HIPAA and MotorsportReg.com

Date

June 11, 2013 by Brian Ghidinelli

MotorsportReg.com has the optional ability to collect medical information required for club racing. We occasionally get asked whether or not we're compliant with the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) passed in 1996.

Generally these inquiries come from people who work in the medical industry where nearly everyone is subject to HIPAA because either they are a "covered entity" or because they do business with one. Covered entities are defined under HIPAA as:

  • a health care provider that conducts certain transactions in electronic form

  • a health care clearinghouse

  • a health plan


There are a series of handy flow charts that help walk through the process in detail. MotorsportReg.com meets none of these definitions and thus we are not subject to HIPAA.

Whether we are subject to HIPAA or not, we still must comply with PCI DSS and other data security laws and as privacy-minded citizens ourselves, we care a lot about keeping this information secure but accessible for its intended use: saving lives in the case of an emergency. In our system, participant medical information is accessible only in a single report formatted for use by the on-site ambulance or emergency crews. We restrict access to authorized administrators in the same way that paper forms would be protected.

Some organizations like the SCCA have stopped asking for medical information on their registration forms. I think it's a combination of risk management and advances in medicine. ALS crews reportedly don't trust the blood type written on a helmet because they can test it in seconds making collection a moot point. With concerns around identity theft and increased sensitivity towards privacy, we expect to see more clubs drop this requirement.
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Topics: FAQ

We're Beta!

Date

June 11, 2013 by Mark

obl_beta_badge.gif
Fun badge from SlideShowPro.net
After many months of Brian coding his fingers down to nubbins, the next major evolution of the MotorsportReg.com Eventmaster360 motorsports management platform has gone Beta. We are very excited about this release as it both fulfills some major feature requests by competitive event organizations (such as a Permanent Number Manager and Order Form Dependencies) and also brings many, many smaller enhancements that will improve the experience for everyone who uses it.

We are particularly proud of the flexibility of the Permanent Number Manager, which allows organizers to enforce number uniqueness on a class, event, year, etc basis. It will even allow sharing of number pools across organizations in support of cross-regional or cross-divisional events.

The new order form has been streamlined both for the organizer as well as for the attendee, leveraging a lot of Javascript to make it as interactive and seamless as possible. Organizers can now set requirements such as "if you order Package A, you must also order Package B", which should go a long way toward eliminating incorrect orders and after-the-fact package editing, as well as associate questions and actions with packages directly instead of just placing them generically at the top of the page.

Our newly revamped Who's Attending feature can now optionally list car make/model, class, and sponsor and can be made publicly visible so potential attendees can scope out the competition before they sign up. We've also updated the Email Blaster with a much slicker UI that makes communicating with your members and attendees easier than ever.

This release includes some new technologies under the hood, too, which will speed development of new features. Once the Beta period is over and we are live with the new code, we'll be starting in on Round 2 of our To Do List. Next up is Deferred Payment Processing, which will allow organizers to collect payment information at the time of registration but not actually process the dollars until some arbitrary later date. Defered Payment Processing will be an industry-first in motorsports!

And wait until you see what we've got tee'd up after that!

We are in the home stretch of a process that began in mid-2007, so please bear with us as we finish up the last bit of bug hunting and code polishing. Look for MotorsportReg.com to gain some fantastic new features in a matter of days.
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Topics: Misc, Features

Meeting The SCCA In San Antonio

Date

June 11, 2013 by Mark

SCCA Convention Logo 2008As many of you know, we've got some pretty amazing new features coming soon that will really benefit competitive organizations who use MotorsportReg.com. Things like Deferred Payment Processing (to prevent refunds), Order Form Dependencies (to account for required compliance fees, etc), and a Permanent Number Manager will bring a new level of efficiency to competitive event administration.

With these features solidly under development, we here at Pukka Software headed out to the SCCA National Conference in San Antonio Texas in early February to demonstrate MotorsportReg.com to SCCA Region administrators from across the country. The response from these hard-working volunteers was fantastic and we truly enjoyed getting to know SCCA people from other parts of USA. Our SCCA customers here on the West Coast, San Francisco Region and Oregon Region, had nice things to say about us in their Inter-Region Cooperation session and we very much appreciate their support and encouragement.

One thing that struck both Brian and me was the incredible dedication to the club that SCCA members and volunteers exhibit. The sense of community was overwhelming and it was a particular privilege to be in attendance at the awards ceremony on the last night at which a variety of volunteers were honored. Several SCCA luminuaries including Kjell Qvalle were inducted into the SCCA Hall of Fame and Kjell was kind enough to share some memories of his many decades in motorsports. A truly amazing experience all the way around. We would particularly like to thank the SCCA Events team headed by Melissa Flesher for taking such good care of all the vendors - you guys made us feel very welcome. Brian and I are both proud to be SCCA members and we look forward to serving the club for many years.

Speaking of serving, we are happy to welcome a few new SCCA regions to MotorsportReg.com. SCCA South Bend Region has come aboard, as have Central Kentucky Region, Kansas City Region, Mississippi Region, and Southern Indiana Region.

Outside of the Sports Car Club of America, the Badger Chapter of the Audi Club of North America has begun using MotorsportReg.com, as have Adare Motorsports and Cascade Sports Car Club up in the Pacific Northwest.

Thanks to everyone for their support. We look forward to serving you through 2008 and beyond!
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See you in San Antonio!

Date

June 11, 2013 by Brian Ghidinelli

Just a quick reminder that we'll be at the SCCA National Convention in San Antonio, Texas this week Wednesday through Sunday. Mark and I will be manning a MotorsportReg.com booth in the exhibit hall so please stop by and say hi. We've already talked with many SCCA organizers who will be stopping by and we would love to give you a quick demo of how MotorsportReg.com provides maximum value for your region.

We're also excited because two of our customers, San Francisco Region SCCA and Oregon Region SCCA will be presenting an hour-long talk on how the two regions worked together on their website redesigns and online registration using MotorsportReg.com. Don't miss this - it will be a great session on how regions can leverage each other.

See you there!
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Pass on Paypal

Date

September 25, 2014 by Brian Ghidinelli

People ask us all the time if we accept Paypal. We don't. Of course the next question is, "why not?" This article from the Wall Street Journal contains the reason:

You'll Get Weaker Protections. Security is frequently touted as one of the upsides to alternate-payment programs. After all, there is no credit-card number to steal. "But that means you won't have the same protections as if you were paying with a credit card," said Consumer Federation's Ms. Grant. "[Fraud] coverage is extremely limited, and whatever protections the service does give you are voluntary."

I'm not singling out Paypal here; it's simply the most popular example of an unregulated financial institution. They are not bound by the same laws as banks and consumers do not enjoy the protection of FDIC insurance or credit card liability limitations. While the risk is low, it would be a critical condition if you're an event organizer with $10,000 of invoices and a frozen Paypal account.

Here at MotorsportReg.com, we'll continue to accept good old fashioned, guaranteed payment so organizers don't have to worry about their bank account going dry. We pay out every two weeks via direct deposit whether you're due $1 or $100,000. Like clockwork!

Update Jan 24th: Paypal freezes Ron Paul donations. Yikes!

Update 2014: To be clear, we're mostly talking about protections for event organizers who would RECEIVE money.  Paypal is certainly secure in the sense of protecting attendee cardholder data.  However, you have less control on the merchant side.  Here are two examples from the past year that demonstrate this is an ongoing challenge that could be devastating to an event organizer who needs to pay their bills:

Paypal Freezes $45,000 of Mailpile's Crowdfunded dollars (2013)

Paypal Freezes $35,000 donation to fund treatment for a cancer patient (2013)



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Topics: FAQ

Growth And Changes

Date

June 11, 2013 by Mark

Given that I've been a part of Pukka Software for well over a year now, it's probably time to introduce myself to those of you that I've not spoken with yet. My name is Mark Dadgar and I'm a motorsports junkie. As a long time user of MotorsportReg.com and an even longer-time eventmaster, I joined Brian to help bring these fantastic tools to the widest array of clubs and organizations possible. I'm primarily responsible for customer support, sales, and marketing, but given the can-do attitude here at Pukka Software, I'm happy to pitch in wherever my skills are needed.

Since we're talking about recent additions to the MotorsportReg.com family, we'd like to welcome some new organizations to the fold. Audi Club North America has come onboard with their National-office sponsored Steamboat Winter Driving school plus ACNA Florida brings their driving events program as well. Two large and well-respected Porsche Club of America regions, North Country and Northern New Jersey, bring their active and enthusiastic members to the MotorsportReg.com community and they are joined by SCCA Las Vegas, too. Up in the Pacific Northwest, BMW CCA Puget Sound chapter and the Northwest Alfa Romeo Club have adopted our tools to streamline their programs. Independent organizations Touring Car Racing Association and ProAutoSports also recognized the benefits we provide and signed on with us early in 2008, joined by Northeast SHO Club over on the Right Coast as well.

To all our new clients, thank you for the trust you put in us and Welcome Aboard! It's going to be a great year!

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New Servers This Weekend

Date

June 11, 2013 by Brian Ghidinelli

While everyone is focusing on fun and family this holiday season, we've been hard at work bringing PCI DSS compliance to MotorsportReg.com. This weekend we're finally ready to install 12 new servers for the next generation of MotorsportReg.com. Here is the schedule:

  • Thursday Day - Visual inspection

  • Friday Day - Cabinet setup, new hardware move-in, power-on

  • Saturday Day - Final configuration and testing

  • Saturday Night - Migrate data to new hardware

  • Sunday Day - Update existing hardware, rotate back into cluster



Saturday evening is the window for possible service outage. We will be migrating key services like Web, Mail and Database starting around 11PM. We are allocating up to four hours for the migration but expect it to take less than 60 minutes. From 11PM-3AM MotorsportReg.com may be unavailable or unreliable. This site will also be subject to the same window.

We'll write a follow-up here when all is said and done and we've had some rest. And cleaned the office. :)

See you on the flip side...
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SproutIt Highlights MotorsportReg.com

Date

June 11, 2013 by Brian Ghidinelli

Part of our customer service infrastructure is a tool called Mailroom. It uses the same technology as spam filters (Bayesian algorithms) to suggest responses to common customer questions letting us answer emails quickly with the ability to customize each response for clarity.

Some months ago, I answered a few questions about MSR and our use of Mailroom and the guys over at SproutIt just published a customer case study featuring MotorsportReg.com. Check it out!

We are working with SproutIt to integrate Mailroom with MotorsportReg.com for 2008 to help our customers automate their email and save them more time when under the gun.
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Triple Launch: New Site, blog and pricing!

Date

June 11, 2013 by Brian Ghidinelli

Screenshot - pukkasoft.com design version 2
We outgrew our previous design
Today we have three big announcements. The first is a major update to the
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Earthquake Report

Date

June 11, 2013 by Brian Ghidinelli

Last night at 8:04pm Pacific time, a 5.6 magnitude earthquake occurred approximately 5 miles from our data center in Santa Clara where MotorsportReg.com runs.

No damage occurred to the building and our systems remained online with no interruption to service. Everything performed as it is designed without problems.

This is why MSR is not the cheapest option out there: we prioritize reliability and support over unsustainable rock-bottom pricing. Many thanks to our customers who understand this choice and have chosen to work with the best.
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