Introduction

At our Zoom meeting in August there was general agreement it would be very helpful if leaders of the day have advance notice of walk plans so that drop-offs could be controlled.

The slow circulation of walk plans around the buses is usually, in my view,  down to the few who wish to trace each route on their map.  Many others will go with a favourite leader wherever that takes them. If walk plans are on the website in advance then these delays, with a bit of gentle persuasion, can be reduced significantly.  I am not proposing any change to the circulation of paper copies of plans, only that PDF copies of the plans be made available on the website where appropriate. 

Taking these factors into account I have tweaked the system in two major ways:

• the user is asked to choose between three categories of walks, “System Test”, “Phoenix Bus” or “Casual Walk” each of which has its own report in the website. Be aware that updates from Google servers to the website take place every five minutes or so. You may have a short wait before you see the result in a webpage. If you have the web page in question open on your device it will need to be refreshed to see the update.
• the form for inputting walks now allows the user to reopen and edit their submission.

Depending on which category of walk you choose you can see the result on the following pages:

• for “System Test” the result will appear at https://phoenixwalkingclub.org/leaders-walks-planned/ This page is not visible via the website menus and can be used to experiment with the system.
• “Phoenix Bus” will be used, as its name suggests, to collect walks for bus trips. I have currently included this at https://phoenixwalkingclub.org/picking-your-walk/ It is live so only use it for walks you intended to lead.
• “Casual Walk” is currently in use live at https://phoenixwalkingclub.org/casual-walks/ it replaces the old system where leaders email myself and Heinrich and we manually update a Google Sheet linked to the website.  It will remain in use after bus trips resume.

When you submit your walk you will be sent an email to the address you input at the start of the input process which gives you the option to edit your form.  Use your preferred email address here and, although you can, it can get confusing if you change to another email address during an edit.

The only limits are that you cannot change the PDF or GPX files you have uploaded and you cannot delete the submission. However if you edit the submission (the email will give you the link to do that) by changing the walk date to a date in the past then the “walk” will not be shown in any of the web page tables. Only walks scheduled for the current day and in the future will be displayed in any of the tables. This would be the extreme solution where you wish to start again from scratch.

A couple examples of what you can do would be:

• change the walk category from “Systems Test” to “Phoenix Bus” and the walk would move into the appropriate webpage or perhaps,
• change the date of a “Casual Walk” because you have made a mistake.

The complexity of the walk planned and the targeted group of members will determine how much detail is required.

For a Miriam’s walk is probably sufficient for members to know that there is going to be a short walk. The full PDF and GPX uploads, while possible, would be overkill.

For a 16 mile walk in rough terrain as much detail as possible would be desirable.

I would suggest however that all leaders of the day would appreciate early notice of who is submitting walks and where the drop-offs are. The attachment of PDFs can be done by editing the submission nearer the time of the walk so that members do not need to delay the circulation of walk plans around the buses.

As always I would welcome your feedback

Why you need a Google account

As mentioned earlier the system is based on the clubs Google account.  Files that are uploaded are stored on a Google Drive account. Understandably Google wishes to protect their own systems and therefore make it a requirement that the person uploading the files has a Google account. If you already use Gmail for your personal emails you will already have a Google account. If you do not have a Google account then you can open one for free and link it to your existing email address (even if this is not a Gmail account).

Why use a PDF file for the upload

I know that some walk leaders prepare their walk plans in Microsoft Word or Excel. I have however deliberately restricted uploads to PDF files so that file sizes are limited. You can use “Microsoft print to PDF” to produce a PDF file from your word, excel or other software you might be using. As I do not use Apple devices I don’t know what the equivalent method will be.

Your observations

Please take the time to play with the system and let me have your feedback at rpcraigsmail@gmail.com