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Asphalt Green's data handling now takes just 10 hours instead of two months
Impact
87%
reduction in data handling time
15 hours
saved for every program setup
Hundreds
of programs managed in catalog seasonally
Organization:
Community & Recreation Center
Community:
2 campuses
Individuals Served:
3,000
OVERVIEW
A nonprofit with a mission to make sports programming accessible to everyone
Community organizations, whether large or small, play a vital role in their neighborhoods. One such organization is Asphalt Green, a nonprofit organization that provides high-quality sports, swim, and fitness programs to New Yorkers of all ages, backgrounds, and abilities. Across two their two Manhattan-based campuses, Asphalt Green offers a comprehensive range of services, recreational sports leagues, and instructional classes throughout the year that cater to individuals of all skill levels.
As part of their mission to expand access to the transformative impacts of healthy living, Asphalt Green offers free and low-cost community programs, including Waterproofing, which has taught over 35,000 students to swim since 1994—wow! They also offer free swim classes for students, free sports leagues for middle schoolers, and free fitness classes for seniors. By providing countless services and scholarships to those who need them, this organization truly distinguishes itself apart as more than just a sports and fitness provider.
When they have so much important work to do, it makes sense that they want their behind the scenes operations to be as seamless as possible.
Salesforce and Traction Rec gave us the capacity to expand our mission and better serve our community. Our staff has more time to focus on key initiatives, rather than spent on manual, administrative tasks.
Stefan Serkin
Senior Salesforce Administrator
challenge
Managing a complex programming schedule, season after season, year after year
Asphalt Green provides a diverse selection of comprehensive programs, sports leagues, and instructional classes to a broad audience - from beginners to elite athletes. While accessing information about upcoming schedules, fees, or completing an online registration is simple for community members visiting the website, it involves a complex administrative process behind the scenes.
Managing such a wide range of programs can be a huge undertaking, season after season, year after year. Stefan Serkin, Senior Salesforce Administrator at Asphalt Green, highlights the overwhelming nature of this responsibility. Each program encompasses a myriad of data types that have to be considered — from basic course session details to complex variables like price levels, billing schedules, and custom questions. "This complexity generates a tangled web of data that is challenging to manage."
Managing tens of thousands of records each sales season is a challenging amount of data management for any individual or team to handle. Every year, and every season, building programs had to be done from scratch. It became clear that the old manual processes were not only time-consuming and error-prone, but also diverted attention from other critical areas of the organization that needed more support and strategic growth.
Solution
Program Builder: More flexibility and speed than ever before
The days when database managers and developers are solely responsible for handling back-end system operations are long gone. One of the key benefits of Traction Rec being developed on the Salesforce platform is its user-friendly interface, allowing even the least tech-savvy users to manage program data efficiently.
With the introduction of the Program Builder functionality, the Asphalt Green team can now oversee the backend with greater ease, and launch their catalog of programs exceptionally faster. Designed for simplicity, the system guides users through a step-by-step process to create a program with just a few clicks of a button. Here’s how it works:
- Quick and simple program creation: Just click “Builder” from a program record in Salesforce, and an individual is guided through each step of creating or duplicating programs.
- Empowers program staff: Program staff can have access to easily build and manage programs on their own.
- 1-click automated approval: Programs are automatically sent to IT/Admin for approval with a single click before launch.
Programs are either created new or duplicated for use the following year. To optimize the data management of Program Builder, the Asphalt Green data team implemented some key steps.
- Bulk data migration: Utilizing Salesforce’s Bulk API, data was transferred from Excel spreadsheets (which had been used as a holding place for this data) into the current system. This critical step involved multiple levels of review, validation, and approvals to ensure accuracy before the data was transferred into the CRM.
- Program cloning: The team utilized a cloning tool to replicate their programs for the upcoming year, ensuring consistency by adjusting all classes back by 364 days to align with the current year's schedule.
The Program Builder simplifies the process for authorized users at Asphalt Green to update any of their numerous programs. These features allow users with the right permissions to make changes to program details, greatly alleviating the technical workload on IT staff.
Being on the Salesforce platform means we can bypass investing time and money into the core functionalities of our business. Traction Rec provides these essential functions, allowing us to concentrate on intricate enhancements and extensions.
Stefan Serkin
Senior Salesforce Administrator
REsults
Time saved on data management for sports programs
Asphalt Green has achieved “enormous savings” in time for its data team. What once required two months of data-intensive work has been condensed to about 10 hours, equivalent to a single week’s work. This kind of efficiency is something they would never have achieved with their legacy parks and recreation software.
Stefan explains, “Being on the Salesforce platform means we can bypass investing time and money into the core functionalities of our business. Traction Rec provides these essential functions, allowing us to concentrate on intricate enhancements and extensions.”
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Flexible system controls enable staff to address challenges and improve daily tasks
- The old system was outdated and had rigid access controls that restricted individuals from updating program data. This placed a significant burden on IT and administrative staff and limited the participation of program experts. Now, that burden has been significantly alleviated for IT and admin teams.
- By using Traction Rec’s features, the team can easily segment controls at a detailed level, allowing program staff to create programs that match their expertise. With just one click, they can send an automated approval to IT/Admin before launching. This approach both taps into the skills of the programming staff, and also helps to increase overall productivity.
Reducing bottlenecks for efficient program management and team collaboration
- With a flexible approach to program configuration, managing and organizing bulk data has become easier and more adaptable, tailored to meet specific program requirements.
- By using a cloning tool for seasonal program catalogs, the team can set up a new program season with just three clicks, making it easy to transfer hundreds of programs and thousands of bookings effortlessly.
The team has greatly cut down on administrative time by easily accessing past program configurations, so there's no need to start from scratch each season. Automated workflows streamline the setup of programs across departments by simplifying data reviews, reducing manual updates, and ensuring timely program launches.
Empowering future growth
Looking forward, Stefan is focused on fostering greater collaboration between department and program teams, with technical responsibilities distributed among section heads. These individuals, having the deepest understanding of their programs, will undoubtedly be able to utilize their insights to generate new ideas for supporting their membership through the organization’s Salesforce system.
In the meantime, with the time saved thus far, it looks as though they already have more capacity to continue with the great work they’ve been doing. And we couldn’t be happier to support them along the way.
Hands up, if you’re interested in learning more about how we can support your community recreation center operations. Give us a shout to connect with us.
Photo sources: asphaltgreen.org
