July 11, 2023
You Don’t Know What You Don’t Know.
Ron McKeefery, Head Strength and Conditioning Coach at University of Washington, was looking for a data visualization solution that could handle all of the disparate data points that the Huskies had stored online.
When it comes to data, you don’t know what you don’t know, so it pays to have a platform that can help surface insights you would otherwise overlook.
Like many strength coaches, Coach McKeefery started down the Excel and Google Sheets route. “Eventually you get to a point where you’re storing so much data, you need a database solution,” McKeefery explains. “We looked at several different AMS platforms, but were very frustrated by the pricing structure—I couldn’t get my head around why it would cost so much. Why should I pay an exorbitant price for something that I would be pigeonholed into?”
Fortunately, McKeefery came across RockDaisy. “Here’s two guys who have been data scientists for the NFL for a combined 20+ years, and have experience building out a framework of exactly what we wanted.”
Our Dashboards Are Incredible Now
RockDaisy’s framework of data visualization allows users to drill down into specific data points, and easily pull up multiple reports, which changes the way users see that data.
Coach McKeefery acknowledges that visualization is the hardest part for coaches to get their heads around. “My advice for coaches is to take a sheet of paper and draw out what you want your framework to look like, and what you would like to do with that. If I can click a player’s bench press and see their historical data, would that be great?”
If you’ve ever created or managed a website, you understand that the back and forth is where you spend a lot of time. The more you can accomplish on the front end and figure out how you want to visualize the data will help eliminate a lot of the back and forth.
McKeefery and his team are constantly challenging themselves to improve their dashboards and find new ways to visualize the data they import. Questions from coaching staff and athletes are seized upon as opportunities to present data in a different light.
“There really wasn’t anything that couldn’t be done. What we found was our limitation was us. We had to learn how to verbalize exactly what we wanted to get our dashboards to be as specific to exactly what we need.”
RockDaisy Saves Us a Ton of Time
Another sticking point for McKeefery is that with third party platforms like Tableau and Microsoft PowerBI, learning the skills needed to master those platforms on top of one’s full-time job is just too much to ask.
RockDaisy’s streamlined interface takes the pain out of onboarding. The platform is designed in a smart and simple-to-use way, so anyone can easily manage dashboards and view reports. The platform is also mobile and tablet-friendly, which allows users to access the platform from any device.
What used to be a monotonous, time consuming process of collecting athlete onboarding data is now straightforward and hassle-free. “Google Sheets, downloading CSVs, putting data in, creating visualizations based on that… anyone who’s done that knows the amount of data points that go into that, and the data hygiene you need… it’s time consuming.”
According to McKeefery, “We just send the forms out and the athletes fill them in. We pull them up, see what they’re missing, and fix it right then and there. RockDaisy saves us a ton of time.”
This Makes it Easy for Them to Know Which Data They Should Focus on
Coach McKeefery especially enjoys the ability to create customized alerts and push notifications for coaches. “Coaches get an alert if somebody doesn’t hit 90% of max speed, or gets X number of collisions, or whatever—they get that alert. That is very helpful.”
McKeefery can also control which coaches access which data, and can limit their access to certain dashboards. This makes it easy for them to know which data they should focus on. And with RockDaisy data security is paramount. The platform operates both on-premise and in the cloud so users have the option of where and how they want to store their data.
Thanks to RockDaisy athletes and coaches can keep their goals front and center and put the focus on performance.
About RockDaisy LLC
The RockDaisy AMS platform helps organizations ensure athletes are ready to perform at their best. By consolidating, compiling and visually presenting data RockDaisy AMS provides organizations with the analytical tools they need to make informed decisions that will optimize results.
Founded in 2014 by the two developers of the NFL’s analytics services. RockDaisy is a New York based company and is proud to be the analytics & visualization platform for a growing number of sports organizations across the NFL, NBA, NHL, NCAA, NHSSCA and other elite sports leagues around the world. For more information, visit rockdaisy.com
Contact Information:
Chris Tanck
RockDaisy LLC
info@rockdaisy.com
