La Jolla, Calif. - May 19, 2004 - The Active Network, Inc., a leading provider of application and marketing services for the participatory sports and activities industry, has signed 40 park and recreation agencies for its new RecNet® recreation management software. RecNet, part of the company's RecWare product family, debuted one year ago and offers a Web-based, hosted software solution that automates all aspects of recreation administration while offering Internet registration and reservation capabilities.
The City of Watertown Parks, Recreation and Forestry, a mid-size agency in Watertown, South Dakota, started using RecNet for its 2004 summer registration season. "We'll probably do 50% of our registrations online this season using RecNet, but are taking advantage of all the software's features," explained Terry Kelly, Watertown's recreation superintendent. "We take the majority of registrations from our general recreation office, but have multiple external facilities. The ability to offer registrations onsite at these facilities or get online from any location, regardless of whether we're on our city network, is a big benefit. We've also been able to give our instructors Web-based access to registration reports so they can monitor class reports on their own. We can view every activity or transaction as it happens and can control how much software access instructors or the public has. Downtime with the software has been less than zero and we don't have to worry about backing up or losing data."
RecNet's Web-based, hosted technology offers real-time Internet capabilities without requiring agencies to invest in computer hardware and incur equipment maintenance costs or install software on workstations. Recreation staff can login to the system via a Web browser from any workstation to manage program and facility information. The real-time feature enables staff to track and view all activity registration and facility reservation activity as it happens, whether by phone, in-person, mail or Internet, to avoid double-booking or scheduling conflicts.
"Using RecNet, we've automated our entire process for the first time and have already dramatically improved customer service," said Austin Fesmire, Director of Parks and Recreation, The City of Athens, Tennessee.
In addition to serving the Athens population of 14,000, the recreation department also serves more than 50,000 participants from five counties between Knoxville and Chattanooga. "We live in a fast food society where time is so valuable and recreation should be delivered with those same conveniences. Coming by our office to sign up for classes may take 40 minutes out of someone's day compared to just a few minutes at a computer registering online. Besides conveniences like online registration, the fact that RecNet is Web-based and real-time has helped us be more efficient. We know how many participants are in a class and how many reservations we've taken for our facility spaces. We also rely on the software to match with our general ledger accounts and have not been a dollar off since we started. The software gives us a real comfort level."
About RecWare
Recreation management software solutions by RecWare, part of The Active Network, Inc., are used by hundreds of park and recreation departments in all regions of the United States. RecWare software automates administration, reduces costs and improves service to communities, offering solutions for activity registration, facility reservation, membership management, touch screen point of sale, league scheduling, financial management, marketing reporting, Internet registration, Internet facility reservation, Internet Sports Display and Internet membership sales/renewal. Products include RecWare Safari® desktop software, Safari Hosted Internet Registration, ProActive Internet Registration and RecNet® hosted, Web-based software. For information about RecWare's product line, visit www.recware.com. For information about The Active Network, visit www.theactivenetwork.com.