The Challenge

Horse Racing Alberta (HRA) is a not-for-profit corporation established in part to ensure fairness and safety in horse racing. The organization manages all aspects of industry licensing, from issuing licenses to individuals involved in racing, to enforcing racing regulations and tracking horses’ medical records. HRA is dedicated to ensuring a high standard of care is maintain in the industry. To meet regulatory compliance, anyone with access to the track and stables, starting with the horse owners and jockeys and ending with the ground’s personnel and racing officials, must be properly licensed. With more than 20 license types in each of the four racing classes, HRA needs a system to efficiently issue licenses and retrieve vital information. The organization had a legacy software application in place to facilitate the licensing process, however the aging tool was complex and cumbersome to use making it difficult to provide ongoing support and train new staff members.

Satisfied with a positive application support experience on a separate project, HRA re-engaged DevFacto to redesign its existing licensing software.

The Solution

User Experience Redefined

HRA enlisted DevFacto to modernize its legacy licensing system and to improve user experience for the clerical staff. To truly understand the customer’s unique environment and culture, a team of DevFacto analysts immersed themselves into HRA’s processes through a series of discovery exercises which included workshops, field studies and a system audit. By observing business processes first hand, the team gained deep insight into HRA’s information ecosystem and were able to offer user-centric design recommendations based on real-life user data.

Ease of Use

Due to the volume of processing and the need to understand each licensee quickly, the new solution focuses on simplicity and efficiency allowing the licensing clerk to find and access the information they are looking for in a clear, intuitive way. All key pieces of information are clickable and any records requiring action can be easily identified thanks to a system of visual flags. Additionally, the built-in license selection wizard helps streamline the issuing process by guiding the user while enforcing business logic and automating repetitive steps.

Quicker Information Sharing

Previously limited to use by licensing clerks only, the new tool opens the possibility of adding different user types. By expanding the user base, the new licensing tool facilitates quicker sharing of licensing data across the organization, decreasing the number of internal inquiries. Judges, stewards, veterinarians and security staff can now access necessary information directly in the application paving the road for future operational efficiencies.

“The new licensing tool has been wonderful to use. Our staff are very receptive to the application and find it simple and intuitive.”
Debbie Waddington, Licensing Clerk at Horse Racing Alberta.

License Selection Wizard

License Selection Wizard enables the clerk to easily select all applicable license types, verify licensee information and process license payment

Horse Licensing Software Tool Screen Shot

Licensing Software- license card printing screenshot

Payment and License Printing

After entering personal details and processing payment, the license card can be printed directly from the application

License History

License History screen makes it easy to identify records requiring action

Managed Application Services

Following the deployment, HRA has retained DevFacto’s managed application services team for ongoing system support and future application enhancements. By choosing a single partner for end-to-end application development, HRA ensures that their new tool will be supported and maintained by a team familiar with the design and skilled to evolve the product as business needs grow and change.

“I couldn’t have asked for a nicer, more caring and more supportive team than the group of people at DevFacto’s managed application services.”
Debbie Waddington, Licensing Clerk at Horse Racing Alberta