We’re wanting to provide you with the latest update and status on the gate/lighting issues being experienced by some ‘Book a Court’ venues.

Where can I find the last update about these issues?

Click here to see our previous communication in June or click here to see our initial communication in March.

Latest Update:

We had hoped to provide you with an update expressing further progress to the resolution of the gate/light issues, however we’ve come across some barriers preventing us from doing so. The barriers are related to the complexities of ClubSpark (software) changing the booking data files and meeting the necessary requirements and rules set out by Complete Security Solutions (hardware).

In our previous update we advised that testing of the fix had commenced, however our results of the fix were not satisfactory (i.e. gates/lights would not operate as per current functionality). After several changes and attempts to get it right, we unfortunately were not getting the results we required.

With these results and further discussions with ClubSpark and CSS, our approach and plan to deliver this solution has pivoted. We will now work towards an Application Programming Interface (API) integration between the two parties to send/receive booking data. Our current method for sending/receiving booking data is via File Transfer Protocol (FTP) – which the formatting and process of the files is where the underlying issue is.

Moving from FTP to API integration is quite a big shift and may then take us more time to deliver the permanent resolution, however all parties have agreed that this is the required step to take to not only fix this issue, but also for future improvements and enhancements of the Book a Court system.

Our early discussions with the API integration is quite promising in regards to the opportunities that it will be able to provide when we get this right. With the API integration, we’re likely to significantly reduce the “booking delay” more so than what we could’ve achieved via FTP.

Another helpful part to this pivot to API integration is that ClubSpark have previously worked on an API integration (Tennis NZ) with the same system utilised by the hardware, so provides us with some confidence that we will be able to push pass the barriers and deliver what is required. In saying this, the requirements for the integration used in Tennis NZ is not like-for-like and therefore will still require ClubSpark to design and build to our specifications (to ensure we retain all existing functionality), which is where a lot of time can be spent.

This week, CSS have commenced building the “test” environment for the API integration, which is likely to be completed before the end of next week. This will then allow ClubSpark to start pushing their existing API integration (used for Tennis NZ) to that environment and then be able to understand the work involved (and timelines) to build the integration to our requirements and the framework provided by CSS.

We want to assure you that we’re doing everything possible (within our control) to deliver this solution as early as possible and we apologise for the inconvenience this may be causing you and the players at your venue.

As previously mentioned in our last update, if your venue is being heavily impacted by these lighting issues we have the option to automatically activate lighting for fixed days/times (set by the club) that may alleviate some pressure/inconvenience being experienced by you as a volunteer/admin. For more details about this alternative option, please email [email protected] and we can discuss the possibilities of providing you with this option.

A reminder to report any issues for our team to investigate and confirm that it is related, please ensure you provide the following information to our Customer Support team via email on [email protected] or call 1800 752 983 with all the necessary information.

• Your club and contact details
• Explanation of what happened (e.g. “court 1-4 lights went out at xx, but should have remained on, light switches were correctly set to AUTO”)
• Details of the booking impacted (i.e. booking contact, times, dates)
• Other details we may need to know (e.g. “no other booking was impacted” or “lights worked perfectly on court 1”, “this occurs only on a Monday”)

Thanks again for your patience and understanding of this matter.

We’re wanting to provide you with an update on the ‘Book a Court’ issues we’ve previously identified & initially shared with you in March.

What were the issues?

1. Lights turning off prematurely or at incorrect times for bookings
2. Contacts being issued a booking pin of ‘0’

Where can I find more details about these issues?

Click here to see our previous communication in May or click here to see our initial communication in March.

There has been some progression to resolving the issue specific to lights turning off prematurely or incorrectly. These works are still being finalised and tested in our Staging environment, though there are still a number of outstanding items flagged with ClubSpark for them to deliver. In addition, there is also around a week of work to “tidy” the environment before releasing, which includes work related to security, authentication, user-interface and user-experience.

As we’ve previously communicated, the timing of this resolution has far exceeded our expectation of delivery, so we’ve been discussing alternative options or work-arounds with Complete Security Solutions (CSS) that might alleviate some pressure and inconvenience for your club with the hope to provide an improved playing experience with no interruptions and to reduce the admin burden from operating lights manually.

It has been suggested that this alternative option first be utilised at a couple of venues to verify that this actually provides clubs the benefit that we’re looking for during this time, before we offer this as an interim solution to other clubs. The alternative option involves court lights being programmed to automatically come on/off at set times each day and is not dependent on the booking data (where we have these issues) and therefore is not dependent on players entering a booking pin. With that in mind, clubs will need to consider the possibility that lights will be turning on when there is no bookings/play.

If your club has been heavily impacted by these lighting issues and you want to know more details about this alternative option, please email [email protected] and we can discuss the possibilities of providing you with this option.

As we continue to progress with these works, we will continue to provide necessary status updates using the same communication methods via the ClubSpark software – see below examples. (i.e. Home page of admin area & as a once-off pop up for administrators).

A reminder to report any issues for our team to investigate and confirm that it is related, please ensure you provide the following information to our Customer Support team via email on [email protected] or call 1800 752 983 with all the necessary information.

• Your club and contact details
• Explanation of what happened (e.g. “court 1-4 lights went out at xx, but should have remained on, light switches were correctly set to AUTO”)
• Details of the booking impacted (i.e. booking contact, times, dates)
• Other details we may need to know (e.g. “no other booking was impacted” or “lights worked perfectly on court 1”, “this occurs only on a Monday”)

Thanks again for your patience and understanding of this matter.

We’re wanting to provide you with an update on the ‘Book a Court’ issues we’ve previously identified & shared with you in March.

What were the issues?

1. Lights turning off prematurely or at incorrect times for bookings
2. Contacts being issued a booking pin of ‘0’

Where can I find more details about these issues?

Click here to see our previous comms in March.

Firstly, we want to apologise for the amount of time it is taking to rectify the issue specific to lights turning off prematurely or incorrectly. This has exceeded our initial expectations for resolution and we will work with our Software and Hardware providers to improve this in the future, however there has also been reasons out of our control (i.e. resources contracting covid) that has also contributed to the delay in delivering a resolution.

We want to assure you that this work is our main priority and has been escalated to the highest level possible with all stakeholders.

Over the last couple of weeks, ClubSpark (software provider) have further progressed with this piece of work and Complete Security Solutions (hardware provider) have been able to complete the file mapping and testing of the data imports that include the booking data generated from the Booking module within ClubSpark.

Today, we have started initial testing of this piece of work in our staging environment, which includes replicating ‘real-life’ booking scenarios at venues and validating the gate and light behaviour. Although our testing has commenced, there are still outstanding items on ClubSpark’s end that requires further work to be completed, which we then have to re-test. There will be numerous times of back-and-forth between ClubSpark, CSS and TA to get this right, and we also need to perform regression testing to ensure that this piece of work hasn’t negatively impacted any other functionality of the ‘Book a Court’ system.

We wish we were in a position to provide a timeframe of when the issues will be fixed, however as we know, the complexity of the issue and the work involved is difficult to estimate. The following might help to provide some context;

Work completed by ClubSpark – unknown/TBC

Complete Security Solutions validation of data from ClubSpark and provide TA with green-light for testing – 2 days

TA testing in stage environment & provide ClubSpark and CSS with green-light to release to live environment – 2 to 4 days

Release to live environment – 1 to 2 days

Please also note that this work is also to be combined with further improvements to reduce the “booking delay”.

If you have any further questions on the information provided, please don’t hesitate to get in touch with the Team. We hope to provide you with good news in the coming weeks, in the meantime if this issue is frequently occurring at your venue, you may decide to operate lights manually until a resolution is available. To report the issue for our team to investigate and confirm, please ensure you provide the following information:

• Your club and contact details
• Explanation of what happened (e.g. “court 1-4 lights went out at xx, but should have remained on, light switches were correctly set to AUTO”)
• Details of the booking impacted (i.e. booking contact, times, dates)
• Other details we may need to know (e.g. “no other booking was impacted” or “lights worked perfectly on court 1”, “this occurs only on a Monday”)

In regards to the second issue of contacts being issued a booking pin of ‘0’, the work for these pins to be replaced with a standard 4-digit pin has been delayed due to the resources and priority being assigned to the lighting issue. It is likely that this won’t be completed until the lighting issues are first resolved. As previously stated in our March comms, the ‘0’ booking pin doesn’t not provide users with any issues in regards to granting access or activating lights, so there is no user impact here.

If you have any further questions or need to report an issue, please contact our Customer Support team via email on [email protected] or call 1800 752 983 with all the necessary information.

Thank you for your understanding!

We’ve identified a couple of issues specific to venues with the ‘Book a Court’ hardware and would like to share these in detail with you and provide assurance that we’re working on a resolution with our software and hardware providers.

 1. Lights turning off prematurely or incorrect times for bookings

This issue is related to changes being made within the booking data that is modifying the validation times for lights to be active – in most cases we’ve investigated the modifications are being set to an earlier booking, meaning lights are turning off earlier than expected, despite booking pins being entered successfully.

The issue is unique to certain scenarios and we’re still working to understand what all these scenarios are, but believe we’ve identified the root cause and will now work to deploy the necessary fix.

Note: not all lighting issues that occur are due to this, so please continue to:

• encourage bookers to always enter their pin, regardless if the gate is unlocked for competition or coaching, or even if their court lights are already on, this is to ensure the best possible chance that there will be no interruption with their booking,
• check that the court light switches are set correctly (i.e. light switch is set to ‘AUTO’)
• ensure the sunset switch is not being bypassed and/or is functioning correctly (this may require your electrician to investigate).

For further details on how the court lighting works with the ‘Book a Court’ system, please click here.

If this issue is frequently occurring at your venue, you may decide to operate lights manually until a resolution is available. To report the issue for our team to investigate and confirm, please ensure you provide the following information:

• Your club and contact details
• Explanation of what happened (e.g. “court 1-4 lights went out at xx, but should have remained on, light switches were correctly set to AUTO”)
• Details of the booking impacted (i.e. booking contact, times, dates)
• Other details we may need to know (e.g. “no other booking was impacted” or “lights worked perfectly on court 1”, “this occurs only on a Monday”)

We’re also looking to combine this fix with other work that we’re currently involved in to further reduce the “booking delay” and provide further improvements to the gate and light logic. This is currently our highest priority and we’re aiming to have this delivered within the next few weeks, however, understanding that significant testing is required and is to be successful before we deploy the changes.

 2. Contacts being issued a booking pin of ‘0’.

For an unknown reason, contacts were being assigned the booking pin of ‘0’ rather than a unique 4-digit pin as expected.

Good news is that this issue was resolved on March 10th, meaning the issue will not occur moving forward. Contacts/members that were given a ‘0’ digit booking pin will be issued a new 4-digit pin and this work is likely to commence in the next week.

Please note: the booking pin of ‘0’ will still grant access and will also activate lights, so it doesn’t present any issues to users who have made a booking or intend to make a booking prior to being issued the new 4-digit pin.

We will communicate necessary updates and hope to have these rectified as early as possible. We thank you for your understanding and appreciate your patience to rectify.

If you have any further questions or need to report an issue, please contact our Customer Support team via email on [email protected] or call 1800 752 983 with all the necessary information.

We’re pleased to announce that this afternoon we delivered an upgrade to the ‘Book a Court’ system with the primary aim of reducing the time it takes for a booking pin to become active from the time of booking.

What was the issue?

As you may know, it would take up to 30 minutes (sometimes longer) for a booking pin to become active from the time of booking – we understand the impact that this had on venues and player experiences and we appreciate your patience with us to work out a solution.

What is the upgrade?
In collaboration with Complete Security Solutions and ClubSpark, we’ve been able to deliver the first phase (of two phases) of this upgrade that, when fully delivered, it will ultimately be a new and improved process to sending/receiving booking data (to further reduce the delay), as well as a better user-experience regarding gate and lighting validation.

Has this been tested?
This upgrade has been in the works for a few months now. We’ve completed significant amount of testing over the last week and the tests have been successful.

The tests include replicating common booking scenarios (e.g. overlapping multi-court bookings, multiple coaching/competition bookings, etc) to ensure that there is no impact to the current behaviour and workings of gates and lights.

Whilst our test results show an improvement to the delay, we hope that we see this even further reduced when the full project is delivered in the new year.

What changes will I see?

You will see a difference to the time it takes a booking pin to become active. This is the only change you will see, there has been no changes to the software as part of this upgrade, nor any changes to the logic of the gates/lighting (i.e. known limitations will still exist and will be part of the second phase to this upgrade).

An example of a known limitation:

Booking for John on Courts 1 & 2 from 8-9pm

Booking for Tom on Courts 1-4 from 9-10pm

John enters pin at 7:50pm, gains access to Courts 1 & 2, lights turn on

Tom enters pin at 8:50pm, gains access to courts, court lights 1 & 2 are already on, court lights 3 & 4 turn on

John re-enters pin at 9pm

Lights on courts 1 & 2 turn off at 9:15pm

Tom will need to re-enter pin to turn the lights on court 1 & 2 again

What’s next?

We will continue to monitor the performance of this upgrade over the next 24-48 hours to ensure that everything is running as expected and if we happen to identify any issues, we have the ability to roll back the upgrade.

If you have any questions specific to this upgrade or if you’ve experienced anything that looks out of the ordinary, please let us know at [email protected]

Thank you & we hope you enjoy your holidays!