Don’t get us wrong. We love spreadsheets. Like, a lot. And who doesn’t like a nice Google Form?

But let’s be honest, neither of those are great ways to manage derby staffing. At best, they make a salad of the information you need, and don’t do much to help you make assignments that respect your officials: not just their availability, but who is actually good at which roles, and who loves or likes or (ahem) barely tolerates which ones.

And when someone shows up on the day — or drops out! — you’re rearranging it all by hand, and chasing people down to fill the gaps.

“Hey! can anybody here JT? IPR?”

We feel for your pencils. And your patience. That’s why we built Skate.

Davoda Skate helps you manage the whole staffing process for scrimmages and games, faster and with fewer broken pencils. It lets you:

• Create events with game type and details
• Capture member signups
• Generate staffing that respects availability, role preferences and skill levels, and load.
• Tweak as-needed, then publish clear, role-by-role coverage for game day
• Make ad-hoc changes and reassignments as needed, with clear communication to affected members

If you’re a head ref or head NSO, we’ve got a step-by-step guide to show you how to set up and use Skate for your league.

If you’re used to signup spreadsheets or Google Forms, there’s a lot of … opacity.

Maybe you know if you’re staffed, maybe you don’t. Maybe you know what role you’re assigned, maybe you don’t. Maybe you know who else is on the roster, maybe you don’t. And if something changes, maybe you’ll find out in time, maybe you won’t.

Skate lets you know when there are new events, and then you can click to sign up. You can put in the roles you love (and the ones you don’t), and Skate will let your HR/HNSO know your preferences.

When the roster is published, you’ll know what role you’re assigned, and who else is on the roster. If something changes (scrimmage cancellation, anyone?), you’ll know about it right away.

Check out our guide for officials to see how Skate can help you manage your own availability and assignments.

Davoda Skate is free.

Roller derby is the reason that Davoda exists.

So we hope you’ll try out Skate, give us feedback, tell your friends, and hopefully love Skate so much that you start using our generalized business scheduling product, Davoda Slate.

With your help, Skate and Slate will both grow, and in not too long we’ll start charging for the business product. (But the folks who’ve given us the most helpful feedback on either product will stay free.)

We want you to love what we’ve built, and we are excited to work with you to make wonderful software.

Because pencils deserve to be happy, too.