Mike ParrishAssistant A.D., FootballUniversity of ArizonaWhy did you decide to implement Teamworks for your program?The first thing that impressed me and others on our staff was the scheduling system. The ability to know when athletes are available with just a couple clicks is something we’ve never had before. We’ve used Teamworks to build out the whole team calendar.The second thing was the communication system. When we arrived as a staff we had another system that we were using to send out mass texts to our team, but it wasn’t very effective and not many people were using it. Now with Teamworks, we have one system that our coaches, operations, strength staff, trainers, and academic support staff can use to easily communicate with our athletes.The other thing that impressed us was the ability to connect the university system to Teamworks. Now our coaches and support staff can log in to Teamworks during the drop-add period and know for a fact who is in class, when they are in class, and where they are in class. Coach Rodriguez in particular really liked this feature.Our coaches also like that we can pull up the athlete class schedules on the mobile app on our iPhones and iPads so if they want to call a kid, they can pull up the Teamworks app and say “He’s in class right now, I’ll call him in 10 minutes.How have you and your staff used Teamworks so far?We use Teamworks to communicate when we are doing hospital visits. The players have been very responsive to our communications. In the past this has been a very tedious process where we would have to reach out directly to our players.Our Athletic Trainers have been using Teamworks to schedule medical appointments. They are able to find the right time for the appointment, schedule it, notify the player, and then Teamworks will automatically remind the players of the appointment so we know they’re on the way. It has been huge not just for our players, but for keeping our staff organized and on the same page as well. We use it to organize staff meetings, share information, and communicate any changes quickly.How would you rate Teamworks' implementation process, training, and customer service?The implementation process was great. The staff at Teamworks have been easy to deal with, they worked around our schedule, and they made sure they got everyone on our staff walked through the system step-by-step to make sure they had a total understanding of the product.Compared to other companies we have dealt with, Teamworks is one of the best. Customer service is something that we really focus on when we make choices about which products and services we purchase, and with Teamworks it has been excellent. A lot of companies, when you call or request service, you get put on hold, in queue, and have to wait for them to get to you. This has not been the case with the Teamworks staff. They are accessible and work to quickly take care of our needs.Would you recommend Teamworks to other football programs?I would say absolutely other programs need to have this system. Everyone in the operations profession knows that coaches want to coach football, and there are times when they need information quickly, and Teamworks enables us to get to that information immediately. In some instances it stops the coaches from even asking questions because now they can easily access the information themselves.There are a lot of recruiting systems you see that make their main focus recruiting. They may say they have “team management”, but the reason we use them is for their recruiting tools. With Teamworks, you have a product which is solely designed for team management. Teamworks puts all their focus on operating your team on a day-to-day basis, which as a DFO is the most valuable tool I could have.