a knack for breaking stuff.

[AlfaEric]

Woody,

Once I get a final determination on how many we can have in each heat (probably 40) I will limit the numbers (e.g. 100-139).

I'm putting together a list of revisions, and will implement them all at the same time after the initial testing is over.

On the revision list so far is:

An input for car color (... several requests for this ...);
Limiting the number of participants per heat;
Adding class information to the view registration page;
Remove novice question;
Remove first time question;
Add unique identifier to cancellation email (COMPLETED);

Is there anything else that you would like to see?

We usually aimed to limit it to 30 cars per heat but I would increase the number based on the location (and weather forecast - rain increases no-shows). Some locations would allow for courses that could be formatted to run more cars... Of course, we would always adjust the # of runs based on registration and how the course flowed that morning.

The novice question is up to you. I had the intention of bringing back the novice class but never got around to it. It's based upon PAX and I believe the software will automatically generate the results as long as the info is there.

The "first time" question was more for the registrar that anything. I would adjust the registration #'s so we wouldn't have several novices all in a row. Not enough instructors would become an issue plus it sucks to have to reset the course for a ton of cones for a bunch of runs all in a row.

---Eric