# What features do you want in Martial Arts school software?



## Monadnock (Oct 23, 2006)

As a student, what type of information do you want to have access to? Class Times? Scheduling? Private Lessons? Seminars?


As a school owner, what type of things do you want to manage? Tuition? Attendance? Rank? Events calendar?


Be your own martial art software designer and say what you want to see in it. I'm just asking....really....


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## bushidomartialarts (Oct 30, 2006)

i'd like to be able to access student info, send batched emails, track attendance, testing and payment.  also something to help me track new students and potential leads.

as a student, it would be cool if they could check their account status, access event info and announcements, and gee a forum would be spiffy.

on a related note, please avoid Champions Way.  they have software, but their customer support and corporate integrity are terrible.  avoid them like something you should avoid a lot.


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## fnorfurfoot (Oct 30, 2006)

I agree with all of that.  If you find one that does that let me know.  Right now I have various spreadsheets on this computer to track all of that information.  Testing dates and belt sizes, Student enrollment history with phone numbers, Seminar attendance, Birthdays.  I wish that it could all be brought up on one page.


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## Monadnock (Nov 8, 2006)

Thanks for the feedback. Thre were a few things in there I hadn't thought of.


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## tshadowchaser (Nov 8, 2006)

For me i need someone to set up and use the stuff i am comp stupid


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## IRO-Bot (Nov 9, 2006)

Hah.  My instructor just uses Microsoft Outlook...but a program specifically for a martial arts school would be nice.  Especially if it had features for students and instructors.


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## DavidCC (Nov 9, 2006)

After seeing my school's owner work with some dojo mgmt software I have decided to begin development on a web-based school management system.

it would feature a student database of course, with contact options such as emailing; class scheduling; ledger features (fees and payments); and custom document printing (letters and certificates for example)

the best part is it will be web -based, so there will be no software to download, and you can access it from anywhere you have internet, so your data is not trapped inside one PC.

I think a monthly subscription fee under $50 per month should be good.

So what I'm curious about is - what feature would make you absolutely HAVE to have this software?

-David


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## michaeledward (Nov 9, 2006)

IRO-Bot said:


> Hah. My instructor just uses Microsoft Outlook...but a program specifically for a martial arts school would be nice. Especially if it had features for students and instructors.


 
Outlook is an extremely powerful program, that can be modified quite easily to specialize it for any function. It becomes a true powerhouse for small business when combined with an Exchange Server. Both components are available in the Small Business Server - which is pretty cheap, all things considered. 

But, it does require a bit of knowhow. Some basic VB skills go an awful long way.


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## Bigshadow (Nov 9, 2006)

Monadnock said:


> As a student, what type of information do you want to have access to? Class Times? Scheduling? Private Lessons? Seminars?
> 
> 
> As a school owner, what type of things do you want to manage? Tuition? Attendance? Rank? Events calendar?
> ...



Sounds like someone is planning to write some software?


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## Monadnock (Nov 10, 2006)

Bigshadow said:


> Sounds like someone is planning to write some software?


 
Haha, yea. Well DavidCC is on the right track. I was thinking the same thing.

Hopefully talking about web-based apps on MT isn't taboo. I know Bob does some designwork too.

I was thinking it might be a nice feature to have up here on MT. there's been hosted forums, but why not the whole shabang as an option, linked from the individual school websites?

Not all students are web enabled, or savy for that matter, so we shouldn't expect 100% turnout or useablility. Some contact between students and teacher will have to be the "traditional" way. But it is a nice idea.


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## Bigshadow (Nov 10, 2006)

Funny.  When I read your post I began tossing it around in my head. I have servers and I am a software developer both web and PC/Server based.  I use .net platform.  There are so many possibilities that I was thinking that would be a cool project to get going.    I have been wanting to build some web app and host it on one of my servers.  I just haven't come up with a good solution yet.


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## Monadnock (Nov 12, 2006)

Maybe an open source .NET (isn't that kind of oil and water?) project, if only for the fun of it.  I've done ASP.NET stuff too.


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## bydand (Nov 12, 2006)

Not exactly sure what I would want as a school owner, because I don't have a school (yet.)  But, for a program that tracks individuals over a wide course of events and requirements, I am involved with the Scouts and we use a program "Packmaster."  It would be great if you could put together a package like that for the MA's.  It is fully intergrated so if you link several individuals together, when you change _general _information for one, it asks if everybody that is linked should get the change as well (saves a ton of typing.) Just a thought, check out the trial version and it may spark a few ideas.


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## MALibrarian (Nov 23, 2006)

I would love to be able to enter a set of criteria for each student (movements, techniques, etc.) and enter a set of ratings for each (i.e. a pre-definited or used defined set that would inform a drop down list associated with each user entered criteria) and then a hidable notes field along with each.


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## IWishToLearn (Nov 24, 2006)

David - pm me if you're interested. I've been looking for someone with programming know-how that would be willing to take on this very type of project. I have a laundry list of things it would need to be able to do however ... might be easier to do via PM or phone. Let me know if you're interested. For that matter - anyone else who reads this and might be interested, let me know too.


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## IWishToLearn (Jan 29, 2007)

Did we get any update on this project?


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## DavidCC (Jan 30, 2007)

Well, we hoped to have our current effort done by now, but it looks like it will go until late Feb.  Then we hope to start on the studio management system... so maybe by summer we might have something.

See, the current project we are getting paid $75/hr to build, the dojo mgmt will be our own investment... so the one with money comes first!


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## IWishToLearn (Jan 31, 2007)

LOL I'm with you on that one brotha!


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## bignick (Jan 31, 2007)

If you do this, you should think about setting up a Google Code or sourceforge project.  That way other martial talkers with development experience could help out if they want.  I'd probably help contribute.  

Web-based software?  Thin-client? Thick-client?  What were you guys thinking?  What platform?


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## DavidCC (Feb 1, 2007)

Well, if you mean me...

We are focusing right now on ASP.NET 2, although 2/3 of us have "day jobs" doing J2EE on JBoss.

I really appreciate and love the idea of many contributors... I've tried that kind of thing as early as 1990.  And for the most part, the lesson I learned is "you get what you pay for".  If I'm not paying Joe Coder, I have no leverage over him to force him to a deadline ROFL

If I need skilled resources I prefer to pay for them, especially on a project that might actually generate income... keeps things more simple.

So get your resume polished up and I'l look you up this spring


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## Bigshadow (Feb 1, 2007)

DavidCC said:


> Well, if you mean me...
> 
> We are focusing right now on ASP.NET 2, although 2/3 of us have "day jobs" doing J2EE on JBoss.
> 
> ...



How about some competition?


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## bignick (Feb 1, 2007)

DavidCC said:


> Well, if you mean me...
> 
> We are focusing right now on ASP.NET 2, although 2/3 of us have "day jobs" doing J2EE on JBoss.
> 
> ...



Ah, I see, this will be a commercial venture.  i was getting confused since there seems to be about 3 different camps pursuing an idea like this.  Good luck, unfortuneately, as a consultant my employment contract has some no compete clauses in it for working on other commercial projects.  However, there's nothing stopping me contributing to an open source project.  Best of luck to you, and I hope you can get some return on your investment.  

Not to steal your prospective clients, but I think I may write something for my organization and use it as a tool to learn the whole Ruby on Rails framework.  Don't worry, we wouldn't have the money to buy a product anyways...:ultracool


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## DavidCC (Feb 2, 2007)

bignick said:


> Ah, I see, this will be a commercial venture. i was getting confused since there seems to be about 3 different camps pursuing an idea like this. Good luck, unfortuneately, as a consultant my employment contract has some no compete clauses in it for working on other commercial projects. However, there's nothing stopping me contributing to an open source project. Best of luck to you, and I hope you can get some return on your investment.
> 
> Not to steal your prospective clients, but I think I may write something for my organization and use it as a tool to learn the whole Ruby on Rails framework. Don't worry, we wouldn't have the money to buy a product anyways...:ultracool


 
Out goal is not a product for sale, but a service you can use... it will act and look like your own school management system but it will be completely web-based and hosted on our servers... so instead of paying a big purhcase price up front a school owner could pay a small amount each month...

When I was young and had nobody depending on me I could afford non-commercial ventures... but by the end of this year I will be supporting 3 brains in college, so any hour I can get paid for is a good one.


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## DavidCC (Feb 2, 2007)

Bigshadow said:


> How about some competition?


 
Well, you can do that, or you could work for me...  we'll see once www.screeningweb.com goes live, and we can check the weather at that time


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## Senjojutsu (Feb 2, 2007)

So its been about five years since I was helping my Sensei with purchasing this type of software.

May I ask any SME online what/who are the major players today in this area?

BTW, again over five years ago, we purchased a nice little program called Pastors Helpmate 2000.

It's amazing how the organizational needs of churches and MA schools are intertwined.

Praise the Lord and hit the makiwara!


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## Master Ken (Sep 20, 2007)

Me personally I use DojoMba V4, it has a lot of neat stuff in it, bulk email, updates all the sudents note files when you email them, insert seminars. grading etc, I converted the Gup certificates so the software now prints them out after a grading.

it also has a good POS system.

The only downside of it was that it was American based so after a but of 'tweaking' it is now UK based.

regards,

Master Ken


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