Success Story: How an NGO Football Club Transformed Data Management with Jira & Backbone Work Sync

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An NGO football club faced growing challenges in managing membership data using outdated Excel spreadsheets and email chains. With data inconsistencies, security risks, and time-consuming manual updates, the club needed a smarter solution.

By using Atlassian’s community licenses to create two Jira projects for data management and Backbone Work Sync to sync key information, they eliminated inefficiencies and streamlined operations. The transition was led by Michael Bernhard, a long-time club member and CEO of catworkx, an Atlassian Platinum Solution Partner.

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The Challenge

Imagine running a football club with hundreds of players and members, all tracked on … Excel spreadsheets. For years, this club struggled with managing data, trying to keep track of everything from personal details and payments to team assignments.

As the club grew, this Excel nightmare only worsened, especially at the end of the season when coaches submitted separate lists that had to be manually reconciled.

This led to several problems:

🚨 Data Inconsistencies: Coaches kept individual Excel lists, leading to mismatched and outdated records.
🔓 Security Concerns: Financial and personal data lacked controlled access, risking privacy issues.
🕒 Manual Workload: At the end of each season, administrators had to manually consolidate data, leading to errors and wasted time.

The club needed a centralized, secure, and automated system allowing coaches, administrators, and board members to access only specific information — without all the spreadsheet hassle.

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The Solution: Moving to Jira with Backbone Work Sync

With the help of catworkx, the club transitioned to Jira, using it as a CRM and turning each player’s data into a Jira ticket.

However, access control and data privacy remained a concern:

• Administrators and board members needed access to complete member data, including financial records and personal information.

• Coaches only needed player details like contact information and team history but shouldn’t see sensitive data.

• Meanwhile, data must remain up-to-date for all stakeholders while protecting sensitive information.

Instead of using complex field-level security in Jira, catworkx created two separate Jira projects and leveraged Backbone Work Sync to seamlessly synchronize data across two projects:

✅ Master Project (Administration & Board Members): Stores all member information, e.g., banking details, membership fee, etc.
✅ Coach Project (Limited Access for Coaches): Contains only relevant player details, e.g., injury record, availability schedule — without exposing other private data.

Backbone automatically synchronizes updates between the two projects, ensuring any changes made on either project are also kept in sync while sensitive data remains secure.

The club operates with around 100 free community licenses for Jira while ensuring that board members, admins, and coaches have the appropriate access levels.

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Implementation & Results

With Catworkx guiding the setup, the transition to Jira and Backbone Work Sync was quick and seamless.

“We configured Backbone’s synchronization, which was done within two hours. It’s reliable. It’s stable. It’s fast. No complaints at all. We set it up once 5 years ago, and it’s been running smoothly ever since.” — Michael Bernhard, CEO, catworkx

The Backbone Advantage

• No Data Silos – Coaches and admins always see the latest information.

• Enhanced Data Security – Only authorized users can access specific data.

• Eliminated Excel Overload – No more manually consolidating spreadsheets at season-end.

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Why This Matters for Other Organizations

Backbone’s benefits extend to any organization needing to synchronize data across multiple Jira projects while maintaining strict security.

🚀 Use Cases Beyond Football Clubs:

• HR & Compliance: Employee records in separate HR & payroll projects.

• IT Asset Management: Keeping IT & Finance records in sync.

• Customer Support & Engineering: Sharing ticket updates across JSM and Jira instances like Arvato Systems or Jira to Jira behind firewalls like MIC GmbH.

“Backbone Work Sync was the perfect solution for us. The sync ensures our coaches always have up-to-date information while protecting sensitive data. It has significantly reduced manual work and improved our overall efficiency. We don’t even have to think about it anymore—it just runs seamlessly in the background.”
— Michael Bernhard, CEO, catworkx

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Jira and Backbone Score Big

By moving from Excel to Jira and implementing Backbone Work Sync, this NGO football club completely transformed how they manage member data.

With Backbone running in the background, the club can focus on developing players and engaging the community—instead of wasting time on admin work.

Want to streamline your organization’s data management?

📩 Contact catworkx today to learn how you can implement Jira & Backbone, or try Backbone free for 30 days for secure, efficient, and scalable data synchronization.

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[Michaela Mayer (K15t)]

I love working with our close partner Catworkx and our contacts there! My colleagues Umer and Liset from the Backbone team did such a great job on that Customer Success Story.