CAROL: Court Administration & Reservation On Line

On-line Reservation Software for Sports and Education Facilities

General Presentation

• Components
• IT platform
• Functionality

Components

CAROL comprises two main components, with all access exclusively via the Internet:

Reservation Module

The interface for both the kiosk (club terminal) and external Internet booking is identical. The deployment of a kiosk requires a permanent Internet connection from within the club (either a standalone Internet server or via a third party Internet provider). The kiosk itself is available from within the sports centre to both employees who look after reservations and members (via an identification key, which may be the barcode on their membership card).

Administration Module

This module allows central database configuration and management (court definition, time slices, takers/members and their types, reservation rights and permissions, etc.). A wizard allows the administrator to define the pre-reservation grid and to set up regular/recurring reservations (e.g. junior training every Wednesday from 2pm to 6pm).

IT Platform

Components

Both the Reservation and Administrative Modules use Java Servlet technology and JDO (Java Data Objects) to access the central database. The access is via an Internet browser.

Central Database

RDBMS used is PostgreSql

Functionality

One of the core CAROL concepts is the timeslice. This has a date, a starting time and a duration. It is also linked to a court/facility. Once it is attached to one or more takers, it becomes a reservation. (N.B. We deliberately use the generic term "taker", rather than "player" or "member" because special bookings can be made for maintenance, tournaments etc., where there is no player or member.

When a taker wishes to reserve a court (timeslice), the following two possibilities exist:

1. A predefined timeslice exists for the desired reservation period; in this case we use the term "Advanced Booking" which can be made for the future which eventually requires confirmation before use.
2. There is no predefined timeslice for the desired reservation period; in this case the reservation can only be made for the current day and Carol will automatically allocate the first available time for the court/facility, filling up gaps (unoccupied periods for the court/facility). This typically corresponds to the club formula, where the reservation is only possible only for the next available booking period.

Of course, the period of time during which an advanced booking is possible depends upon the day, time, court and taker type. These are all part of the CAROL configuration, which is set-up by the CAROL administrator via the Administration Module.

The Administration Module, which is not available to takers, allows an Administrator to define the following (this is not a full list of functions):

• permitted booking periods for advanced bookings
• periods for maintenance, tournaments etc. (individual or recurrent)
• taker types and their permissions, e.g. how many advanced bookings are allowed and how many days in advance they may be made
• takers and their associated data, e.g. password
• rules that restrict or extend the taker rights and their assignment to particular dates and courts/facilities

Formation

On request, UBIK SA provides training that will enable you to optimize your work.

The most common formula for training is the half-day package.