Cue the tumbleweeds and western showdown tunes.
Sauntering slowly across no man’s land up to the Manifest desk (or window) is an unknown loner. In our story, the stranger is neither antagonist or protagonist, simply a wanderer, a skydiver who claims no drop zone as his home. Our unfamiliar guest wants to check-in and be manifested. Except, he lacks any paper record of his last logged jump and can’t seem to locate his USPA Membership card.
The props are turning in the distance, but here things are coming to a halt. Before any drop zone representative, in good conscience, can let this jumper manifest, his currency and credentials have to be confirmed. Since there’s no proof on hand, calls must be made to the last visited drop zone (here’s hoping they are in the same time zone) and a visit to the USPA website to search for credential verification has to be completed. Time’s a tickin’. Tensions are high, and there doesn’t seem to be any resolution in sight.
Any of this feel familiar?
Our friends at Sigma and Burble saw this standoff (and the long line that formed behind it) one too many times and have come to the rescue. This here is no snake oil. It’s an integration between Sigma and Burble which officially debuts in the late spring of 2019, and it is about to make the check-in process significantly easier, especially if you’re jumping at one of the many drop zones utilizing Burble software around the United States.
The Sigma-Burble integration is a streamlined means of credential verification and currency validation. With ease, skydivers can grant Burble drop zones access to view their Merits on Sigma. Merits can include but are not limited to, those ever important USPA Credentials, ratings and coursework, and even the jumpers most recently completed skydives. Instantly, drop zones can have access to verified information in one convenient spot. When the jumper grants a Burble drop zone access to view their Sigma Merits, it enables near real-time viewing of their credentials. As skydive credentials expire, are renewed, or are updated, it is automatically updated into the drop zone’s Burble DZM Account.
Drop zones that take advantage of the newly integrated systems are able to automatically send Merits for completed jumps at the close of the day, whether it be to tandems, fun jumpers, or staff. For fun jumpers, the issued Merits serve as a “digital signature”. Soon, the need for other clunky means of verification will be obsolete. No more chasing after scraps of paper and illegible signatures after sunset skydives.
Drop zone representatives benefit too. Check-in staff will no longer need to manually input jumper information or search the USPA database with the Group member lookup tool. With the instant access to verified, auto-updated information, that the Sigma & Burble integration provides, drop zones can verify the standing of the jumper/instructor/mysterious stranger with no home drop zone with ease. The result is less time at check-in and more time on airplanes, which is something that makes everyone happy.
All in all, the integration process for the jumper is easy, and with such a streamlined shortcut from check-in to freefall, it certainly makes getting in the air a breeze for sport jumpers. In about three minutes, skydivers can link their Sigma account to their BurbleMe account. From here, jumpers will be offered the option to authorize their preferred Burble drop zone(s) access to Sigma Merits. Now, when they check in at a Burble drop zone, their information is passed automatically. Just like that, the jumper is ready to get rollin’, with only a few moments spent at the check-in desk.
Rarely does something benefit drop zone owners, staff, and sport jumpers across the board, but this integration definitely does. Through utilizing the new integration, drop zone owners can feel confident in the legitimacy of the jumpers on their planes and avoid any worry about forgery, input errors, or out-of-date documentation. By removing the need to cross-check multiple sources in order to verify visiting jumper’s credentials and currency, the system integration vastly simplifies check-in for drop zone staff, and in effect, the simplified check-in means sport jumpers can get manifested without hassle. We can hear it now, the collective whoosh of a thousand sighs of relief because Burble and Sigma just made life easy for everyone!
