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alex_kac · Mar 13, 2010, 11:45 PM

We have a martial-arts dojo that currently uses index-cards to record student attendance, rankings, monthly payments, and such. I'd obviously like to move that to something a bit more modern. Specifically I'd like to have an iPhone/iPad app that can handle this and my thoughts went to Bento as a possibility. Numbers is also quite capable for this since we will have an iPad as well.

But with a more than full-time career, martial-arts side-job, paintball, and photography as hobbies I don't have the time to custom build a solution myself. Tweak yes. Build no.

I'm not looking for specially designed dojo software as frankly most of the time that's much more than I need.

So my thoughts on what I need:

1) Track student's attendance
2) Count their attendance for purposes of belt stripes (we need to know their progress and how far into their belt they are at both in ability and attendance...i.e. if they are a white belt and have come 12 times, they should be ready to test for the next belt. If not, they keep working at it, but at least we have a rough estimate where they should be.
3) Money owed - dues payed
4) Current belt level
5) Any other misc checkboxes for that person.

Seems REALLY simple to me and I could probably build it in a few hours, but as I'm sure others have done this, I'm looking for experiences. Is Bento on the iPhone really any good? Anything better? Anything else that's just perfect?

mduell · Mar 14, 2010, 03:15 PM

A database is a much better idea than a spreadsheet.

alex_kac · Mar 14, 2010, 03:58 PM

Sigh...look, I've been working with databases since 1992. Oracle, SQL Server, MySQL, SQLite, and FileMaker before that. I know what's "best". But here is the deal - a database is also a lot heavier. I have 40 people I have to index here. That's pretty light and as such something like a Numbers spreadsheet is totally doable. No its not technically ideal, but I'm a practical person.

Heck, I could simply write a CoreData based iPhone app for this. I mean ideally that would give me exactly what I'm looking for. But as my time is worth $300+ an hour, its really not worth my time to do that.

So while I'm appreciative that you took the time to respond, frankly it wasn't helpful at all. I have Googled this for a few days here and there and haven't been all that successful in finding anything predone. I was hoping that I missed something and perhaps someone else has done the same thing and and pointed me to a few links.

Of course if nobody has anything, I'll probably just do it in Bento as that'll be the simplest thing option at that point.

besson3c · Mar 14, 2010, 04:27 PM

How many people are going to be in charge of data entry? Just you?

alex_kac · Mar 14, 2010, 04:55 PM

At the moment someone else will. I will take it over in a couple months.

besson3c · Mar 14, 2010, 05:05 PM

Okay, I was just wondering if there would be a constant need to keep data in sync between multiple devices/computers....

alex_kac · Mar 14, 2010, 05:20 PM

Yeah, that's not a concern here though Bento 3 does have sharing, though I have no idea how well it works.

I'd actually look at a web app if that was necessary, but in this location there is poor or non-existant internet.

davidwayne · Mar 18, 2010, 10:02 PM

If attendance is the major concern, there is already an excellent app: "Attendance" (duh) (not "Attendance IQ"). I know from personal communication that the developer is anticipating developing an expanded version for the iPad. While primarily an attendance app, you might be able to store the other info in various entry boxes. E.g., each student as a note entry box that you might be able to store the other info you mention.

I also know the developer hopes to add grading abilities--but I don't know how far along those plans are. Such a form might be adaptable to your purpose.

This app is highly recommended. It has changed my life as a teacher.

alex_kac · Mar 18, 2010, 10:07 PM

I think I checked that and while it is OK, unfortunately we have to see the other info too as it pertains to the attendance.

So I've been playing with Bento, the major problem there is that you cannot edit related fields. This kills any real usage of Bento on the iPhone for me in anything but the simplest usage scenarios.

THe funny thing is actually doing this in a Google Docs Spreadsheet is at the moment the most usable form as it works on the iPhone, desktop, iPad, etc... and I can put each student on one line, a separate sheet with attendance and just go down the line tapping a box that inserts a row into the attendance sheet. A poor man's database. And free.