With a lot of help from World Cup Kvitfjell, Rubic is now developing its own app for officials and volunteers. It will make it easier to communicate with and organise officials and volunteers at events. The solution includes a dedicated accreditation feature with name and photo.
A good tool for volunteers
The Lillehammer region is an area with many large and small events all year round, such as the Para World Championships, World Cup Kvitfjell and World Cup Lillehammer. Events that depend on large numbers of volunteer officials. After the Youth Olympic Games in Lillehammer in 2016, the event management saw a need to do this better.
We saw the need to find an officials system that could handle around 500 volunteers. For us, the volunteer officials are the very foundation. It is important to treat them well and make sure communication is as good as possible at all times.
It was natural to talk to Rubic, since they were already communicating with many of the district's sports clubs, explains Stein B. Olsen of Visit Lillehammer, who is also on the event committee for World Cup Kvitfjell.
The biggest volunteer effort of the year
PUBLIC CELEBRATION: The World Cup in Kvitfjell is a great public celebration and important for Ringebu municipality. Behind it lie thousands of volunteer hours. (Photo: Stein B. Olsen)
Communication platform
World Cup Kvitfjell is part of Hafjell – Kvitfjell Alpin AS, which is the technical organiser of the major events, in collaboration with Norges Skiforbund. These are events with large numbers of slope crew, timekeepers, participant support, organisation and more. The need for good communication that reaches those who need it is great, and very important for everything to work optimally.
Drawing on lessons from World Cup Kvitfjell and other major events, we wanted a system that could work a bit like Facebook, where everyone has their own user account with name and photo.
A place to build a culture, where you can communicate both as a group and choose to communicate with individuals or a selection, continues Ole Kristian Kirkerud, general manager of Hafjell – Kvitfjell Alpin AS.
An exciting project
Anders Retterås, at that time co-owner and developer at Rubic, took to the idea. In 2018 Rubic Funksjonær was ready.
In this system, volunteers sign up for the areas and times they want, while organisers could send them email and SMS. But we saw that this did not create much engagement among the officials.
Kirkerud wanted to create a social platform where everyone involved could start or join a conversation. A place that connected the officials as a group, where they did not just receive information but also took part themselves.
Not just for sport
Many of Rubic's customers are not sports clubs, even though that is where it all started. That is why they want to develop systems that suit everyone, including organisers of other kinds of events and associations.
We are starting somewhat afresh with this app, even though Rubic Funksjonær is the foundation. The main focus is communication, but as with everything we do, new features will be added as we receive feedback and requests from customers and users. That is often how our systems are developed, continues Retterås.
Accreditation solution
Another important need was accreditation, no less important in these times of contact tracing.
Previously we did this manually and as simply as possible. New requirements and new times mean that we now need control over everyone who is inside the facility. We looked at international solutions, but wanted to handle this locally too, so we asked Rubic whether this could also become part of the system, explains Kirkerud.
It is really two sides of the same coin, since the officials also have to be registered with name and photo. We want to be ahead of the curve; proactive and innovative. That makes it extra fun that we can do this with a local company, continues Olsen.
FIS has a version where you can export data to get names and photos for printing accreditation cards. These can in turn be imported into this new app.
Developed according to real needs
Rune Solholm Bakken and Anders Retterås, who are behind Rubic, are both involved in sport themselves. This, and the fact that they listen to all customer feedback and requests for new features, is often what drives the development of new systems and features.
The collaboration with Rubic has been very good all along, and now we are taking a big leap forward. This is a clear win-win situation, where we work closely together, listen to each other and at the same time have a dialogue from those who experience this first-hand to those who develop the solution.
We have involved every level of the organisation, which means that the solution is developed according to real needs. It also helps that Rubic knows sport and understands what it is all about, concludes Kirkerud.