Former NHLer Bret Hedican and Vancouver entrepreneur Ian Bell gave birth to RosterBot in '08, creating a simple way for recreational hockey teams to organize their schedules and ensure they had enough players each night. The team launched the RosterBot mobile application late last year, and they now tout usage in over 60 countries for more than 350 sports and activities, with 45% of its usage from hockey. RosterBot is a free download with no advertising that was developed in-house. This review was conducted on an iPhone 5 version 8.1.1, with AT&T LTE service.
BIG LEAGUE: At the very basic level, RosterBot makes sense. Player information is added into the app, and an e-mail containing a team schedule is distributed. For each game during the season, players must indicate whether they are in or out by swiping the IN/OUT bar within the event. The team manager is able to indicate the minimum and maximum number of players required for each game, and he or she can also designate the number of players needed in each position. This way, before the players show up to the rink, they know whether they have a goalie or not. If a particular player can play more than one position, this can also be indicated within the app. A players' section includes a list of team members that can be sorted by position or class (full-time/spare/inactive) making it simple to keep track of who's who. The app also makes a clean connection with iCalendar for an additional reminder.
BUSH LEAGUE: The real miss with RosterBot is that it is almost entirely manual. The team manager needs to spend a good amount of time entering game and player information, and while the app does send out an automated e-mail inviting players into the app, it does not offer any other way to invite players. Players can register for the app with Facebook, but they cannot be invited through the iPhone contact list, by text message or via social networks. According to RosterBot, this is due to the Canadian Anti-Spam Legislation. The app's navigation could also use some fine-tuning. After several visits, I still could not remember how to find certain information or add detail to a player profile. The profile image feature does not work properly. Despite a clean Facebook registration process, Facebook photos are not brought into the app, and when a photo is added manually, the image does not render correctly in the profile, making things look sloppy. Finally, the app crashes somewhat frequently, and push notifications are sent via e-mail but do not appear on the iPhone as expected.
BOTTOM LINE: For hosting a basic roster and determining whether a team has enough players in the right positions to actually play, RosterBot proves quite capable. The app stumbles, however, with its uber manual function set. There is no instant invite via iPhone contacts, Facebook or Twitter, nor is there a way to populate player profiles using social accounts. I rate the app two stars -- a creative concept in need of more current features. There are not yet enough reviews in iTunes to constitute a rating.
Amie Sheridan (amie.sheridan31@gmail.com) is a freelance writer in Philadelphia.
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