SaddleA sign-up sheet for a club or community group
Community groups run on a shared spreadsheet until the day someone sorts a column and destroys the roster. The requirements are small and specific, and the one thing that sinks most of the alternatives is asking a volunteer to install an app before they can offer you two hours on a Saturday.
The shared spreadsheet, and how it fails
It works while five people use it. At twenty, someone overwrites a row, someone else cannot find the link, two people take the same shift, and nobody knows whether the total in the corner is current. There is no history, so you cannot tell what changed or who changed it.
“another parent pointed out people will likely sign up on their phone and installing the app likely will be a barrier to volunteering.”
Where it goes wrong
- Anyone can edit anyone
- A shared sheet has no notion of “your row”. One misplaced paste and last week’s roster is gone with no way back.
- Capacity nobody is counting
- Twelve places, nineteen names, and the discovery happens on the day.
- A link that keeps getting lost
- Buried in a group chat from three weeks ago. Every event costs you the same round of “can someone repost the sheet”.
- Anything people have to install, they don’t
- A volunteer deciding whether to give you a Saturday morning will not create an account and download an app to do it. Every step before the sign-up loses some of them.
What the page actually has to do
- A cap the sheet enforces
- When it is full it says full. The count is held on the server, so it holds even when two people tap at once.
- Nothing to install, and no account unless you want one
- A link that opens in whatever browser is already on their phone. Ask people to sign in only if they need to come back and change their own entry.
- A link that stays put
- One web address that keeps working, so it can live in the pinned message and stop being reposted.
- A total the organiser can trust
- A live count of places taken, and a list that exports as a spreadsheet when you need to bring it with you.
Something like it, already running
“A rota for my cafe. I post the shifts for the coming week — each shift has a day, a start and end time, and how many people it needs. Staff sign in, see what is coming up, and claim a shift. A shift that already has enough people stops taking claims. Staff can ask to swap a shift they have taken, and that request comes to me.”
Shifts the owner posts, claimed by people who sign in, with a full shift refusing further claims. A sign-up sheet is the same machinery with different words on it.
Open the live appSaddle builds this from a description.
Write what you need in plain language, check the plan, and send the link. Your first app is free.
Questions
Do people need accounts to sign up?
Only if you want them to. A sheet can take entries with no account at all, or ask people to sign in so they can come back and change their own — your call when you describe it.
Do they have to install anything?
No, and this is the part that decides whether a sign-up sheet gets used. It is a web page on a link. It opens in the browser they already have, on the phone they are already holding.
Can I cap the number of places?
Yes, and the cap is enforced when someone signs up rather than checked afterwards. People see how many places are left without seeing who took them.
Can I get the list out?
Replies export as a CSV, so the roster opens in whatever you already use.
Other things people build with Saddle: see the list. Or check what it costs.