Coach qualification and DBS expiry rostering check
Problem
Academy coach eligibility today lives in a spreadsheet an administrator updates when someone remembers to send a renewed certificate. Session rotas go out in a messaging group two days before training, built against a printed matrix of who is qualified for which age group, or against nobody's clear memory of whose Disclosure and Barring Service check is still valid. A coach whose DBS check lapsed in June can still appear on Tuesday's rota because the person building it did not open the spreadsheet, or because a certificate that was meant to be chased in May sits in an inbox unread. Nobody discovers the gap until a parent or a governing body auditor asks for it, and by then the session has already run.
Product idea
A workflow that sits between the qualification record and the rota. Each coach has a record of DBS status, first aid certification and coaching licence level with expiry dates entered once and updated as renewals come through. When someone builds a session assignment, the tool checks every named coach against the age group and flags anyone whose check has lapsed or is expiring within a set window, before the rota goes out. A lapsed coach cannot be confirmed against a youth session without an explicit override, and an override is logged and routed to the coach developer to follow up. Renewal reminders go out on a fixed schedule ahead of expiry rather than depending on someone noticing a paper certificate date. It does not perform the DBS check itself or verify a certificate's authenticity, only tracks the dates a person has entered.
Who it is for
Coach developers who build weekly rotas, academy coaches whose eligibility is being tracked, and the head coach who is accountable if a lapsed check reaches a youth session.
Possible first version
A web app holding one record per coach, covering DBS status, first aid and coaching licence level, each with an expiry date and document reference entered manually. A rota view lets a coach developer check a named list of coaches against an age group and see any lapsed or expiring entries highlighted before publishing. Automated email reminders fire at fixed intervals ahead of expiry. Overrides are logged with a reason and a coach developer's sign-off. Version one has no integration with a governing body's verification database or the session planning tool; dates are entered by hand, and a rota is checked by pasting in a list of names.
- Build classification
- Workflow application
- Rough effort
- 4-6 week first release
- Roles involved
- Academy coach, Coach developer, Head coach
- Relevant to
- Academy & youth, Professional club, Federation / governing body
- Systems in play
- Spreadsheets, Messaging apps, Session planning tools
- Product framing
- Automate a workflow
Questions we get asked
What do we need ready before we could even try this?
One list: every coach's name, DBS expiry date, first aid expiry date and coaching licence expiry date. A spreadsheet export is enough to load a pilot. You do not need a clean system behind it, and you do not need every historical certificate scanned in. The tool works from whatever dates someone can currently produce, which is usually most of what is needed to see whether the gate would have caught anything in the last rota.
Does this replace the system where we already hold personnel and HR records?
No. Most clubs already have somewhere contracts, personnel files and compliance records live, and this does not try to become that. It is a decision layer that acts at one moment: when a coach is about to be put in front of players. In version one it holds its own copy of expiry dates, entered by hand, so keeping that copy in step with whatever your HR record says is a real cost, not a solved problem.
We already track expiry dates in a spreadsheet. What does this add?
A spreadsheet is a record. It only stops a lapsed coach reaching a session if somebody opens it and checks before the rota goes out, and that is exactly the step that gets skipped on a busy week. This tool runs the check automatically at the point the rota is built rather than relying on that habit holding every single time. If your team genuinely never misses that check, you do not need this. Most do not have that discipline every week of a season.
What happens when a coach has to be swapped in on the morning of a session?
The check still runs against whoever is actually named. If the replacement's record is current they are confirmed as normal, in seconds. If it is not, the override path is there for exactly this situation, but it forces someone to approve it in writing rather than the session simply going ahead because nobody had time to look. The override is logged with who approved it and why, so it shows up later rather than disappearing into a group chat.
Is this your workflow?
Tell us one sports workflow that still runs on paper, spreadsheets, WhatsApp or an outdated system. We will map it and show you what a simpler product looks like.
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