Wish list: YS Integration, Crew Finder

[dancorcoran]

I noticed Yacht Scoring has finally moved up to a new platform. Perhaps there could be some integration with the crew-finding feature, either (i) YS offers an API or (ii) There is a url we can drop into the comment field on YS for crew finding, the potential crew member is brought to some kind of Crew Manager Capability to get information on the event and apply to be crew, the software realizes if they are already on the crew roster or not, the skipper receives the notification and can optionally reply no thank you message customized by the skipper perhaps directing them to another skipper, no thank you and add to roster, a maybe and add to roster and add to the event as maybe, and a Yes, add to the roster and add to the event as yes. When adding to roster, give the skipper the ability to choose a user name.

The prospect crew is asked things like:
- email, phone number, phone service provider, first, last name, comment about their skills, comment about their desire to sail in that specific event, do they know someone on the crew, if they are ready to be accepted as crew or if they have questions that need to be answered first.

Perhaps the URL could be used for crew recruiting purposes outside YS.

[admin]

Dan,

I need to understand better what you are trying to describe as I do not understand it. If you could put a step by step work flow, it would help me to better understand what you are trying to do.

Yachtscoring is going through some major pains on their new software rollout right now and is not interested in hearing about new feature requests until they get some basic stuff working (like accepting money for regatta registration!).

[admin]

Dan and I have traded emails and spoken about this request. Since the effort to code this is significant, we discussed an incremental approach to check out the concept and see if sailors would use the "Crew Finder" capability. If the incremental approach proves effective, the Crew Manager software will be updated. If it proves to be marginally useful, the SW will not be updated but the interim approach will remain available to use.

The following will be done for interim approach to test the feasibility:

1. Dan will create a shared Google sheet and associated entry form so that Crew looking for a boat may enter information that would allow the Skipper to evaluate the Crew Member. This form would include fields that could be exported to a CSV file so that if desired the Skipper could add the person to the boat's crew via CSV file upload similar to this procedure described in the Skipper Manual.

2. The Google sheet/form will be added a custom page that any Skipper may setup as described in the Skipper Manual Adding Custom Menu Item.

3. The link to this page on the boat's site with any introductory paragraph may be posted on the "Looking for Crew" pages available on the various Regatta Management sites (Yachtscoring, Regatta Network, etc.).

Once Dan has the Google sheet/form available, a status update will be provided here and we'll start collecting data.