I'm the online admin for 3 junior competitive teams and I just spent 4 hours entering events in Zuluru. 126 events in total (Practices, meetings, tournaments). Event management is critical to competitive teams so it is highly appreciated. But the feature in Zuluru needs some improvements. I'll break it up into specific requests so that they can be handled separately.
The event entry screen is usable but error prone. Here are few recommended improvements:
- Time entry defaults to the current time but events always start at :00, :15, :30. Change the selection to only allow those options.
- The end time should not be allowed to be before start. It would be able to set duration and/or end time...but I understand that you are not building a calendar app. Consider what you could do here.
- Location should use stored locations (see my other feature request)
Event Entry
Re: Event Entry
Thanks for the suggestions! I'm only going to respond to this one at the moment, as I have specific comments on it right now. These are all good suggestions, some are pretty easy (the clone event option), some not so easy (adding location management). I think I'll likely add them all to the todo list, but it's already a pretty long list, so no promises about when they get completed! I will be sure to come back and post any updates here when I have anything to add.
For this one in particular, you might only have events that start on the quarter hour, but others might well have more granular requirements. Maybe giving every 5 minutes would be a good compromise?
Also, having an end time before the start time could be taken to mean that it ends after midnight, for example a party that runs from 9pm to 1am, or an all-nighter tournament. In these cases, allowing the end time to be before the start time can be handy, without adding in additional fields for end date which are going to need to be set the same as start date 99% of the time.
For this one in particular, you might only have events that start on the quarter hour, but others might well have more granular requirements. Maybe giving every 5 minutes would be a good compromise?
Also, having an end time before the start time could be taken to mean that it ends after midnight, for example a party that runs from 9pm to 1am, or an all-nighter tournament. In these cases, allowing the end time to be before the start time can be handy, without adding in additional fields for end date which are going to need to be set the same as start date 99% of the time.
Re: Event Entry
Yep, it all sounds reasonable. The whole idea is to make it easier to enter times. The goal should be to minimize the number of mouse clicks and to reduce errors. Google calendar is a good example where a time is a single field which can be selected with a mouse with 30 minute intervals or a specific time can be typed in. That's a good compromise to make it simple and yet provide the option for more fine grained control.