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  • Australian Rugby Union players adopt Palm® Handhelds to coordinate team and personal commitments for European tour.

    Wallabies Palm off Diary Problems.

    On their recent International tour of Argentina and Europe, the Australian Rugby Union Team, the Wallabies, deployed Palm m515 handhelds to ensure the team and management could share itineraries, training commitments, wardrobe requirements and maintain contact via crucial mobile office services, such as email.

  • "Other solutions that we trialled were not flexible enough to meet our needs. The Palms system allows us to transfer all team information to the handhelds, restrict it from being changed - except by the dedicated diary gatekeepers - and still allows players to enter personal commitments."

    Mr. Eddie Jones
    Wallabies Coach
    Australian Rugby Union Team

    The Challenge
    With one of the most hectic schedules of any Australian sporting team, the Wallabies required a unique diary system that provided ease of use, mobility and most importantly, data integrity.

    Using the previous system, players could spend up to an hour updating their diaries with training schedules, travel itineraries and upcoming corporate events at daily morning meetings.

    "In addition to a diary and data source, senior team management required a fast and reliable means of maintaining contact with officials, colleagues and even Australian media," said Wallabies Coach, Eddie Jones.

    The team required a system that would reduce the administrative task of updating diaries on a daily basis, maintain the integrity of two distinct itineraries (personal and team) within one location, as well as provide a solution for team management to keep in close contact at all times.

    The Solution
    Following consultation with Palm and Wallaby team management, led by Coach, Eddie Jones, 16 Palm m515 handhelds were implemented in September 2002.

    Gavin Maxwell from Pocket Science and Palm Australia worked together to ensure Wallaby team management was able to maintain a master diary, known as 'Team Wallaby Diary'. The master can be 'locked' ensuring unauthorised entries are not made.

    "Other solutions that we trialled were not flexible enough to meet our needs," said Eddie Jones. "The Palms system allows us to transfer all team information to the handhelds, restrict it from being changed - except by the dedicated diary gatekeepers - and still allows players to enter personal commitments."

    While the Wallabies have a very intense schedule they also have many individual commitments, both personal and team related, which the Palm solution accommodates.

    "Players are now able to enter their personal schedules alongside the Team Wallaby Diary comfortable in the knowledge that this information will remain private, even when they synchronise the handheld with the team computers," said Eddie Jones.

    "Wallaby team members come from different towns all over Australia, so the Palms also helps everyone maintain personal travel itineraries," he continued.

    Finally, using a bluetooth card in conjunction with an ISP and the m515 handheld, team management is able to send and receive emails from any location that is covered by their mobile phone network. This allows them to perform necessary office tasks while on tour and in remote locations.

    The Outcome
    Following the success of this trial, the entire Australian Rugby Union Team departed with their Palm m515s for a World Tour on Thursday, 24 October. The 43-strong squad went up against opponents such as Italy, Ireland, England and Argentina.

    Diaries can now be synchronised in a matter of minutes, ensuring daily team meetings do not cut into valuable training or relaxation time.

    Features on the Palm m515, such as an adjustable backlit screen as well as long battery life enabling days of use, helped the team to easily adapt its daily routine for the road.

    Team members could also access third party handheld software such as AvantGo, which allowed them to catch up on Australian news, keeping up to date on the latest from back home.