Active Sports Group

Following a successful collaboration that included the development of several brochure websites and a rebranding exercise, the Active Sports Group (Active) appointed CSI Media to develop a new bespoke software solution, ‘Sport Software’.

The original plan was to develop a solution that facilitated the planning and management of Active’s own events, and for affiliated schools to manage their sports classes via the solution. However, as we progressed through development, Active realised the potential of the software and how it could aid in fulfilling a markedly more ambitious business proposition: - building a UK-wide network of sports coaching providers that operate under the Active brand as franchisees.

Therefore, the new system needed to support the requirements of several unique stakeholders including Active’s management team, the parents & guardians of children who partake in Active events and lessons, schools, and Active franchisees.

We assigned a designated team who worked closely with key personnel at Active to understand their specific business requirements and, given the scope of the project, carefully planned the architectural and implementation approach. Our team proposed a solution comprising of an online portal, a back-office system, and integrated booking functionality.

The portal is at the heart of the solution and is where key stakeholders perform fundamental tasks. Featuring a colourful UI, the design is instantly recognisable and reflects the energy of the Active brand.

Franchisees play a critical role in the development of the Active brand by providing sporting opportunities for children across the UK. Once they have been approved by Active and made payment via the system, the franchisee will be granted access to the portal where they can add and manage their sports organisations & clubs, create events - paid or free, taster sessions, and single/recurring events - and assemble groups or ‘teams’ of children. Moreover, their tutors and coaches can build custom lesson plans via a flexible content editor tool where they set the lesson’s objectives, activities, success criteria, and equipment, and assign participants to lessons (either individually or teams). Alternatively, coaches can select pre-created lessons set up by Active Sports Group.

Tutors can also print a register of participants, and submit feedback on each child’s performance following each lesson. The same functionality is available for schools also, to help support the planning and management of curriculum-time PE, after-school clubs, and experience days.

Overall, the portal provides a professional, seamless solution for franchisees, their coaches and tutors to effectively plan and deliver sports events and lessons.

Parents and guardians also perform several tasks via the portal; they can book events for their child and make the associated booking payment, give consent for their children to participate in events, view all upcoming events, lessons, training sessions and games, and track their child’s progress via performance reports for each lesson.

The portal also incorporates a messaging service where tutors and guardians can directly communicate with one another; this allows either party to raise any queries, questions, or concerns.

The front-end B2C website focuses on event discovery and booking functionality through a multi-step process.

Active comprises of a family of brands - Active Totz, Active Soccer, Active Sport - and we developed a search widget that has been added to each of the corresponding websites, allowing users to find nearby sports clubs, events and activities. When a user conducts a search, they are directed to the Sport Software website where they can choose a sporting event, for example, a football camp, view further information about the event, and book. Event landing pages provide detailed information of the event including cost, recurrence, and location displayed on a map via Google Maps integration. Users can book single/multiple places per event and can book onto a series of events that consist of multiple sessions.

The final area of the system is the back-office admin, a gated area where Active perform key managerial and administrative functions. Active’s management team can add new franchisees, manage site settings and credentials, and create global lesson plans that can be used and adapted by sports organisations.

The solution is built with the latest technology and approaches: -

• Domain-Driven Design
• Functional Concern Driven
• .NET Framework
• ES6 JavaScript
• HTML 5
• SASS & CSS 3
• Gulp
• AJAX
• JSON
• Umbraco & Umbraco Forms
• Fluent Migrator
• MS SQL Server
• Continuous Integration
• Stripe Integration