You should still be able to process trans- actions on that card in the future but you do not hold that actual card details. It would be very risky to simply collect cred- it card details on your website without the use of a payment gateway.
• Medical Form: It has become more com- mon to have parents complete a camp’s health form online. Many camps will com- bine it into their registration process while others will have parents return closer to camp and complete it separately. An important note here is that you should check with your local hospital to see if they will accept an “online signature” for the “permission to treat” section of your med- ical form. You may need to separate this portion and obtain a physical signature.
• Other Forms: There are many forms to consider moving online: transportation, activity preferences, camper information, tuck shop deposit, trips, etc. You may want to consider combining some into a single process for the parents and it usual- ly makes sense to have these separate from the registration form so parents return at a later date to complete then.
The push to provide more convenience
to parents, along with a desire to reduce office administration, has driven an ever expanding list of things that camps are moving online
• Parent Accounts: The use of parent accounts is key. It allows them to save their work before submitting, reuse their information from prior years to save data entry, combine siblings into one registra- tion process and make future payments. It probably goes without saying that security is a critical element — but we’ll say it anyway! Collecting data online
carries an additional risk and your online registration solution needs to meet the highest standards in this regard. E-mailing results from your web site is not secure.
If you are collecting all of this informa- tion online, you will want it to integrate with your management system/database so that you do not have to re-type every- thing. It is also likely that you will want a rich reporting engine so that you can quickly run the reports you want — there is not much point in collecting all of this great data unless you can quickly and eas- ily turn it into meaningful information (e.g., bus rosters, cabin reports, camper labels, financial summaries).
In the end, you do not have to stop with the camper registration process. Most camps have a large number of staff applying each year and it makes sense to collect that application online too. You know your younger applicants are certainly online and they will appre- ciate the service.
CC Rob Carmichael is with CampBrain
(
www.campbrain.com), a Toronto-based developer of camp management software.
www.canadacampsmag.com
Fall 2010 Canada Camps 17
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