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In the winter of 2009/2010, I found myself wondering how many hours were put intoeach task on the golf course. After meeting with the owner and understanding that laborbudgets needed to be tightened down, I didn't really have any data points to draw from.Where could we cut without having a negative impact on the golf course? Even thoughthis question could be answered after analyzing the daily activities, it would be mucheasier if I had data. So, I decided to design a simple form that each hourly staffmember could fill out each week.
The staff had their own mailboxes where they kept these sheets, and at the end of eachweek, I would collect all of the sheets and spend approximately an hour inputting all ofthe data into a "master" sheet in Excel. Though this was a grueling effort, it reallyhelped me figure out the labor input on our 36-hole facility. It also helped me be able tomake a pretty accurate projection for my labor budget because I was able to record theexact hours worked by individual employees.
 
Now some may be wondering why I just didn't go out and purchase Trims or a similarsoftware. At the time, I felt as though it was too much of a program than I actuallyneeded. And, just like any software, it requires manual input. So, I decided to get craftywith many excel spreadsheets. After doing it this way for two seasons, manual inputand upkeep got tiresome. I was starting to lean toward looking at software again, butdidn't want the input and certainly knew Icouldn't pass valuable data like this off tosomeone else to input. So, in December,I went to my equipment manager whooriginally went to school for computerscience and asked him to help me build adatabase. Again, we had to do this ascheap as possible, but we wanted a waythat would eliminate manual data input,and would still create the sameinformation that I had been able to gatherin 2010 and 2011. He turned toOpenOffice.org and created a very usefuldatabase for free.
 
Although this database looks nice on the computer screen, it is very stressful, asOpenOffice.org is not a very stable program. Every time we tried to run a backup, thedatabase file would crash and erase most of the input from the previous few days.
Last week, I began searching for database software so we could add some stability andaccessibility to the data. Accessing thedata from other devices was a littleclunky as we needed to utilize theLogMeIn client to access the screen anddata. The software proved to be veryexpensive and way more than I needed.After talking with my mother-in-law, whois a computer lab teacher, she suggestedI try Google Forms. I could not be moreimpressed with the ease, cleanliness,data entry, and stability it offers. It alsoallows for the data to be accessed fromthe iPhone, iPad, and generallyanywhere because its not sitting on thedesktop of a computer, but in the cloud.Each step to creating your own form isvery easy and it even offers a variety oftemplates to choose from.
Instead of filling out the oldschool paper and having me goback to record each entry, mystaff will end their day by fillingout this simple form on the
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