Your organization probably has some sort of league (or
division) structure that you'll need to define before you start creating teams
on the web site. The structure can be as simple as just a House and a
Travel league or far more complicated with many leagues, sub-divisions, and even
sub-sub-divisions if you like.
A simple structure might look like
this:
House League
Team
1
Team 2
..
Travel
League
Team 1
Team
2
..
A more complex organization might look like the
following:
League 1
Division
1
Subdivision
1
Team
1
Team
2
..
Subdivision
2
Sub-Subdivision
Team
1
Team
2
..
Division 2
..
League
2
Etc.
As you can see, you can create a structure of any complexity. If your
association plays more than one sport, you might substitute the different sports
for the leagues shown above. Likewise, if you're setting up a regional
club web site, you might use towns or individual clubs for the leagues and their
own leagues as divisions and subdivisions. There's no limit to the
complexity of the structures you can create, nor are there any limits on the
number of teams you can define within the structures.
To create leagues, you'll use the "Divisions &
Teams" menu choice on the Admin menu. When clicked, this choice brings up
a league and team listing page that displays the leagues already defined so
far. At the top of the page is a link titled "Add a new
league/division." Click this link to bring up the League Information
form. The form has the following fields:
- Name
Type the name of the
new league here, up to 32 characters.
- Menu Position
The menu position will allow you to order your divisions
and leagues within your website. To place a divsion or league at the top of
the list, enter 1. To continue the listed sequence enter 2, 3,
4....
After you submit the form above, the new league will appear
on the listing page, and you can click it to edit it or press the Delete button
to the right of the name to delete the league. If you change your mind
about the structure, you can always go back and reassign the parent of a league
to any other league. If you've already created sub-leagues or teams that
are children of the league, they will move with the parent league.
However, in the above case, you cannot delete the parent league until all the
child leagues and teams have been reassigned or deleted themselves.
Teams
Teams are the heart of
your organization. Now that you've defined the league structure
of your club as documented above, you can start setting up your teams. To
define teams, click the "Divisions & Teams" choice on the Admin menu.
This will bring up the Team Listing page. This page will show the leagues
you've already defined with their teams listed under each. At first, there
won't be any teams displayed, of course, but you can click the link titled "Add
a new team" to bring up a Team Information form. The form has the
following fields:
General
- Name
Use this field to
specify the name of the team, up to 32 characters.
- Season
Select which
season this team belongs to.
- Division
Set the
team's parent league here. The list box will display all the leagues
defined so far.
- Menu Position
By
entering number in this field, you can determine the order in which your
Teams appear on this page and in the initial list. If no number is entered,
the order of the teams will be ordered alphabetically.
- Power Rating
This
number can be used to assign a rating number to each of your teams. When
calculating standings, you can choose to use the Power Ratings of Losing
Opponents as a tie breaker.
- Nickname
Type your
team's nickname here or optionally a sponsor name. The name you enter
will appear on all team pages as part of the team name. This field is
optional.
- Outside League/Parent
Team (when connected to a parent org)
If your organization is part of a
larger LeagueAthletics.com hosted "Parent" website and has selected that
league in the Association section, this will be visible to you. The name of
the Parent League will be visible along with a drop-down window of team
choices. Select your corresponding team on this list. Keep in mind that your
team may not be named exactly as you've created it on your site. This list is
generated from the parent site and your team name will appear as it does on
that site. It will not affect the team name that you have created on your
site.
- Picture
You can
optionally upload a team photo using this field. To upload a picture,
enter the path and name of the file on your computer or use the Browse button
to the right to find the file. When the form is submitted, your picture
will be uploaded to the site, and a thumbnail will be displayed on the team's
roster page that when clicked will bring up the full-sized image. Note
that pictures wider than 580 pixels will be resized to that width, and
pictures taller than 600 pixels will be resized to that height.
Security
- Public
By checking
this box, the team will be available to be selected by the General Public. If
un-checked, the team's information will be available only to
Admins.
- Show
Management
Check this box to have the team's coaches and managers
contact information displayed on the team's Bulletins page. While this
information is also displayed on the team's Roster page, you may want to make
it visible to the general public instead of just club members. This
might be the case if you make game arrangements with other teams outside your
organization and you want their managers to be able to locate and contact you.
- Password Protect Team Pictures
This setting
will password protect all pictures associated with this team. When selected the
Team's PICTURES page will request a password. Team Members can asccess the page using
either the Team Password (explained below) or their email address and individual registration
password.
- Manager's
Password
Each of your teams can be assigned a manager's password that
allows its Managers to enter the admin area and perform a limited set of
tasks. These include entering team bulletins, game results, general
events, facility information, and upload pictures and documents, and
optionally perform scheduling tasks (see below). However, when using an
individual team manager's password, the user can only perform these tasks for
that team or those teams that use the same password.
- Team
Password
Each of your teams can be assigned a password that parents and
players can use to access its roster and documents area. If a password
is assigned either here or on your site's Security page, visitors will be prompted for the password before
they can access these pages. The Roster password specified on the
Security page can be used globally for all teams while a password entered here
will override it. If no password is entered here or on the Security
page, access to the Roster and Team Documents pages will be
unrestricted.
- Prompt
Optionally,
you can enter a phrase or clue to help team members enter the TEAM
password.
Scheduling
- Scheduling Alias
This
optional field can be used to specify an alternate name for the team that
would appear in imported game schedules. When you use the Game Import feature there needs to be a unique name for each team.
Since many clubs use the same name in different leagues or divisions (like
"Yankees" in both Major and Minor leagues for example), the Alias provides a
place for a more targeted name like "MajorYankees" and "MinorYankees". When
importing games, the program first looks for team Alias and then selects the
most current one if there is more than one match (as there might be from a
team in a previous season). If no Alias is found, it looks for the team's
display name and again chooses the latest one. So, the Aliases you use only
have to be unique among a single season's teams, UNLESS your season's overlap
in which case, only the ones associated with the season with the later end
date would be selected. If however your team names are already unique,
there is no need to use this field.
- Schedule through
Use
this field to specify how far into the future to display the team's
schedule. If you're still roughing in your game calendar, you may want
to limit what the public can see using this field. This way, there won't
be a lot of confusion as things are finalized. Also, some leagues
publish their schedules a month or so at a time. This feature allows you
to show the public what's done so far while continuing to work on the rest of
the schedule. Note that even though the public won't be able to see any
events after the date you enter here on individual team schedule pages, you as
an administrator will.
-
This team can be double booked
This option allows this team to be booked for multiple events at the same time. Often this can be used for a "dummy" team where you need to schedule events to prevent others from using the facility. However, if unchecked for your traditional teams, this feature will make sure that this team is not scheduled for events at the same time on the same day.
- Schedule is Live >>Click here for troubleshooting tips
When this field is checked, any changes that are made to the team's schedule will
cause an automatic email and text notification to be sent out to all team
members and their parents. Again, if you're still roughing things in,
you'll want to leave this field unchecked so as not to bombard your members
with lots of changes before the schedule is actually complete.
Note: Setting the "Live" attribute or the "Publish Through" date does
not cause emails to go out for events that would be covered by the new
settings. This is on purpose in order to not overwhelm members with
massive emails about all the additions and deletions. When doing mass
additions, updates or deletions (via either an Import or manually entering a
new schedule via New Event and editing it on-line) turn the Live feature off
by either setting the "Publish Through" date appropriately or turning of the
Live attribute. Import the schedule, turn the Live feature back on and then
send out a broadcast news item or team bulletin announcing the update and
referring folks to their schedule page on the website. The Live emails are
intended to keep folks informed of incremental changes to schedules they have
already seen. In the beginning of the season, it's probably best not to use
the Live feature when you're first publishing the schedule but use regular
broadcast facilities instead.
- Game Attendance This feature will allow
coaches and managers to poll the players on their team for attendance at
future games. For more information about this feature click here.
- Manager
Scheduling
You can choose to allow team managers to schedule games for
a team and/or edit information for any existing by checking one or both of
these options.
- "Manager can schedule new games"
will allow managers access to the Scheduling menu choices on the admin menu
and can perform any scheduling task.
- "Manager can edit existing games"
selection is checked, managers will only be able to edit existing games
through the team's schedule or the Master Calendar in the Admin area.
If the manager uses an individual
team password mentioned above, they can only schedule events for their team or
teams that use the same password.
-
"Manager can add/edit only
practices" will allow managers to access to the Scheduling menu choices on
the admin menu and can perform any scheduling task on practice-type events only.
- "Manager can add game types" will allow managers to
add additional event types when creating new events.
- Email
The email address entered in this field will
automatically be notified if a game is scheduled with this team. This field is
optional.
-
Scheduling Blackout Periods
This option is used in conjunction with the Schedule Generator
. Use this option to specify a range of dates when this team cannot play. The dates specified here will prevent this team
from being scheduled when you run the Schedule Generator for a particular division or group of teams. This may be useful for leagues or associations where teams have different vacation weeks
for school or other events. You can specify one or multiple ranges here, or single days by entering the same date in both fields.
Home
- Home Fields
Optionally, you may select one or
more "Home" field(s) that the team plays on. In order to select multiple
facilities, use CTRL-click. This is specifically for organizations using the
LeagueAthletics.com scheduling program.
Rosters
- Public
Roster
When checked, a no-contact roster will be available to the
General Public. This roster will contain the Name, Position and Jersey number
of the player only. Optionally, you may choose to show only the first initial
of the player's last name. For example, John Smith would appear as John S.
When selected, this will apply to the Public Roster as well as Statistics, if
selected.
- Hide
Birthdays
When checked, team members' birthdays will be hidden
from the full contact roster. Admins and Team Managers will still have access
when logged in.
- Team Management Bio
Sheets
Use this option to select
which Bio sheet template will
be shown when a Coach's/Manager's name is selected on a Team's
Roster.
- Public Player Bio
Sheets
Use this option to select
whichBio sheet template will
be shown
when a Player's name is selected on a Team's
Public Roster.
- Player Bio Sheets
Use this option to select
which Bio sheet template
will be shown when a Player's name is selected
on a Team's Roster.
- Private Bio Sheets
Use
this option to select which Bio sheet template
will be shown when a Team
Manager clicks a name on a Team's Roster.
Statistics
- Show Results
Page
When checked, a Results page will be available from the Teams
area. The Results page will include links to individual game summaries. Admins
with appropriate rights, including Managers, will be able to enter results
from this page as well, when logged in.
- Player
Statistics
Here, you can select the appropriate setting for your team's
statistics. The choices include: Not Available (selected if you are not
keeping statistics for the team), Show to Managers (Admins) only (available
only to logged in Admins and Managers), Show to Team Members Only (Password
protected) and Available to the Public.
Note: For Baseball clubs using the Little League Pitchers
Report, one of the "Available" options must be selected.
Sponsors
- Sponsor(s)
If
you've defined sponsors through the Sponsors form (Admin>Tools>Add
Sponsors) and they have their "Team Sponsor" attribute checked, they will be
available for selection in this list as this team's sponsor. Click any
of the sponsor's name to select them. Press and hold the Ctrl key while
clicking others if you want to select more than one or de-select. Note that
the sponsors selection box will not appear if you haven't entered any club
sponsors.
When you select sponsors for a team, their logo or name will
be displayed on all team pages. They'll be at the top of the Bulletins page
and at the bottom of all others, including the printable versions. If there is
no logo file for a sponsor, there will be a text link with their name instead.
In addition, the page top banner will exclusively display the current team's
sponsor rather than cycle through all club sponsor banners. That is until they
choose another team or navigate to another tab.
Importing Team
Information
You can import team information from a spreadsheet file
rather than entering it all by hand using the Information form mentioned
above. To do this, you'll need to create a spreadsheet file containing a
row for each team and columns across for each piece of information you wish to
import. The file you create must be saved as a comma separated value
(.CSV) file. This file type can be generated from Excel using the
Save
As dialog box. To perform the actual import see the link towards the
top of the Division & Teams page.
You can also use a file that was downloaded from the site
using the "Export Team Data" report, also found at the top of the Division &
Teams page. These files can be directly re-imported after
downloading. In this way, the downloaded data can become a backup for your
site's member data that can later be restored by simply re-importing it should
something go wrong with the data on the website. You can also use the
downloaded data to make changes en masse and then re-import the changes.
The information you can include in the import file is
specified below. Note that all columns are optional except for the Team
Name column. The first line of the file must contain the names of the
columns as specified below. The order they are encountered in the first
line specifies the column order for all subsequent data in the file.
| Column Heading |
Notes |
| Team_ID |
Internal database record ID
from the LeagueAthletics.com database. These numbers should
only come from the Export Team Data report from the website and are used
to identify each team's existing data record. If these numbers are
not present, the software will attempt to match existing team data based
on name and division/league. If no match is found, a new record will
be created. |
| League/Division |
Designates the Division of
the team. Must start with ">" and use ">" to show hierarchy
(>League>Division>Team) |
| Team_Name |
Required - Team
Name |
| Nickname |
Optional |
| Alias |
Optional - used for
importing schedules |
| Position |
Optional - used to order
teams |
| Public_Roster |
Yes - to show a
no-contact Roster available to the Public |
| LastInitial |
Yes - to show only
First name, Last Initial on Public Roster |
| Hide_Birthdays |
Yes - to hide
Birhdays on the Full Contact Roster |
| Show_Management |
Yes/No - If "Yes," show
management (coach(s), team manager(s), etc) "Public" contact information
on the team's Bulletins page. |
| Live_Schedule |
Yes/No - If "Yes," schedule
changes are e-mailed to all affected team members and their
parents. |
| Email |
If another manager
schedules a game with this team, notify this email address. |
| Team_Password |
Restricts view of roster to
only team members |
| Manager_Password |
Provides specific Admin
rights to Password holder |
| TeamType |
SOCCER ONLY |
| Gender |
SOCCER
ONLY ("M" or "F") |
| AgeGroup |
SOCCER ONLY - Usually a "U"
group such as "U-11" |
| League |
SOCCER ONLY |
| SeasonalYear |
SOCCER ONLY - MUST start
with 4 numeric characters i.e. 2009 Spring |
| HomeShirt |
SOCCER ONLY -
Color |
| HomePants |
SOCCER ONLY -
Color |
| HomeSocks |
SOCCER ONLY -
Color |
| AwayShirt |
SOCCER ONLY -
Color |
| AwayPants |
SOCCER ONLY -
Color |
| AwaySocks |
SOCCER ONLY -
Color |
Note: The first row of data must be contain
the names of the columns as specified above.
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