Costume season without the spreadsheet

Every fall, the same thing happens at our studio. Teachers pick costumes for their classes, and the picks arrive as a pile of Google Form responses. Somebody in the office copies them into a spreadsheet. Then the real work starts: figuring out what each teacher actually meant.

"The purple one" turns out to be one of three purples. An item number is missing a letter. A color comes through as "redolivegreen" because that's what the vendor's photo file was called. Two teachers picked the same costume for two classes that are in the same show. One of the picks was on clearance and sold out before anyone placed the order. And the teacher who picked a shirt, pants, and a crop top as a single outfit submitted them as three separate answers, so the spreadsheet treats them as three competing choices.

None of this is anyone's fault. It's what happens when a decision with a lot of moving parts gets squeezed through a tool that was built for surveys.

Why costume picks are harder than they look

A costume pick isn't one answer. It's a small bundle of facts that all have to be right before you can order:

• The exact item. Company, item number, and name. Vendors reuse names constantly, so the number is what matters.
• The exact color. Spelled the way the vendor spells it, ideally with the photo, so nobody orders "Navy" when the teacher meant "Midnight."
• A preference order. Teachers rarely have just one idea. They have a favorite and a backup, and sometimes two they'd be equally happy with.
• How many pieces. A lot of competition and lyrical costumes are separates. Three pieces, one look.
• Who's wearing it. How many dancers are in the class, and which of them are actually performing, is the number that ends up on the order.

A form with a free-text box captures maybe two of those, and the office fills in the rest by squinting at vendor websites. That's where the week goes.

What we built instead

Teachers paste a link, and the details fill themselves in

In Presently, instructors pick costumes from their own portal. Instead of typing an item number, they paste the product link from the vendor's site. Presently reads the page and fills in the costume name, item number, and company, then shows every available color with its photo. The teacher taps the color they want. That's the pick.

It works with Weissman, Revolution Dancewear, A Wish Come True, Costume Gallery, and Kellé. If a teacher does type a pick by hand, the office can open it, paste the link, and fix it in a few seconds.

Picks are ranked, and ties are allowed

Each pick gets a rank: 1st choice, 2nd choice, and so on. Two picks can share a rank, which means "either one is fine." That tiny detail replaced a whole category of follow-up questions. The studio sees the teacher's real intent at a glance instead of emailing to ask which one they liked better.

One review page for the whole studio

The office reviews every pick on one page, grouped by class. Each class shows when it meets and how many dancers are enrolled, with a button to see the roster, including who isn't performing, without leaving the page. Picks show the photo, company, item number, color, and the teacher's notes.

A few things get flagged automatically:

• Same costume, different classes. If another class in the same season picked the same item, the pick says so ("Also picked for Solo, 1st choice, pending"), and you can jump straight to the other pick.
• Clearance. Picks linked to a clearance page get a Clearance badge, so you check stock before you commit.

Multi-piece outfits approve in one click

When a teacher ranks a shirt, pants, and a top all as 1st choice, that's one outfit. The review page offers "Approve all 3 as one outfit," which approves every tied piece together. Approved costumes go straight onto the class and into every show the class is in, which is what the show book, vendor invoice, and sizing report read from. No re-typing.

What we got wrong on the first pass

Our first version assumed every pick was a single item. The first time a teacher submitted a three-piece outfit, the obvious approve button ("Approve and close the others") would have marked the other two pieces as not needed. The outfit button exists because of that week.

We also underestimated how messy vendor sites are. Item numbers with letter prefixes. Clearance pages with extra words in the address. Newer product pages where the photos have random file names instead of the color, so the colors had to come from the swatches instead. Color names with slashes, like "Red/Olive Green." Every one of those broke on a real costume, and every one is handled now. We'll keep adding to that list as vendors change their sites.

And we initially approved costumes onto the class without updating shows the class was already in, so an approved pick didn't show up on the show book until something else nudged it. Approving now updates every show the class is part of.

If you're shopping for software, look for this

1. Picks with real product data. Can teachers pick from the vendor's actual page, with the exact item number, color, and photo? Or is it a free-text box you'll be decoding later?
2. Ranking and ties. Can a teacher say "this one first, that one if it's sold out," or "either is fine"?
3. Multi-piece costumes. Can separates be approved as one outfit without closing each other out?
4. Duplicate warnings. Will it tell you two classes picked the same costume before you order twice?
5. Roster counts next to the pick. Can you see who's enrolled, and who's performing, while you approve?
6. Approval that flows downstream. Does an approved costume land on the show book, sizing, and invoices, or do you re-enter it?

We built this because we were the studio drowning in the spreadsheet. If you're about to send your teachers this year's Google Form, it doesn't have to go that way.