What is the benefit of ultimate central?

Feedback
1

I do not see the benefit of ultimate central for the licensing system. In fact I think its just a costly (apparently we pay 8% of the collected fees to them) complication.

IMHO with the recent decisions and discussions at the DV the “license” is split into two aspects:

  1. a fee for every active player in Switzerland
  2. a players fee for the SM

For 1) the fee is reported and collected by the Clubs and handed to the SUA

For 2) we could handle it just like 1). Alternatively we could convert it to simply a team fee (like we used to have). But this of course results in smaller teams feeling they are unfairly treated compared to bigger teams. So while its a bit more effort, its probably better to keep a player fee but simply have the teams collect it and transfer it to the SUA bank account.

2

I see the following benefits as we use UC for more than just to “buy” the license (with the current licensing regulations in mind).

  • The event registration process makes it easy for us to check whether players are eligible to play
  • Waivers can be automatically accepted and checked
  • Schedules can be (kind of) automated and spirit scores can be reported directly by the teams
  • The complete results are “archived” and accessible to everyone without any further action
  • There is no overhead for the treasurer to check payments for licenses

I do see the potential for improvement in certain areas of UC and as it is actively developed, it’s just a matter of time until these areas get better (it’s gotten a lot better already since we first started using it).
Additionally, the licenses are not just for SM players but also for national team players who might not play at the SM. So it’s quite easy for them to obtain a license at any time.

Another benefit is that we can easily create custom reports depending on almost any situation like “how many players up to the age of 20 have played at the last SM” and so on.

In general, I wouldn’t see our UC platform just as a licensing system. It enables the SUA and the event coordinators to make their lives (mostly) a bit easier before, during and after the tournaments.
Even if we would get rid of the current way of handling the licensing fees, I think it’s still a great addition for the event coordination.