You are on page 1of 18

Running head: PROPOSAL FOR A SOCCER LEAGUE APPLICATION 1

Capstone Project Proposal: Soccer League Tracking Application for Android/IOS/Web

Client:

South County Soccer League

Course:

CST 499: Computer Science Capstone

California State University, Monterey Bay

Team Members:

William Barajas

Mercedes Garcia

Thomas Krause

Eric Ybarra

August 25, 2019


PROPOSAL FOR A SOCCER LEAGUE APPLICATION 2

Executive Summary
Managing a sports league of any kind is a time-consuming task. In soccer, managers are

responsible for scheduling games, finding volunteer referees, and keeping track of scores. In

addition, managers are responsible for seeding playoff games accordingly and ensuring all teams

know their standings. Keeping referees and teams posted can be difficult when doing things by

paper or posting things through social media since not everyone is easy to contact or available at

specific times. Adding to that, not everyone uses social media. Parents and spectators who miss

any games, currently have no means of receiving a recap of the best plays of the game or what

the final score was at a moment’s notice. However, much of these tasks can be automated in this

day and age.

For this project, our main goal is to create a mobile application alongside a website that is

capable of providing users of this service the ability to track team statistics. There will be no

issues whether the end user has a smartphone that is either an Android or is an IOS device to the

extent that they will have access to an alternative. The website will have all of the applications

features and will be available via any computer or phone with internet access. Additionally,

league admins will be able to manage their own league by having access to different tools such

as being able to start multiple leagues, removing and adding teams, and assigning different roles.

The time frame for completing the project will span over an eight-week period beginning

on August 28 and ending October 18.

The population that will be affected by this project will include league administrators,

coaches, players and any soccer interested in their local soccer league. The client that will help in

testing the application and website will be South County Soccer League. South County Soccer
PROPOSAL FOR A SOCCER LEAGUE APPLICATION 3

League is a privately held organization dedicated to providing recreation for local boys, girls,

and adults.

The purpose of this project is to provide a means of simplicity and reliability in order to

have everyone involved in the organization as well as soccer enthusiasts solely focused in the

sport.
PROPOSAL FOR A SOCCER LEAGUE APPLICATION 4

Table of Contents

Executive Summary 2

Introduction 5

Project Goals and Objectives 5

Environmental Scan/Literature Review 6

Stakeholders and Community 8

Approach/Methodology 9

Ethical Considerations 9

Legal Considerations 10

Project Scope 11

Final Deliverables 13

Usability Testing/Evaluation 14

Team Members and Responsibilities 16

References 17

Appendix 18
PROPOSAL FOR A SOCCER LEAGUE APPLICATION 5

Introduction

South County Soccer League is one of many soccer leagues that have a problem. Being

able to track various items at once can be overwhelming. Managers are responsible for

scheduling games, finding volunteer referees, and keeping track of scores. Keeping referees,

managers, teams and players up to date can be a difficult task when it comes to doing things by

paper which in turn can become a time-consuming assignment relatively quick. Our solution for

our client, South County Soccer League, is to create a mobile application alongside a website

that makes it easier to keep track of teams, games and players. Not only will this product benefit

managers, referees, and players but soccer enthusiasts who would like to follow their favorite

local soccer team’s performance. Some of our team members have been part of a local soccer

team and have experience firsthand how difficult it can be when everything is done on paper or

over social media. Not all soccer players, staff, coaches have social media which causes a

problem to solely use the traditional method of pencil and paper. This led our team to come to

the conclusion that this is a problem that needs a solution which we can provide. This project is

sponsored by South County Soccer League but it can be used by any soccer league regardless of

their location.

Project Goals and Objectives

I. Provide an app and website based on the same code base and API where leagues can keep

track of divisions, teams, games, and players.

A. REST API for the app built with Rails

B. NativeScript framework for Android / IOS for web deployment


PROPOSAL FOR A SOCCER LEAGUE APPLICATION 6

II. Allow users to register and follow teams, create their own leagues and teams, assign

players to teams, and assign addition league admins.

A. Develop database schema and backend for mobile app

III. Provide ability to track teams in a league and their scores, games played, games in

progress, missed, won, lost, and tied. Team placement should be viewable in the App and

online.

IV. Provide ability to create divisions in each league and for referees to track all game events

such as yellow cards, red cards, score and by which player, halftime, substitutes, game

duration and start time.

V. League admin should be able to assign roles for different users and invite them to the

teams.

Environmental Scan/Literature Review

Community sport leagues often struggle with keeping track of their schedules for practice

and games, in a manner in which all players can access it from one location with ease. These

leagues must also keep track of wins and losses as well as other statistics. Often, this information

is still being tracked by the manager of the league and schedules are being handout to players in

paper form. This can create a problem when schedule changes occur. Not being able to have one

location, either website or mobile app, where players and managers can easily access to find their

schedules and games stats, makes it difficult when there are inevitable changes to schedules or

game updates. For community leagues, there are few options to help with this issue of

scorekeeping and scheduling. Currently, there are very few mobile applications that offer

services to assist community sports leagues with their needs. One mobile application that offers
PROPOSAL FOR A SOCCER LEAGUE APPLICATION 7

such services to sports leagues is LeagueApps, where users register on their website and pay to

have access to the mobile app. Users can choose the sport they want and are able to customize

features. From their website, LeagueApp describe themselves as “The LeagueApp platform sets

you up for success by tackling time-consuming tasks, which allows you to get back to what you

love” (About us, 2018). If a user is interested in purchasing this service, the user must register for

a demo and select pricing. The actual features and services are not clear on their website, until

the user has registered and received a quote. This may deter a lot of potential users given the lack

of clarity from LeagueApp’s website. Because users have to register before being able to see

what LeagueApp’s features and services are, they have to wait until LeagueApp contacts them

via email to get a demo of their mobile app and later receive a pricing quote. For most

community leagues, this seems like a lot of unnecessary work just to have access to scorekeeping

and scheduling services. There are a few mobile apps that offer basic scorekeeping functions

such as Scoreboard-On the Go, Score-Keeper, and Broad ScoreKeeper. These apps do not have

other features other simple scorekeeping which is not ideal for community leagues given that it

lacks scheduling and game stat information. Example of current scorekeeping applications

offering more features are GameChanger Baseball Softball and Scoreboard. These apps are user

friendly and do not require prior registration for users to see what they offer. However, these

apps lack features for scheduling and other services that community sports leagues need to

facilitate their tasks and keep track of updates on games stats and ever-changing scheduling.

Although there are mobile apps that track team scores, there are few that offer more services that

are useful to community leagues. Of the few mobile apps that exist in the market, like

LeagueApp, make it difficult for potential users to learn about their services and features without

having to first register and hear back from them via email. There seems to be a place for a useful
PROPOSAL FOR A SOCCER LEAGUE APPLICATION 8

mobile app or website that allows community sport leagues to easily keep track of scores,

scheduling, and other pertinent team information all in one place where users are updated with

changes without the hassle of registering to see a demo of the app first.

Stakeholders and Community

Our project of creating a mobile application, as well as a website, will serve community

sports leagues for small local sports teams. The stakeholders include the league’s coaches,

players, referee volunteers, and managers. Community leagues are often small and are made up

of volunteers who donate their spare time to the league. They are adults with full time jobs,

college students, and high school students who all have busy lives and responsibilities outside of

their work in the leagues. These members volunteer their time as players, coaches, or managers

because they are passionate about playing sports and enjoy investing their time in the community

leagues. They love being part of a team, and are pleased to be able to compete with other local

sports teams. Because members are donating their spare time to practices and games, there leaves

little time to invest in the organization of league logistics such as creating and distributing

schedules for practices and games, scorekeeping, and game stats. Often, these leagues have

Facebook pages where members can check for any updates in schedules or game stats. In some

cases, there are group text messages where members can be reached in case there have been

changes in scheduling or game stat information. A few issues arise with the current

organizational procedures for these leagues. Because most members have full time jobs or are

full time students, the need to have to go to the member’s Facebook account to search for their

team’s page is time consuming and would have to dig through all the content on the Facebook

page in order to gather basic information. Users will benefit from our mobile app or website
PROPOSAL FOR A SOCCER LEAGUE APPLICATION 9

contains all pertinent information in one place without competing with other content. They will

be able to easily access information about their team and players. This is beneficial because

members do not waste time digging to find information about their team or being distracted by

other content. Members will also not be bombarded by constant text messages when being

contacted for updates. Leagues will have an opportunity to organize their tasks with ease without

wasting their time printing schedules or updating their Facebook page. Our project will allow

league members to have more time to do what they love, play sports.

Approach/Methodology

We will begin our approach by mapping out the layout of the app and website. As well as

conducting a meeting to see how the work will be split up amongst the group then each member

of the team will conduct relevant research that pertains to this project. This includes reading

valuable information from a credible source that will help with the creation and enhancement of

the app’s and website’s features. Also, our group should keep remaining to brush up on their

skills and knowledge of NativeScript framework and REST APIs so that they may be applied to

the project.

Ethical Considerations

In the Soccer League app, there are current plans to show the team roster which could

potentially be accessible by anyone. As of yet, we have yet to discuss how to handle players and

children whose parents do not want them to be listed on the app or website. While this could just

be there name or initials and generally would be acceptable, we should consider options for

parents who want to keep their children’s information confidential. Going into the project, this
PROPOSAL FOR A SOCCER LEAGUE APPLICATION 10

will be one ethical concern that we’ll need to be aware of. One possible solution is to allow the

parent to list an alternative display name for the player such as a first initial and last name or

only first name. Another solution could be to allow the parent to mark their player as private and

only show the player number without a name. The team will need to contact the league to see

which option would work best for them.

In addition, since the application and website will require technology to access. There is a

chance some underprivileged groups would not be able to interact with it. Unfortunately, we do

not have the means to provide access to technology for them. However, one possible way we

could solve this is to allow the league the ability to print out the scores and match history for

these situations. The league would then be able to handle any situations that arise and handle this

as they see fit.

For this project, there will not be any human study research required.

Legal Considerations

There are similar services out there to what the Soccer League App will provide. As of

yet, we have not done any research on patents in this area. Likely there’s no patents that would

interfere with the development of the application. However, the team will need to do our due

diligence to ensure we’re not infringing on a patent that could result in legal trouble. In addition,

the application will need to have an End User agreement for each user and league that uses the

application. This should ensure that users are aware of what their data is used for what is allowed

on the application. The user agreement should help protect the team from any lawsuits against us

by a league.
PROPOSAL FOR A SOCCER LEAGUE APPLICATION 11

However, we could also help circumvent issues by putting a disclaimer on the league

creation tool that leagues should have their own agreements with parents as most already have

for injuries due to an unforeseen accident in sports.

Lastly, any technologies and external services used in the application should be given

credit for their work. For example, we have plans to use NativeScript for the application which

has a license agreement that should be visible and credit given to them according to their license.

In the application, this should be clearly visible along with any other services or software we use

in the application.

Project Scope

Timeline/Budget

Module Task

1 Project Setup and Initial Schema

2 League and Team Creation / Management

3 Game and Player Management

4 Score Tracking and Team Stats

5 Finalize Application and Deploy


PROPOSAL FOR A SOCCER LEAGUE APPLICATION 12

6 Testing

7 Bug Fixes and Refine

8 Presentation

Resources Needed

This project will require various resources during the development and testing phase.

The integrated development environment that will be used to write both server-side and client-

side code will be AWS Cloud9. NativeScript framework will be used for Android and IOS web

deployment. In order to work collaboratively, our team will use a version control system known

as Git with a shared repository on GitHub.

Milestones

The project will consist of many phases each having an achievable milestone. During the

first phase, the key milestone will be to come up with the project setup and create initial schema.

Phase two will consist of the development stage that will be composed of multiple parts. This

includes designing a user interface, creation of teams and leagues, management of player and

games, score tracking, and team statistics. In the testing phase, it will be composed of having

focus groups from South County Soccer League testing the application as well as the website in

order to receive constructive feedback about the following products. In the final phase, it will be

to refine any bugs found during the testing phase in order to produce a bug-free final product.

Risks and Dependencies


PROPOSAL FOR A SOCCER LEAGUE APPLICATION 13

As this project will be tested with a focus group of teams from the league, various risks

could appear. This includes major unexpected bugs, like issues with functions that the website

will have or can have that the app might not be able support correctly. Not enough research and

understanding on how to build an application/website can also delay the completion of the

project or lead to it being incomplete. The dependencies that are required is the group and the

understanding of the work that is being put into the application, as well as a focus group to help

us test out the application.

Final Deliverables

Final Deliverables includes a mobile application that android users will be able to use for

tracking various different statistics of their leagues, players, etc. Alongside the application, there

will be a website that will allow users that do not have access to an android smartphone to use on

any other smartphone or computer. Both the application and website will provide valuable

services that any community soccer league can find useful to their organization. One major

component to our application and website is a scorekeeping feature in which there is a record of

scores per team in any given game. Users are able to compile statistics from the data imputed

after every game. Aside from scorekeeping, we will also deliver an area for administrators to set

up a schedule for games and practice times. This will make it easy when changes or updates to

the schedule occur. Players and other members will be notified when possible changes occur,

whether it’s canceled games or location changes. An essential part of the application and website

is that we will provide a record of all the players and their stats. With all this we hope to turn in

an application that is what the clients seek and is easy to use and understand.
PROPOSAL FOR A SOCCER LEAGUE APPLICATION 14

Usability Testing/Evaluation

To test out application and website, we plan to apply an Agile approach and Test-Driven

Development (TDD). As we are writing our code we will test as we develop each phase and

components of the application and website. In terms of usability testing, we will begin with

members of our team. For example, when William finishes his part, another member that has not

worked on William’s part will test it. We will do this throughout the process to make sure every

part is easy to use to someone who has not worked on that particular phase.

Once we have completed the application and website, we plan to have users with basic

computer or smartphone knowledge test it. Our application and website will be evaluated by

members of the South County Soccer League such as coaches, players, and volunteers. This will

assure that the application and website are simple for anyone to use. We plan to give the

members of the South County League a week to test out the application and website. We will

send out a survey for users to review the application and website. We will use Google Forms to

create an evaluation for users to provide feedback and rate the application and website.

In the evaluation form, we focus on the usefulness of the application and website. We

want to verify that the application and website meets a soccer league’s needs. Our goal is for the

application and website to have all the components needed for a community soccer league to

function with ease. We will have the users rate the usefulness of the application and website, we

have a rating of one to four, one being “Not useful” and four being “Very useful”. Another area

of interest is the ease of usability of the application and website. Users do not need to have

extensive knowledge in computers or complicated software in order to use the services that we

will provide. It is important that members of the South County League are able to use the

application and website to the fullest with little confusion. Usability of the application and
PROPOSAL FOR A SOCCER LEAGUE APPLICATION 15

website will also be evaluated within our survey. We ask testers to rate the difficulty level both

the application and website. Testers will choose a rating from one to four, with one being

“Difficult” and with four being “Easy”. This will give us insight on the user experience and we

will know if it meets the user’s needs for an effective soccer tracking application.

In addition to a series of rating questions, our survey will also ask for tester/user input.

We ask the testers what they liked the most about the application and website. Testers will be

able to provide their feedback about features or usability that they like the most. This will let us

know if we met the needs for a soccer league to function efficiently with the use of our

application and website. We also ask what the testers how the application and website can be

improved. With this information we can see where the application or website falls short, given

that the testers suggest improvements for it. This will be the most valuable question for us

because it forces the tester to be honest about an area or aspect of the app in which they we were

not happy with. This will reveal if the function or usability is not working the way it is intended

to, this information can only be given by the South County League members. A piece of

information that is also valuable to us is if the testers are likely to recommend the service the

application or website provides. We ask them how likely are they to recommend the application

or website with a range of one to four, with one being “Not Likely” and four being “Very

Likely”. If the testers are likely to recommend the app or website, then it is a good indication that

it useful to them and that they are happy with the final product. Of course, if they are likely not

to recommend it then they are not fully happy with the final product and needs improvement. We

end the survey with a “Comments” section where testers are able to leave any comments about

the app or website. Getting feedback from users with basic computing skills is essential, and our
PROPOSAL FOR A SOCCER LEAGUE APPLICATION 16

survey is constructed in a way that we are able to receive insight from actual members of a

soccer league.

Team Members and Responsibilities

Mercedes Garcia

● Web and App Design


● Assist with any other development tasks where needed

Eric Ybarra

● Mobile App (iOS)


● Assist with any other development tasks where needed

William Barajas

● Mobile App (Android)


● Assist with any other development tasks where needed

Thomas Krause

● Database Schema and Design


● RESTful API development and modifications where needed
● Cross compiling mobile application to the web and ensure compatibility
● Assist with any other development tasks where needed
PROPOSAL FOR A SOCCER LEAGUE APPLICATION 17

References

About us. (2018, June 18). Retrieved August 6, 2019. Helping Make Sports Happen. Retrieved

from https://leagueapps.com/about/

(n.d.). Retrieved August 3, 2019. GameChanger Baseball, Softball. Retrieved from

https://gc.com/
PROPOSAL FOR A SOCCER LEAGUE APPLICATION 18

Appendix
Soccer League Application and Website Survey

You might also like