SwimAdmin is provided on a subscription basis. It is not ‘purchased’, in the traditional sense that you buy software and install it on your own computer. The software itself runs on our servers, and you access it through a web browser (it is therefore a ‘web application’, or ‘web app’). The purchase of a subscription does not grant you any ownership rights in the software; it instead grants you a limited-period licence to use the SwimAdmin service and servers.
The web app subscription model has a number of major advantages over traditional software purchases. It allows any club member to use the service from their own phone, tablet, or computer, for example; you do not have to purchase a computer simply to run the software. The software does not have to be installed, and there is no requirement to download and install updates and bug fixes. The service is always up-to-date, and we back up your databases on the server when necessary.
In most circumstances, you will find it convenient to purchase annual licences. However, there is no minimum licence period. If you are evaluating the service, for example, you could specify a licence period of one or two months, subject to a minimum order value of £50.00. If you decide to carry on with the service, you can simply extend the licence period, or create a new licence if it has already expired. In either case, you can re-use the database that you have already created.
When placing an order, you will need to specify a licence start and end date, and the number of members to be licensed. Subscription is charged at £4.50 per active member, per year. There is no requirement to licence all your club members; you can include only as many as are required. Only current club members are relevant. You can leave swimmers who are no longer members in the database, to keep a record of their times, and to allow you to resume their membership if they return to the club. You can also temporarily set members to ‘inactive’. Inactive members cannot enter galas, and are not included in email or SMS lists, and so on. Inactive members, and club officials, do not count towards the licensing total.
The addition of new members will be disabled if the total number of active members exceeds 105% of your selected quantity. No other functionality is affected. If you gain a significant number of members, you can adjust your subscription to account for the new members.
Please note that there are a lot of browsers out there, and we cannot support all of them. Some are more standards-compliant than others, and some require a great deal of support work. In practice, this means that we have limited support for Microsoft’s Internet Explorer (MSIE). Club members who are accessing the normal user-level pages should use a relatively recent version (at least MSIE8, which is the latest version that can be used on Windows XP). Internet Explorer is not supported for administrator use. The SwimAdmin administrator(s) in your club should instead install a free, standards-compliant browser (Google Chrome, Mozilla Firefox, Opera, or Apple Safari).
To place an order, you will need to register your club. You cannot use a username which you have created for the forums; the forums require a user-level registration, while subscription requires a club registration. During the registration process, you will be asked to confirm that you are authorised to register on behalf of your club.