Thanks to everyone for making RGP a success.

- Andy

• Adrenaline Climbing
• Adventure Rock
• Ajax Rock Oasis
• Albany’s Indoor Rock Gym
• Alexandria Climbing
• Allez Up
• ARCH
• Ascension Climbing
• Basecamp Wanaka
• Belleveue Gun Club
• Big Rock Climbing Gym
• Bluegrass Bouldering
• Boston Rock Gym
• Bridges Rock Gym
• Brooklyn Boulders
• CDA KROC Center
• Center For Outdoor Adventure
• Climb Edmontom
• Climb Iowa
• Climb Kalamazoo
• Climb On
• Climber’s Rock
• Cross Fit - Steel Creek
• Cruz Chiropractic Care
• Edgeworks Climbing
• Enclosure Climbing Center
• Gainesville Rock Gym
• Grand Junction Climbing Center
• Hangar18 Riverside
• Hangar18 Southbay
• Hangar18 Upland
• Hoosier Heights Indoor Climbing
• Ibex Climbing Gym
• Inclimb
• Joyride 150 Indoor Bike Park
• Llangorse Multi Activity Centre
• Mesa Rim Climbing Center
• Momentum Climbing
• Movement Climbing and Fitness
• Newcastle Climbing Centre
• Niagara Climbing Center
• North Walls
• Nothern Arizona University
• Off The Wall Climbing
• ORGT Climbing Wall
• Revelation MMA Gym
• Rise Up Climbing
• Rock To The Top
• Rocksport Reno
• Santa Fe Climbing Center
• Spire Climbing Center
• Sport Climbing Center
• Stone Summit Climbing
• TampereenKiipeilykeskus Finland
• Templo Del Mono, Mexico
• Texas Rock Gym
• The Circuit Gym (in progress)
• The Connecticut Rock Gym
• The Front Climbing Club Boise
• The Front Climbing Club Ogden (in progress)
• The Front Climbing Club Salt Lake City
• The Quarry
• The Rock Adventure Centre
• The Rock Gym
• The Wall-Dubai
• The Yeti’s Lair Climbing Gym
• Threshhold Climbing
• True North Climbing
• Upper Limits
• USI
• Vertical Dreams
• Vertical Endeavors Deluth
• Vertical Endeavors St Paul
• Vertical eXcape Climbing Center
• Vertical Heaven
• Vertical World Seattle
• Vertical World Tacoma
• Zion Climbing Center

Watch the Z-Out tutorial for more information.

This update also includes the ability to have your staff clock-in with a specific Job Type.  This is useful if you need to track your staff’s hours depending upon their duties.

It has certainly been a busy year for Rock Gym Pro. How busy? Here are some numbers!

• Over 40 facilities in six countries now depend on RGP to run their business. Check out the testimonials.
• 20 facilities migrated to RGP from other software packages.
• Over $1,000,000 in transactions are estimated to have been processed through RGP in the month of November.
• 18 minor/major updates to RGP have been released.
• RGP has blossomed (ballooned?) to over 100,000 lines of software code.
• Countless bugs have been squished and new features implemented.
• And a handful of facilities have even stepped up to the plate and became premium supporters of RGP. THANKS, your support keeps me motivated and accountable!

What new features were released in 2009? The minor features are too many to list, but here are the major features that were implemented in the last year:

• Integrated credit card processing for POS and billing transactions
• Data migration
• Gift cards
• Quickbooks integration
• Secure, offsite database backup
• Charting and data visualization
• Member guest pass system
• Document scanning and remote storage

So what are the goals for 2010? Lots of enhancements to help you manage and grow your business! Here are just some of the major features I hope to implement in 2010:

• Integrated credit card support and billing for Canadian facilities
• Multiple facility support. Your RGP database will be shared in real-time across multiple locations.
• Waiver stations/kiosks. No more transcribing waivers! Your customers will be able to type in their contact data at your facility or online, print a waiver, and their information will automatically be added to your database.
• Daily email marketing system. This will be cool! You’ll be able to send automatic daily emails to specific customer sets. Some examples of using this feature: automatically send a survey and discount to new customers, thank new members for joining, or ask why a member has terminated. The possibilities are endless! It’ll be an automated marketing machine.
• PCI compliance addressed. Specifically RGP will integrate an innovative co-service with XCharge that will remove RGP from the scope of PCI DSS audit. If you don’t know what this is don’t worry — it’s a good thing!

So that’s the update from RGP headquarters. If you have specific suggestions or feedback, please drop me a note on the Contact Form.

I’ll be presenting at the CWA Summit this year, and I look forward to meeting many of you then.

Happy Holidays and good luck with the New Year!

Andy Laakmann

Rock Gym Pro Developer

Included in this update is the long-awaited ability to scan and store customer documents.  With this feature, you can use any TWAIN compatible scanner to digitally archive waivers, membership forms, medical notes, and other documents right into a customer record!  This feature is only available to those customers on our Premium Support Plan.  Now is a great time to sign up for Premium Support to get great benefits like Charting and Offsite Backup, and also support the ongoing development of RGP.

Once you start scanning your documents… you’ll NEVER LOSE A WAIVER AGAIN!  And you won’t have to hunt through stacks of waivers to find one!

Video tutorials are available below:

• VIDEO TUTORIAL: Document Management Settings
• VIDEO TUTORIAL: Scanning Individual Documents
• VIDEO TUTORIAL: Bulk Scanning and Classification

Two innovative aspects make this scanning feature perfect for a climbing gym environment:

• All the documents are encrypted and transferred offsite for safe keeping.  That’s right – you don’t need to worry about backing up gigabytes of scanned documents.  When you scan new documents in RGP, they are encrypted and automatically transferred offsite for safe keeping.  Of course, you can optionally choose to also store your documents on your local network or computer.  And even though the documents are offsite, they are available right at your fingertips within your RGP database.
• Bulk scanning and classification.  To make the scanning go as quickly as possible, RGP also includes a bulk scanning and classification interface.   With this interface you can scan a stack of documents and they get “queued” for digital review and classification by your staff member.  At any time, your staff can easily open up the queue in RGP and digitally review the scanned documents.  As they digitally review the documents, they can assign them to customers by reviewing the name on the screen.  Additionally, you can cut-and-paste barcodes on your documents and RGP will automatically recognize the type of document (waiver, membership form, etc.).

More information on scanning -  including recommended hardware - is available.

NEW SOFTWARE RELEASE – September 16, 2009 Build v1.0.14937

I’ve released the latest version of RGP and it has some significant improvements including the powerful new RGP Charting Module.  You can upgrade directly with the update button in your software (Data Entry -> Manage -> About).

The changes in this version include:

• RGP Charting – This a big (BIG!) new feature.  Finally you can visualize the sales, memberships, and visit trends at your facility.  Check out the video tutorial! (give it a second to load).  But (big BUT!), this module requires a Paid Premium Support plan… check out the details below.
• Sample Membership Forms – very effective membership signup and membership change forms are included in a zip file in your RGP program folder.  You can also download them directly.  Password is ‘rgp’.
• Admin Security Level -  the ‘manager’ level no longer has access to database settings and other sensitive areas of the software
• Multiple Add-On Membership Products – you can now attach multiple products (team dues, yoga dues, etc.) to a member’s monthly dues
• Customizable EFT Dues Price List – now your staff can pick from a customizable list of preset dues.  You are no longer limited to “First Customer”, “Second Customer”, etc. in the Prorated Computation window or when editing a member’s dues.
• Customizable Punch Increment Buttons – if you sell other than 10 or 5 count punch cards, you can now change the buttons to add as many punches as you’d like.
• Sales Tax Report – this report has been beefed up to include more details about sales tax related transactions
• Tax Exempt Sales – only managers have access to this checkbox now
• Exact Change Button – this button is now available when completing a payment at POS
• Purging of EFT Information – old credit card/checking account numbers are automatically purged from your database after a member has  been terminated and not visited for 6 months
• Purging of Old Member Photos – A new maintenance menu item allows deleting old member photos to free up space in your database

PAID PREMIUM SUPPORT OPTION

It’s been about a year since RGP was released.  And now nearly 30 gyms are running Rock Gym Pro!  I’m pretty psyched by that.  But needless to say, the support demands have reached a point where I can no longer offer significant free support.  Please consider signing up for a Paid Premium Support plan.  Details are available on the Paid Premium Support page.

The short summary is that for $50/month, you get unlimited email support and access to the awesome RGP Charting Module.  Some additional features will soon be coming down the pipe as well that will require having a Paid Premium Support plan in place.  These features include multiple gym support via synchronized databases, automatic offsite backups, and digital offsite waiver storage.  These features will be rolled out in the next 3-6 months.

And this pitch wouldn’t be complete without a little guilt, so here it is I’ve personally invested nearly 3,000 man hours – and typed 100,000 (!) lines of code -  to make this the best software possible for operating a climbing gym.  With your support, Rock Gym Pro will keep getting better, and that will translate to your gym becoming more profitable and easier to operate – because those are my goals.

Sincerely,

Andy Laakmann
Chief RGP Bug Squisher

At the risk of boasting …. if you haven’t already, check out the testimonials.

A short list of just some of the gyms running RGP:

• Rise Up - Lynchburg, VA
• Climb Iowa - Grimes, IA
• Threshold - Riverside, CA
• Hanger 18 - 3 locations in Southern California
• Boston Rock Gym - Boston, MA
• Northwalls - Chicago, IL
• Hoosier Heights - Bloomington, IN
• Zion Rock Gym - Searcy, AR
• Climber’s Rock - Ontario, Canada
• Newcastle Rock Gym - United Kingdom
• Climb Kalamazoo - Kalamazoo, MI
• Movement Climbing + Fitness - Boulder, CO
• Boulderz Climbing Centre - Ontario, Canada
• VerticaleXcape Climbing Center -Evansville, IN
• Holdistic - Edmond, OK
• Bridges Rock Gym - El Cerrito, CA
• Edgeworks - Tacoma, WA
• Texas Rock Gym - Austin, TX
• Rock Sport Reno - Reno, NV
• Vertical Endeavors - St. Paul, MN
• Vertical Dreams - Manchester, NH
  
• Enclosure Climbing Center - Jackson, WY
• The Spire - Bozeman, MT (starting soon)
• Off The Wall - Ontario, Canada
• Momentum - Salt Lake City, UT (starting soon)

Thanks to everyone for helping Rock Gym Pro become such a great success.

Cheers!

Andy Laakmann

• Gift Cards - now you can easily sell and redeem gift cards right in the POS module of Rock Gym Pro.  Rock Gym Pro will keep track of the card balances for you - no more messing around with gift certificates.  More details on gift card sales is available…. a video tutorial is available.
• Easy Backup - Now it is easier than ever to backup your Rock Gym Pro database.  RGP can be configured to create a single compressed, and encrypted database backup file.  Find out all the details on database backup…. a video tutorial is available.

Look for more great features this Summer!

- Andy

The Climbing Wall Association (CWA) has endorsed Rock Gym Pro, and I’ll be offering a free demonstration and discussion workshop during the conference. The demonstration is scheduled for Saturday, May 2nd, and will review the features and benefits of Rock Gym Pro, the specific advantages over health club software packages, workflow suggestions, implementation strategies, and also include information on installing Rock Gym Pro at your facility. Feedback will also be solicited for future developments of Rock Gym Pro.

Details about the Rock Gym Pro demonstration are available at:
http://www.climbingwallindustry.org/cwsdemo_RGP09.php

Details on attending the 2009 Climbing Wall Conference are available at:
http://www.climbingwallindustry.org/cwsmain09.php

Hope to see you at the conference!
Andy Laakmann

Check out the video tutorials and be sure to make a request if a video you are looking for is not available yet.