Software business Legend Club Management Systems has launched the industry’s first leisure management system, with open data functionality already enabled, at no additional cost for all clients.

The announcement follows an industry-first initiative, launched in November 2018, that saw ukactive, Sport England and the Open Data Institute working with OpenActive and Legend to enable deeper collaboration and data-sharing.

Commitment to Sector
Legend’s commitment to supporting the industry is demonstrated again through its support of OpenActive, the sector-wide open data initiative which is stewarded by the Open Data Institute (ODI) in partnership with Sport England.

Sean Maguire, MD of Legend says: “The success of OpenActive is fundamental to our progress as an industry.

"The term ‘open data’ should not be misunderstood," he explains. "It’s actually about making information that's already available on the web easier to access."

"OpenActive has two phases," he continues. "The first is the 'opportunity feed', which opens up opportunities for new business, while the second phase – the 'bookings standard' – enables people to book across platforms.

"Here at Legend, we immediately identified OpenActive as a vital initiative that helps the sector. It is also an opportunity for our industry to demonstrate to stakeholders, including government, that it's technically advanced, and capable of cooperating on data standards to support innovation," he concluded.

Progressive Collaboration
"The new OpenActive standards have benefitted from a progressive industry collaboration between operators, innovators, vendors, Sport England, the ODI, and OpenActive," says Maguire. "It's a collaboration to be proud of and early adopters have shown it has powerful benefits, such as opening up new channels to market unbooked time slots and introducing people in new market segments to clubs and leisure centres."

Sector on Show
"In addition to being an outstanding example of industry collaboration, the success of the OpenActive initiative is inherently positive for wider industry stakeholders," says Maguire: "For Public Health England’s Change4Life campaign, OpenActive has the potential to add a leisure sector multiplier to every pound invested (Change4Life already has five million downloads of its app). The same applies to Sport England’s This Girl Can initiative.

"The initiative is something we should celebrate as a sector and proudly talk about," he says. "The sector has a new chance to shine, as it addresses increasing concerns over physical inactivity," he continues. "The availability of open opportunity data and booking APIs will accelerate innovation in our sector by allowing smaller innovators to deliver fresh and exciting access to health and leisure facilities and activities.

"Open data provides greater opportunities for innovation which we must embrace, or we will get left behind as a sector," he concludes.

Why commit to open data?
"OpenActive lays the foundation to help more people get active and get more people into leisure facilities," says Maguire. "This benefit comes at no cost, propelled by millions of pounds’ worth of investment in things like the 2019 Change4Life campaign, which starts in July using the OpenActive opportunity feed and the This Girl Can campaign, to name but two.

"Opening the opportunities feed has no downside for operators," says Maguire, "only the probability of increased demand and easier access to services to help grow physical activity."

No charge to customers
Legend has enabled all its customers to open their data for collaboration with third parties and to adopt open data standards, with this being free of charge.

The aim is to enable all 2,000 facilities that use Legend software to open up their ‘opportunity feeds’ in time for the summer launch of the Change4Life campaign.

Embrace Innovation
OpenActive's Richard Norris believes the industry needs to embrace innovation to keep abreast of new ideas and trends. He said: “We’re delighted to be working in partnership with Legend to enable such a large proportion of the sector to open its data in this way, and to make collaboration with third parties a question of business strategy, not technical possibility.”

Evidencing
Operators are aware that the measure of quality and effectiveness in service delivery is shifting from cost to outcomes and a key aim of OpenActive is providing 'sector-benefitting evidence'.

As an industry, we're undeniably innovative in how we engage our communities, but we have poor data in key stages of the journey, which hinders evidencing. OpenActive will help us to measure benefits, costs and outcomes through data standards and innovation.

In one particular aspect, health outcomes tracking, Legend is leading the way by helping customers track their investment in communities and evidence social ROI with its innovative Active Outcomes health outcomes module.

Putting Customers First
Speaking at the recent OpenActive bookings workshop, Maguire said: “Since Legend has been engaged with OpenActive, our position has been that operators need to embrace innovation or accept being out-innovated!

"We live in an era of rapid change, where they cannot easily identify the next innovation that has the potential to grow their business. We want to make collaboration frictionless and by removing barriers, we’ve made this technically possible for all our clients, so it’s now up to operators to decide how they engage and help grow the reach of the sector.”