Web Site Administration Help

Setting up your site:

For LeagueAthletics.com to work to its fullest, you'll need to enter information about your members, your leagues/divisions, teams, facilities where they play, and their game schedules.  Here's how to get started:

1. Create a Season to contain your Teams.  (Admin>Teams>Seasons)

A season defines the dates during which your teams exist.  Each season contains a new set of teams.  Define a season by entering a name, start date and end date.  To learn more about creating seasons, click here.

2. Create a League structure. (Admin>Teams>Divisions & Teams>Add new League/Division)

This can be anything from a simple two-league, House/Travel structure to multiple, hierarchically nested leagues.  These leagues will become the "parents" for all the teams you define in your website.  To learn more about defining leagues, click here.

3. Create your Teams. (Admin>Teams>Divisions & Teams>Add a new team)

Enter information about each team, such as name, "parent" division, and the season.  Note that each team you create is only used for the current season.  Next season you'll create new teams and assign members again.  Previous seasons' team will exist separately as an archive so your organization's history (rosters, game results, etc.) can be preserved.  To learn more about entering team information, click here.

Linking your club to a "Parent" League:
If your club belongs to a larger LeagueAthletics.com hosted "Parent" organization, you will be able to take advantage of exclusive scheduling and scoring features that will allow your club's website to be connected to the "Parent" site.  Schedules (and optionally Standings) entered on the "Parent" site will automatically be distributed to team pages on your club site.  Scores entered on your club's site for those games will automatically be brought up to the "Parent" site. Team management information will also be brought up to the "Parent" site as well.
 
1. Select your "Parent" league. Admin>Configuration>General Settings>Organization.
2. Link your teams. Admin>Teams>Divisions & Teams. From the Divisions & Teams page, click on a team name and adjust the "Outside League" drop-down.  Click here for information on how to create teams.


4. Create a Registration program. (Admin>Members>Registration System>Add)

The registration system will allow you to capture data for your members through your website.  Once you have collected this member data and registration has closed, you can begin to assign players to teams.  To learn more about the registration system, click here.

5. Assign Rosters. (Admin>Teams>Assign Rosters)

Once the teams are defined and the member data is collected, you can create rosters by assigning members using the Assign Roster tool.  For more information on assigning rosters, click here.

6. Add playing Facilities.  (Admin>Facilities>Add a Facility)

Here you can enter the names and descriptions of each facility along with it's location, driving direction, and event a map, which will be invaluable to new members.  To learn more about entering facilities, click here.

7. Add game and practice Schedules.  (Admin>Scheduling>Add Game or Practice)

Once teams are created and facilities are defined, you can start entering schedules.  You can enter single events using "Add Game or Practice." You can choose the date, time, teams, and location for each event.  Events entered will be added to your organization's Master Schedule and also broken out into schedules for each team automatically.  You can also use the "Recurring Games" option to generate events that occur on a regular basis. 

At first, the schedules will only be visible to those who have access to this area.  This will allow you to make additions, changes, and revisions without notifying your members.  Once your schedule is finalized, publish it by specifying the date that you want the schedule to end.  This gives you control over what the public sees regarding the schedule and when they see it.  Once the schedule is published, you can set the schedules to "Live" which will cause future changes, revisions, and cancellations to generate email notifications for all affected team members and their guardians.  This will keep everyone (with email) as up to date as possible.  To learn more about entering schedules, click here.

Note: Facilities, leagues, and teams must be set up first, before games can be entered.  Members can be entered at any time; but teams must be entered before rosters can be created.

The remaining sections of this document describe each of the individual forms used to enter your site's information.

Configuration:

General Settings: Admin>Configuration>General Settings
This form is used to select optional features and preferences for your site.  You can turn on/off features such as Discussion Forums and the Exchange page.

ORGANIZATION
This section is used to enter and update basic information about your organization, such as its full organization and abbreviated names, location, and sport.

• Full Name
  This is the actual full or formal name for your organization.  This will appear in the title bar at the top of all pages and on many other reports, pages, and emails.
   
• Short Name
  This is a short name for your organization that will appear on many of the site's web pages. This should be as short as possible so as not to crowd other information. If your full name is made up of several words like "My Town's Youth Sports Association," you might abbreviate it to something like: "MTYSA." If there's a nickname for your club, you might prefer that.
    
• Mission Statement
  Use this optional field to enter a "Mission Statement" for your organization.  This information will be used to help search engines identify your website.
   
• Club ID/US Lacrosse Club ID
  If your club uses a unique ID, optionally, you may enter it here. This field is mandatory, for clubs that wish to use our integrated US Lacrosse registration features.
   
• Registrar's Name (Massachusetts Youth Soccer Only)
  The entry made her will appears on your Mass Youth Soccer formatted rosters.



• Google Analytics ID
  Optionally setup a Google Analytics account to track how your site is being used and where visitors are coming from. The number entered here will be formatted as UA-#######-##.



• Sport Name
  This is the name of the sport for your program.
   
• Goal Name
  Enter the name of your sport's goal, such as Run, Point or Goal.
   
• Facility Name
  Enter the generic singular term for the facilities where you play, such as Court, Field, or Rink.
   
• Parent Organization(s)
  This field lists the names of LeagueAthletics.com "Parent" organizations that govern client- or town-level clubs. If your club belongs to a larger organization, you should highlight their name in the list. This will allow you to link your site with theirs and inherit schedules, standings and other information automatically. See "Outside League / Parent Team" on the "Team Information Form" for information about linking to a Parent League's teams.
  
  WEBMASTER

• Webmaster Contact
  Enter information for the "webmaster" or technical contact for your site. This is the person LeagueAthletics.com will attempt to contact regarding the operation or maintenance of your site.
  
  LOCALIZATION

• Location
  Enter the city and state of your organization.



• Country
  Select the home country for your site from the drop down list
   
• Date Format
  Select the preferred date format from drop down list.
  MM/DD/YYYY (December 31, 2012 will appear as 12/31/2012)
  DD/MM/YYYY (December 31, 2012 will appear as 31/12/2012)
  YYYY/MM/DD (December 31, 2012 will appear as 2012/12/31)
   
• Time Format
  You can select from a traditional 12 hour time format or from a 24 hour format (5:00 PM will be displayed as 17:00)
   
• Time Zone
  Select the appropriate time zone for your site.
   
• Daylight Savings
  Check the box if you would like the site to automatically adjust your time for Daylight Savings.
   
• Currency
  Enter the form of currency being used on the site.
  
  DOMAINS
   
• Domain Name(s)
  This is the name that identifies your site on our system. To direct your domain to your LeagueAthletics.com site, you'll need to set your domain's Name Servers to the following:
  
  NS1.LEAGUEATHLETICS.COM
  NS2.LEAGUEATHLETICS.COM
  
  Once you make the above changes to your domain you'll need to let us know via Support Ticket (Admin>Support>New Support Ticket) so we can set things up on our end. Just let us know the name(s) of the domain(s) and we'll take it from there. PLEASE, DO NOT FOWARD YOUR DOMAIN AS THIS MAY CAUSE ISSUES WHEN USING THE ONLINE REGISTRATION SYSTEM.
  
  If you have any additional services associated with your domain, such as email or blogs, special arrangements must be made. In most cases, you'll need to contact your domain host and ask them what records we'll need to update.
  
  If you don't have a registered domain name, you can use whatever name you like here. The name you enter will be used to locate this site. For instance, if you enter "MySportsClub," you would use "http://MySportsClub.assn.la" to navigate to your site. Note: Only letters, numbers, hyphens and a single period are allowed in this field. No spaces.
   
• Sub-Domains
  You can create sub-domains for your site and use them as shortcuts to specific pages. For example, "Registration.Mydomain.org" might point to your registration home page. If you're sending out an email inviting people to register, this is much clearer than our internal address. You could also create shortcuts to team pages like "Yankees.Mydomain.org" or a shortcut to a document like "Rules.Mydomain.org." Note: This feature only works with registered domains.
   
• Page Not Found (404) Error Message
  You may create a custom message that will be displayed to visitors looking for a non-existent page using your domain. For example, if you were previously hosting your own website and you had a page that was accessed through www.mydomain.com/mycustompage.htm; once you have pointed your domain's name servers, this page will no longer be available. The message typed in this entry can give visitors instruction on what to do - i.e. "The content that you are looking for is no longer available or has been moved. Please visit our home page at [insert your domain] to find the latest information."
  
  FEATURES
   
• Login Boxes
  This will display a floating login box in the banner area of your site for coaches and administrators to login.



• Zip Code for Weather
  The zip code entered here will be uses to determine the local weather forecast. This can be displayed in the right column of your homepage. In the event that your site services several zip codes or a large area, try to using a centralized location zip code.
  


• Forums
  This will place a discussion forum area on your site where visitors can post their own messages for view and response by other visitors. This can create a feeling of community and foster two-way communications. Users are required to log in using their email address and a password they select. This helps to ensure that people post messages responsibly. If you do select forums, you will probably need to monitor the resulting discussions. As an administrator, you'll be able to edit or delete anything visitors post.
  
  If you don't want to be bothered moderating discussions, you may want to leave this feature turned off. In this case, the Forums choice on the home page will not be visible and visitors will not be able to go there.
   
• Moderator
  If you do decide to have discussion forums on your site, you may want to appoint someone as a moderator. That is, someone who will monitor messages for inappropriate or out of control content. Enter the email address of the person(s) you want to moderate the forum in this field. You can enter more than one address by separating them with a comma. Each time a message is posted to the forum, the addressee(s) listed here will receive an emailed copy.
   
• Exchange Page
  Your site has an exchange page where visitors can view items for sale, swap or whatever. Visitors can post their own items by filling out a form and entering an emailed password (or key). Like Forums above, this feature has the potential for abuse, although to a much lesser extent. If you do not want an Exchange page on your site, uncheck this feature. This will eliminate the Exchange choice on the home page.
   
• Feedback Page
  Your site can have a Feedback page where visitors can send you comments about your organization, your sport, or about the website. Submissions are sent to your site's "Responsible Party(s)" listed on the Security page. If you do not wish to include this feature on your site, you can uncheck this field.
   
• Anonymous Feedback
  If you allow visitors to post feedback anonymously without giving their name, phone number or email address, they may feel more inclined to speak their minds. In this way, you may receive enlightening feedback and comments that might otherwise be suppressed. On the other hand, it might also encourage unwanted rants or abusive feedback.
  
  By unchecking this feature, visitors will be required to provide their name, phone number and email address before they can submit a feedback form. Otherwise, these are all optional.
   
• Send Feedback to
  You can specify an email address to send feedback to when visitors post messages to your site's Feedback page. If no address is specified here, feedback will instead be sent to the Responsible Parties address(es) listed on the Security page. To specify more than one address, enter them separated by a comma or semicolon.
   
• Master Schedule
  If you'd prefer not to include a Master Schedule on your site's home page, you can uncheck this item. The Master Schedule lists all events for all teams, one week at a time.
   
• Team Contacts
  Check this box if you would like a list of all team contacts (coaches, assistant coaches, and managers) to appear on your homepage.
   
• Hide Email Addresses
  By checking this box, email addresses on the "Contacts", "Team Contacts", "Roster" and "Bulletins" will not be visible to the public. If a visitor to your site wishes to email a member listed on one of those pages, they will be able to click on the members name and will fill out an email form for that member. The email address will not be accessible by the visitor.
  


• Show Nearby Amenities
  This feature, if checked, will show amenities in close proximity to your facilities, such as coffee shops, pizza shops, sporting goods stores, and hospitals.



• Directions Start Address
  Once you have entered a list of facilities, the system will automatically create a Google Maps link. The address entered here will be used as a starting point for driving directions.
   
• Join Email List:
  This feature will create a new page on your home page, allowing visitors to enter their first and last name, as well as their email address. By doing this, a member record will be created for the visitor and automatically be added to the "Friends" team within your database. The system will also verify that the email address entered is not currently in your site's database, helping to avoid possible duplication.
  


• Edit My Account:
  This will allow your existing members to sign in and edit their own account information along with that of other members of their family. When checked, the Association menu will have a new choice - "Edit My Account". When clicked by a user, a sign in form will be displayed where members can enter their email address and a password. If they've previously used your online registration system, they would have already been issued a password that they can use to sign in here. Otherwise, they can enter their email address only and the site will email them a new password.
  
  Once signed in, the user will be presented with a page that lists all the registered members of their family. They can click anyone's name to bring up a form and edit their data.
  
  Self service member administration saves you and your staff a lot of time and effort. However, this feature does have the potential for mischief. Children cannot log in with their own email address. Only members designated as parents in the database can do this. Members can only change their own information and add new members to their family. They cannot change or modify roster information or anything else in the database.
   
• Lock Member ID
  This will prevent members from editing their membership ID number (if applicable) when editing their account.



• Lock Birthdays/Grade
  This option can be used to specify that after a member's birthday/grade has been entered, it cannot be subsequently modified through the Edit My Account feature or through online registration. Some clubs are concerned that members might manipulate birthdays in order to gain access to certain teams and gain an unfair advantage. Since birthdays theoretically never need to be modified, it shouldn't present a burden to members. This policy can however be frustrating to those who perhaps make a mistake when initially entering birthday information and try to correct it. If you find the birthday locking feature to restrictive, you can uncheck this option. Note: Birthdays can always be changed by administrators with access to the Members area of the site regardless of the setting here.
   
• Next Member ID:
  This field is used to specify the next ID number that will be assigned to a new member using the Member Information form. Each time a member is entered into the system this number is assigned to the member and the number is then incremented by 1. Some organizations use serial ID numbers to uniquely identify each of their members. This field allows you to specify a base or starting value for these numbers.
  
  TEAM
   
• Season, Division & Team Term:
  Your site's Team tab on the home page has a team selection bar that includes dropdowns for selecting a "Season", "League" (optional) and "Team." You can change any of these terms using this and the two subsequent fields. The terms you enter here will be displayed as the prompts for the dropdowns on the team bar.
   
• League Age as of:
  This is the default setting for the League Age Calculator tool. This should be set to the cutoff date for a particular playing age. For example, Little League programs calculate the League Age as of April 30th, hence, 4/30 should be entered here.
  
  
• Schedule Page:
  Checking this box will show a Schedule and Multi-schedule page from the Team areas on your site.
   
• Calendar Page:
  Checking this box will show a Calendar page from the Team areas on your site. This should only be un-checked if you are not inputting schedules into the site.
   
• Roster Page:
  Your site has a Rosters section under the Teams menu where visitors can view rosters for any team in your organization. Even though visitors must enter a password (Team Security) to view the rosters, some organizations may not want the public to view this information. If this is the case, uncheck this feature and the Rosters choice will no longer be visible on the Teams menu.
   
• Results Page:
  Your site's Team tab includes a results page for all teams. If you'd prefer not to display this page and its menu choice, uncheck this option.
   
• Non-Game Types:
  Your site's Results page is designed to only include events that are scored. Events like Practices or Tryouts should not clutter up this page. You can use this field to specify what event types should be excluded from the Results page. Words or phrases entered here will cause an event to be excluded if it is found anywhere in the event's Type field. Enter each keyword or phrase separated by a comma.
   
• Email results to:
  When members enter game results and commentary using the Result Information form, the data can be automatically sent to the email addresses specified in this field. For instance, many organizations send their results to the local newspaper(s) for inclusion in their weekly papers. You might also want to send scores to your association's governing body such as a state or regional organization so they can maintain regional standings. You can enter more than one email address here by separating them with a comma or semicolon.
   
• Little League Pitcher's Report:
  Based on the 2009 Rule Changes for Little League Pitchers, this setting will allow you to specify which version of the rule your organization is using. You may elect Option 1, Option 2 or Both. For more information on these rule changes, CLICK HERE.
   
• Show Area Teams:
  Check this box if you would like to show other area sports organizations, hosted by LeagueAthletics.com, on the Multi-schedule page. This can be a helpful tool for parents who have children that play more than one sport.
   
• Show Birthdays:
  By checking this box, members birthdays will appear on schedules and calendars for your site.
  
  COMMUNICATION
   
• Game Reminders:
  LeagueAthletics.com can send automatic game "reminders" via email and text message before a game. These reminders will be sent for all game types not defined as "Practice." You can automatically send reminders to all members involved in the game or you can give your members the option of receiving the reminders, which they will be able to choose during Registration or, if activated, in the "Edit My Account" section.
  Email reminders are sent 18 hours before an event, and text reminders are sent 2.5 hours prior to an event.
  
  Optionally, you can choose to globally turn on or off the email reminder settings. To perform this update, you must first check the box indicating that you would like to "Set/reset all members to" and then select On or Off.
   
• Practice Reminders
  LeagueAthletics.com can send automatic practice "reminders," similar to the game reminders, via email and text message before a practice. These reminders will be sent only for event types defined as "Practice". You can automatically send email reminders to all members involved in the practice or you can give your members the option of receiving the reminders, which they will be able to choose during Registration or, if activated, in the "Edit My Account" section.
  Email reminders are sent 18 hours before an event, and text reminders are sent 2.5 hours prior to an event.
  
  Optionally, you can choose to globally turn on or off the practice reminder settings. To perform this update, you must first check the box indicating that you would like to "Set/reset all members to" and then select On or Off.
   
• Email Footer:
  This message will be displayed at the bottom of emails (shown below) sent using the Email Members tool ONLY. Broadcasts of Messages (News Items, Teams Bulletins, etc.), Schedule Change Notifications, Reminders and Text messages will not include the Footer.
  
  
  

Billing Information:

This form is used to specify the name, address, phone number and email of the person responsible for paying for your website (the site lessee).  All billing correspondence regarding the site will be addressed to this person.  Usually a club will use their treasurer's information here or whoever is responsible for paying the club's bills.  The page also shows the next payment date and the amount due for your reference.

Note that this page and its menu choice will only be visible if you log in using the Master password.  This is the password you chose when you set up the site and is discussed below under the Security topic.  The fields on this form are as follows:

• Name:
  This is the full name of the person responsible for web site billing issues.
   
• Address:
  Type the person's address here.
   
• City:
  Enter the city, state and zip code here.
   
• Phone:
  Enter the lessee's daytime phone number in this field including area code.
   
• Email:
  Enter the lessee's email address here.  This will be used for billing and security correspondence only.
   
• Pay By:
  This is the date by which your site must be paid for for the next year.  If payment isn't received by this date, the web site will become disabled and eventually erased.  You will receive email notification 30 days in advance of this date as a reminder.
   
• Amount Due:
  The amount due on or before the date above is displayed here.  This will be the annual fee plus any other charges such as the initial set up and domain registration fees.

At the bottom of the form is a link that can be used to display a formal invoice for your site.  You can print this page for your records or submit it to your treasurer.  In addition, there is also a button that can be used to pay for your website via credit card.  Click the button and follow the directions on the resulting forms if you choose to use this payment method.

Security:

This form is used to specify passwords for access to your site and also designate responsible persons who will receive notification of site changes.  The site has several standard passwords as well as the ability to create custom passwords with a custom set of privileges.  The standard Master password gives complete access to the administration area of the site including  the Billing and the Security page itself.  Custom passwords allow you to create passwords that grant access to certain areas of the site that you specify.  They can be used to grant access by job type.  A password could be created for the registrar for example that grants access only to member data functions.  Another for your scheduler(s) that only allows access to team and scheduling features.  Other standard passwords include the global team manager's password, an Official's password and a roster access password.  The Manager's password allows team managers and other responsible association members to post team bulletins, game results, and pictures to the site.  The Roster password allows club members to access the team roster pages.  Generally, you would give this last password out to the entire membership.  Its sole purpose is to protect the privacy of club members listed on the roster pages.  In addition, you can enter individual team passwords on each team's information page.  These give access to team bulletins and game results for that team only.

Note that this page and its menu choice will only be visible if you log into the administration area using the Master password.

The fields for Responsible parties allow you to specify the email addresses of those whom you want to receive copies of material posted to the site.  Whenever a news or exchange item, team bulletin, game result, or schedule change is posted, or whenever a picture is uploaded, the web site will email the persons you specify using this form.  The fields on the form are as follows:

• Master Password
  This is the most important password for the site. It allows complete access to the Administration area billing information and the security page itself, and allows you to edit or delete any portion of the site. It should only be given out to the person(s) who really need it!  That is, the person responsible for paying for the web site and whoever you designate as being in charge of security.  Note that all passwords must be at least 6 characters and are case insensitive (use upper or lower case).
   
• Administration Passwords
  You can create and manage custom passwords and specify their privileges using the tools in this area.  The window lists administration passwords that have already been set up.  The buttons below the window are used to add a new password, copy the highlighted password, edit the highlighted password or delete it.  Click the Add button to create a new password.  The resulting pop up window provides space for the password's name (for admin purposes only), the actual password itself and below that, a list of privileges that can be selected.
  
  You can create specialized passwords to be used by certain personnel in your program.  For instance, you might want to create a password for your club's registrar that grants access to all member related areas of the site but not to other areas such as scheduling or messaging.  Similarly, you might want a schedulers password that didn't allow access to member functions.  With custom passwords and ala cart privilege selection, you have a great deal of control over access to the website.
   
• Officials' Password
  The Officials' password field can be used to restrict access to your site's "Officials Area" page. If (and only if) you enter a password here, visitors will be prompted to log in with this, or an admin password before they can access this page. Also, if an Officials' password is used, the game details page will not show the assigned officials unless you are similarly logged in.
   
• Team Manager's Password
  Allows users to enter game results and commentary, news, and bulletins, and upload photos to the site. This password should only be given out to people directly responsible for entering game information and bulletins, and for adults you trust to upload appropriate photographic content.
  
  Below the password field is a list of privileges that you designate for team managers.  Check each function that you want all managers to be able to perform and uncheck those you don't.
  
  Note that instead of entering a password here for access to all teams, you can enter individual passwords on each team's information page.  This gives even more control and only allows Manager level control to specific teams.  The privileges you specify here however will apply to both types of team manager passwords.
   
• Roster Password
  Allows access to team rosters and team documents. Access to rosters is restricted to protect the privacy of the association's members. In addition, individual members can opt not to have their information displayed.  See the Member Information page later in this document.  If you enter a password here, visitors will be prompted for it prior to displaying the Roster or Team Documents  pages.  Also note that that you can assign individual team passwords by entering them on individual team information forms.  These override the one entered here.
  
  There is also a space where you can enter an optional prompt for the roster password.  You can give a clue here that club members would know the answer to but not outsiders.  This can eliminate the need to distribute the roster password to all your members and makes it easy for folks to remember.
   
• Responsible Parties
  These field are used to specify the email address(es) of persons within your organization whom you want to monitor the web site. Whenever news items, team bulletins, or exchange items are posted, a copy will be sent to the address(es) listed below. This allows those in charge to immediately know if inappropriate material is being posted and to take action if it is.  In addition, submissions on the Feedback page will be sent to the addresses listed here as well.
   
• Scheduler Email
  Use this field to specify the email address of whomever is in charge of scheduling in your organization. After team schedules have been published, the scheduler will be emailed by the web site whenever any game is changed. This allows the person in charge to keep track of changes as they occur.  In general, you only need to fill this out if you have more than one person doing the scheduling.  You probably don't want to be bombarded with emails about changes you did yourself.
   

Note that all password fields have a companion "Create" button to their right.  Clicking this button causes a new password to be generated at random.  While the passwords are usually not an actual English word, they are designed to be pronounceable.  We highly recommend using these as they are very secure and almost impossible to guess, either by human or automated password cracking programs.  There have been incidences where clubs have used common sports terms for passwords and people have guessed them resulting in some highly inappropriate material being posted.  Don't let this happen to you.  Use our generated passwords or something unlikely to be guessed.

If you do choose to use your own passwords, make sure that they are all different. This will ensure that password users will only have access to rights granted to them by the site's Webmaster.

Web site appearance:

This is where you control the aesthetics of your site.  You can upload a logo file for display on the top of the left hand menu.  You can change the colors of the menus and hyperlinks as well.  Note: This form has several buttons that when pressed, bring up other windows, such as a file dialog box and a color palette dialog box.  You can use these tools to help you fill in the fields on the form.

OUTER FRAME

• Frame Width:
  Use this field to control the width of your website.  You can specify either a fixed width in pixels or a percentage (number must be followed by %) that adjusts based on the viewer's browser width.  In the first case, we recommend that you use a minimum size of 720 pixels - 800 pixels is the recommended width.  If you choose to go wider than this, bear in mind that some visitors using small monitors will have to scroll horizontally through your site in order to see everything.  If you choose to enter a percentage, the framework and page contents will expand and contract to the width or your browser automatically.
   
• Page Alignment:
  If you have elected to use a fixed frame width, you may choose to have your website aligned to the left, right, or center of the user's browser.
   
• Gutter Color Start/Fade To:
  If you have elected to use a fixed frame width, this feature will allow you to determine the color(s) of the unused portion, if any, of the web browser's page. For example, if you choose your frame width at 800 pixels and align the page to the center, anyone viewing the page will see the color selected here to right and left of the page when viewing in a window or screen larger then 800 pixels. Optionally you can choose to have either a single, solid color - by entering only a color selection in the 'Gutter Color Start' entry - OR you may choose to fade your start color to another color - by entering a color in the 'Fade To' entry. Below are examples:
  
  
  Gradient/"Fade to" Page Gutter:
   
  
  Solid Page Gutter:
  
  
   
• Gutter Image or Upload Image File:
  If you have your website set to a fixed width (see Frame Width) your site will appear with a "page gutter" on either side of the site's frame, filling the unused portion on your visitors browser window. Optionally, you can select one of the pre-loaded images specified in the Gutter Image drop down selection OR you may upload your own image.
  
  Smaller images will be "tiled" or repeated in the page gutter. You may also use a larger image that may not be tiled.
   
• Tile (Repeat):
  This selection will determine how or if images are repeated in the page gutter:
  • Across and Down
    This will take a smaller image and tile it across and down the entire gutter space.
  • Across
    This selection will take your image and tile it horizontally across width of the page gutter in a single row.
  • Down
    This selection will take your image and tile it vertically down the height of the page gutter in a single row.
  • None
    This selection should only be used for larger images.
     
• Align Horizontally:
  This selection will determine the horizontal alignment of your gutter image
  • Left
    The selection will align your image from the  furthest left portion of your gutter.
  • Center
    This selection will align your image in the center of your page and, in most cases, should be used only with larger images.
  • Right
    This selection will align your image from the furthest right portion of your gutter.
     
• Align Vertically:
  This selection will determine the vertical alignment of your gutter image
  • Top
    This selection will align your gutter image from the topmost portion of your site's frame.
  • Center
    This selection will center your gutter image in the center (from top to bottom) of your site's page
  • Bottom
    This selection will align your gutter image from the bottom-most portion of your site's frame.

BANNER

• Banner File Name:
  You can optionally specify the name of a banner image file to upload here.  This image will be displayed in the horizontal banner space where your organization's full name is normally displayed.  This allows you to customize the look of your site with 3D effects or a special background for example.  You can use any popular drawing program to create the image file but it must be a JPEG (.jpg) or GIF (.gif) file and it must be 720 pixels wide.  The height is up to you but don't go too high or you'll push your site's content out of view.  Since this image file will overwrite your organization's name and mission statement in the banner area, you'll want to incorporate these into the image itself.
  
  Use the Browse button to display a file dialog box that you can use to locate your .jpg banner file on your computer.  Once you locate the file and submit the form, the image will be uploaded to the web site and placed in the banner area.  If you've already uploaded a banner to the site with this form, you don't need to specify the file again.  That is, you can leave this field blank when subsequently changing other data.
  
  If you subsequently want to delete the Banner File, uncheck the box to the left of the File box and submit the form.  The banner image will be deleted if this field is not checked.
  
  Note: If you chose the "Elastic" frame width above, you should bear in mind that when the framework is stretched wider than your banner image, the extra space will be filled in with a strip of pixels taken from the rightmost row of pixels from your banner image.  If the image has a solid or horizontally striped background, this will not be a problem but if you instead have a textured or photographic background, the right edge will appear blurred or striped.  In this case, you can force a solid color fill using the Banner Background Color field below.
   
• Banner Alignment:
  Use this field to control the horizontal alignment of your banner image should the user stretch the viewing area beyond the width of the image itself.  You can choose to have the image stay against the left side of the framework, centered within it or aligned to the right side.
  
  Create Banner
  This tool will allow you to create a graphic banner for your site. Using the tools provided in this section, you can incorporate pictures that have been uploaded in your site, select from several of our standard backgrounds or simply use a color. You can also choose to include your organizations logo, and or a standard sport specific image, as well as selecting shading effects, shading colors and text colors.
  
  Since you banner is usually the first section of your site that visitors will see, this tool can help you make a good first impression to your current - and perspective members.
   
• Background:
  Select from any of our included backgrounds or select from the set of most most recent photos that have been uploaded into your site. Optionally, you can upload you own custom background for your banner. You may also select "None", in which case only a color selection will be used. If you have selected to use uploaded photos, these photos will be selected from the most recent photos that have been uploaded to your site that are not in albums OR you can create a photo album named "Banner Montage" and photos kept in the album will be used. Keep in mind that only a few photos - 4 to 5 in most cases - will be used to create the banner.
  
  If you are using your own custom banner background, the recommended size is 800 X 200 pixels. Anything lager will be automatically resized. If the custom background is smaller than the recommended size, the 'Shading Color' will fill in the remainder of the space.
   
• Include Logo On:
  This selection will allow you to choose whether to use your logo (uploaded in the Logo tab of this section) and how to align the logo within your banner - left, right and "Don't Include" are your choices. Below are examples of the banner with a logo included:
  
  Banner with the logo on the left:
  
  
  Banner with the logo on the right:
  
   
• Accessories:
  Optionally, you can choose to include an "Accessory" image in your banner. These choices are sport specific images, such as Baseball, Basketball, Football, Hockey Puck, Lax Head, Soccer Ball, Softball and Volleyball.
   
• Shading Effect:
  This selection will allow you to add a shading effect to your banner. Effects included are: "Curves", "Glass", "Ellipse", "Shine", "Pan Head",  "Ribbon",  "Sky" and "Plain Text". You can also choose to have no banner shading effect entered.
   
• Shading Color:
  This selection determines the color of your auto-generated graphic banner or text banner.  If this field is left blank, the auto-generated graphic banner will use the color entered in the Menu Text Bar field. This
  
  If you are using a custom banner and the viewing area of the framework is stretched beyond the width of your banner image, the extra area can be filled with the color you specify her.  If this field is left blank, the extra area will instead be filled with a pattern taken from the rightmost edge of the image file itself.
  
  Note that you should use darker colors for the background color of the graphic banners. When in doubt, try using a dark grey or black background and use the foreground color for your lighter color.
   
• Main Title:
  The entry made here will be the name that is shown on your banner.
  
   
• Banner Font:
  This selection will allow you to control the font of your banner. Selections include:
  
  ARIAL
  
  
  COLLEGIATE
  
  
  IMPACT
  
  
  ROCKWELL
  
  
  SCRIPT
  
  
  STENCIL
  
  
  VERDANA
  
  
  
• Banner Text Color:
  This entry will determine the color of text of the graphic banner. If this field is left empty, the graphic banner will use the color entered in the menu text.
   
• Supplemental Text:
  This text will appear under the Banner's Main Title. This will default to the original location information given for the site. If nothing is entered in this section, the text entered as the "Mission Statement" for the site, located in the Admin>Association section of the site, will be used. If you wish this area to be blank, leave this entry, as well as the Mission Statement blank.

• Left Navigation Bar:
  By un-checking this box, you can completely eliminate the navigation bar on the left hand of the website. Visitors will now navigate the site using only the drop down menus from the Menu Tabs located at the top of your site.
   
• Menu Bar Color:
  This field can be used to specify the background color of the left hand menu strip.  If you know about html hex color values and you already know your favorite color, you can enter it directly into this field.  Otherwise, click the Palette button to the right for a pop-up color palette dialog box, where you can select the color of your choice from a large array of options.  When you click on a color from the palette, the strip on the entry form to the right of the color fields will change to the color you select.  This will help you try different colors and combinations before you actually change the web site.
  
  A little advice: use a background color that contrasts well with the foreground color you select below.  You want it and the bar pattern to contrast well with text.
   
• Menu Text Color:
  Use this field to specify the foreground color of the text on menus.  Again, you can enter a color value directly or pick one from the palette.  When you use the palette, your selections will change the color strip to the right of these two fields to help you visualize new combinations of foreground and background.
   
• Tab Contour:
  The selection made here will determine the look and feel of your horizontal Menu Tab buttons. You can select from: "Flat", "Rounded" or "Glass". This is a great way to give your site a unique look. All LeagueAthletics.com sites come standard with the "Glass" style buttons.
   
• Menu Contour:
  The selection made here will determine the look and feel of the your verticle Menu Page buttons. You can select from: "Flat", "Rounded" or "Glass". This is a great way to give your site a unique look. All LeagueAthletics.com sites come standard with the "Flat" style buttons.
   
• Accent Color:
  You can optionally specify a color that will accent the right edge of the menu bar and also heading bars.  This allows you to bring in perhaps a second team color and/or enhance the visual interest of your site.  The color specified here will also be used to highlight selected menu items.
   
• Menu Pattern:
  You can choose one of a number of different background patterns for the menu bar.  Click the button in the middle of a pattern to select it.  As with the color selections above, the strip to the right will display the pattern you choose.

PAGE CONTENT

• Page Background Color:
  Choose the default color for custom pages on your site. The color entered here will be used by default for all pages but can be overridden individually using the color fields on indiviidual page forms.
  
  Note that you can choose a transparent background color from the pop up color display or type in the word "transparent". In this case, the website's background will shine through.
   
• Body Text Color:
  The color of text on your site will default to a dark version of the menu bar color specified above.  If you'd prefer another color, you can specify it here.
   
• Page Default Font:
  This section will allow you to determine the font for all pages of your site. You will be able to choose from the following fonts: Arial, Comic, Courier, Lucida, Stencil, Tahoma, Times, and Verdana
   
• Highlight Color:
  This field specifies the color of shaded areas of web site's pages like home page headlines and link boxes, as well as horizontal highlights on many list type (schedules, rosters, etc) pages.  
   
• Hyperlink Color:
  This field specifies the color of links on the web site's pages.  You'll want to pick a color that goes well with the menu colors you chose above.  Once again, you can use the palette to help you choose the right color.

HEADLINES

• Headline Style:
  You can chose a number of different styles that are used for headlines on your home page and other bulletin or news pages.

Home Page

• Layout:
  You can choose from two layouts for your home page's content.  The first (the default) is a two column layout where news the welcome message, table of news contents and news items are all contained in the left column and other sidebar items are contained in the left column.  The right column includes a randomly selected picture from your site's Pictures area and a section listing the current contents of the site's Exchange area.  In addition, you can optionally include a game results section and a weather area.  The results section lists any game results that occurred in the last week.  Both the results and weather sections can be included or excluded by checking or unchecking the boxes to the left of their position in the layout thumbnail.
  
  The second home page layout is a simplified, single column configuration where only the welcome message, news contents table and news items themselves are displayed.
   
• Page Background:
  By default, all home page messages - News Items and Welcome Message -  will have their own separate box with a 3-Dimensional appearance. The boxes will have a white background with their messages and and will appear to be on top of a light grey background - see the image below.

  

  Optionally, you can choose not to have the 3-Dimensional appearance and select a color of your liking for the message boxes to appear on. This can be done in the Admin>Appearance section of your site under the Homepage tab. Simply select the "Choose Color" option and enter the whatever color you wish. You can use the Palette option to select a color. If you would rather not have separate boxes for each news item, simply select White (#FFFFFF) as the background color. See images below for examples of a white background and a colored background , respectively.

  

• Default News Colors:
  Choose default colors for news items. The colors entered here will be used by default for all new news items but can be overridden individually using the color fields on the message form itself.
  
  Note that you can choose a transparent background color from the pop up color display or type in the word "transparent". In this case, the page's background will shine through.
   

• Arrange Right Column Components (Arrange Components Below):
  This section will allow you to customize the appearance of the right side column of your Homepage. You can choose from several different tools to give your site its own feel. It can also be a useful way to relay scheduling and information regarding your organization. This section can be accessed from two different areas: from the "Appearance" section of the Admin area, and from above the right column of the your homepage, when signed in as an Admin.
  
  In the box marked "Whole Column Properties", you can choose the background color for the entire column. Optionally, you can choose to have a border surrounding the right hand column, separating the column from the rest of the page.
  
  The "Available Components" list is a list of features which you can choose to have active by highlight the feature and clicking the "Add" button. These features include:
  
  Countdown Clock:
  Displays a digital clock that counts down the days, hours, minutes and seconds to a specific date and time. Enter the date and time at right using the form MM/DD/YYYY HH:MM:SS.
  
  Upcoming Events:
  Displays up to 5 event titles from your site's Events Calendar page. Events are populated by submitting General Events under Scheduling in the Admin area.
  
  Exchange Listing:
  Displays submission titles from your site's Exchange page. Submissions are entered via links provided on the Exchange page itself.
  
  Freeform Area:
  General purpose area where you can include any content you choose. Use the Edit Icon displayed on the top left of the control to bring up a form where you can enter content.
  
  Game Results:
  Displays a week's worth of game results in condensed form for all teams. Actual results are submitted via a team's Results page or via the mass results submission form fond in the Admin area.
  
  Link Logos:
  Displays logo images from your site's Links page in random order. Logo files can be uploaded using the Links form found in the Admin area and also on the Links page itself.
   
  Picture Slide Show:
  Displays up to 30 thumbnail images in a slideshow fashion, one at a time. Images are pulled from your site's Pictures page and only from those outside any albums.
  
  Rotating Sponsor Logos:
  Displays sponsor logos in in a slide show with links to their websites. With each page click on the site, the next available sponsor logo will start the slide show. For example, the first page click will start with Sponsor Logo #1 and continue through all available sponsor logos and then repeat. The next page click will start with Sponsor Logo#2 and so on. Sponsor logo files can be uploaded using the Sponsor form found in the Admin area and also on the Sponsors page itself.
  
  Sponsors Logos:
  Displays sponsor logos in random order with links to their websites. Sponsor logo files can be uploaded using the Sponsor form found in the Admin area and also on the Sponsors page itself
  
  Weather:
  Displays local weather for the area code specified on your site's Association page. The component title also links to a weekly weather forecast page for your area.
  
  In the Online Store:
  Displays an item from the site's online store and allows the visitor to go directly to that item. You can choose to display an item at random or the most popular item.
         
  Each one of the components can be edited in the box title "Current Selection Properties". This can be highlighting the component that you wish to change in the "Current Selections" list. You can also remove a feature from the right column by highlighting it in the "Current Selections" box and clicking the "Remove" button. Once you have added, deleted or edited the right side components, you must click "Submit" for your changes to take effect.
   

Merchant Accounts:

The Merchant Account section is where all information regarding your credit card merchant accounts and PayPal accounts are kept. This information includes the Transaction Key, Merchant Login ID and credit card types that are accepted (Visa, Mastercard, etc). The information is kept only in this area and need only be checked off on registrations, online forms, and the online store as the form of accepted payment. You must check off the appropriate merchant account box on your registration programs, online forms and in the Properties section of the online store to be able to accept credit card payment. If any information needs to be changed or updated, such as Transaction Keys, they only need to be updated in this area and not on each form or store.

• Account Name:
  This is the name that you will choose to identify your merchant account/Pay Pal account. This name will appear on all of your registrations and online forms setup next to a checkbox. If you have multiple accounts, you will see multiple checkboxes. Simply check the account that you wish to use.
   
• Description:
  Here, you can write a brief description of your merchant account and its purpose. This can be particularly helpful if you have multiple accounts for different purposes. For example, if your organization uses one merchant account for registrations and another for the online store,  you can use this field to describe the use of each.
   
• Gateway Type:
  In this section, you will select the appropriate payment gateway for your merchant account. These include: AuthorizeNet, Sage/Net1 Credit Card, Net1 eCheck, Secure PayTech and Pay Pal Business Account.
   
• M_ID (Merchant Login ID):
  This field is used for your M_ID, also known as the merchant account login ID or API Login ID. For Pay Pal accounts, this field should be used for your Pay Pal Account ID.
   
• M_Key (Transaction Key):
  This field is to be filled with your M_Key or transaction key. Your M_Key/transaction key is acquired from your payment gateway company (i.e. Sage or AuthorizeNet). If you ever need to change or update the transaction key, the change will be updated on all programs using the account. 
   
• Accept:
  Use the checkboxes provided here to denote the types of credit cards that your merchant account accepts. If you are using Pay Pal, all of the boxes will be checked by default and cannot be changed, due to the fact that Pay Pal accepts all of the defined payment methods.
   
• Send Receipts to:
  This field should be filled in if you wish to have a responsible party receive an email of all payment receipts for this account. Keep in my mind that this party will receive an email for EVERY pay receipt that is processed through this account. If you are a member of a large organization, this may be quite a large number of emails being sent to this party.
   
• Reconcile Merchant Accounts:
  In this section, you can reconcile credit card payments for a particular merchant account and date range. Simply select your merchant account and enter the date range. You can leave the end date blank to return all transactions from your start date to the current date.

Also, if you have previous registration programs where members owe a balance, and you want them to be able to pay via credit card using the merchant account that has been set up, you may want to check off the merchant account box on previous registration programs, as well.

Messages:

The Message Center is used to create new messages and to enter important messages on the home page's marquee alert strip.  This is the only part of the Administration area that is accessible with the Team Manager's password and will be the only choice on the Admin menu when logged in with that password.

The marquee alert strip is a great place to get visitors' attention and display important information. The Message Center has two fields for the marquee alert:

• Marquee Alert:
  Enter the message you want displayed here.  Whatever you enter will be displayed in red in the scrolling marquee strip at the top of the home page.  If there are any game results being displayed there at the time, they will be overwritten.
   
• Expires After:
  Use this field to enter an expiration date for the alert.  This way, you won't have to remember to take it down later.  If you're announcing some event in the future, use its date here. The date should be entered in the form "mm/dd/yyyy."

The remaining links on the Message Center are used to create new messages of several types.  The forms for all these types are similar and are described in the next section - Message Entry Form.  The message types are as follows:

• Welcome Message:
  Use this link to create a welcome message for your site.  This will be the first message displayed on your home page and will always remain on top of any news messages that you create.  This is a great place to welcome visitors and tell them a little about your organization.  Don't tell them too much, though, or the news items that appear below the welcome message will be so far down that no one will notice them.  One brief paragraph is probably all you need.  You might also want to include a smallish photo in the message (click here for the upload procedure) that captures the essence of your club. A player in action usually works well.
   
• News Item:
  This link is used to create a news item for the home page.  As mentioned above, news items will be displayed below the welcome message in chronological order.  That is, the most recently dated messages will be on top.  This is the best place to post things relevant to your entire organization and to the general public as well.  You can also use news messages to broadcast their content to your entire email-enabled membership.  This is a great way to get the word out on important or timely matters of concern to everyone.
   
• Coach Bulletin:
  You can post bulletins to your site's "Hey Coach" page.  If your site doesn't already have this page, posting a coaching bulletin will create it.  Like news items, coach bulletins can be broadcast via email but, in this case, specifically to members who have been assigned to a current team and a position with the word "Coach" in it (ie. Coach or Assistant Coach).
   
• Officials Bulletin:
  You can post bulletins to your site's "Officials" page.  If your site doesn't already have this page, posting a referee bulletin will create it.  Like news items, referee bulletins can be broadcast via email but, in this case, specifically to members who have been assigned to the built in Officials team.
   
• Team Bulletins:
  You can use team bulletins to communicate directly with team members (and their parents).  This is where coaches and team managers can go to get out the latest news and information specifically for their teams.  Like news items, team bulletins can be broadcast via email but, in this case, specifically to team members and their parents.
   
• Exchange Item:
  This is one of the places you can enter items for the Exchange page on the Association menu.  This page is used to list items for sale or swap or for items that are wanted.  You can post these items here or directly from the Exchange page itself. 
  
  After you post an item, you'll get a form asking for a "key" number before the message is actually posted.  This number is emailed to you at the address you give on the Exchange Item entry form.  Once you receive this email, enter the number on the form, and your item will be posted.
  
  The reason for the above procedure is to ensure that posters use their correct email address.  We have found that some people like to post inappropriate or obscene messages to the Exchange; if they have to give their real email address, they almost always go elsewhere and consequently, their messages never get posted.  Nothing like personal accountability!

Message Entry Form:

All the remaining message types - Welcome, News Item, Team Bulletin, and Exchange Item all use the same (or similar) form for submitting messages and is described below.  These forms have some or all of the following fields:

• Broadcast via email:
  Check this field to have an email copy of your message sent out via email.  If this is a News or Exchange item, it will be sent to all members who have an email address.  If this is a Team Bulletin, it will be sent to all members of the specified team(s) and their parents. 

  Note: If this is a news item, you can choose to send it to only club members who are currently assigned to a team (and their parents) or to all members. If you choose the second option, all members will receive the message regardless of whether or not they are still active. The first choice is more appropriate for organizations that have operated for more than one year and have members on file who are no longer active.  You can choose which team seasons to broadcast to by selecting from the season menu below.  When you choose team seasons in this way, only members of teams whose seasons are selected will receive the message.  This way, only the appropriate people will receive the message.
   

• Recipient Team(s):
  For team bulletins only, select one or more teams to receive your message.  To select more than one team, hold down the Ctrl key and click each one.  To select a range (consecutive in the list) of teams, hold down the Shift key and drag the mouse over the teams you want to select.  To select all teams, click the topmost team, scroll to the bottom, hold down the Shift key, and click the last team in the list.

  If you check the "Broadcast via email" box above, each member of each team and their parents who have email addresses will be sent your bulletin via email when you submit this form.

Members:

Your site can store and manage information about your club's membership.  This information can be used to generate team rosters, a club contacts list, directory lists, email report, mailing labels report, mail-merge files, and, of course, team- and member-wide bulletins and news emails.  To enter member information, you'll use the Member Information form.  Here you enter basic information about each member.  You can also make team assignments on this form.  To manage lists and reports, you'll use the Member Query form documented below.

Member Query Form:

Clicking "Members" on the Administration menu brings up the Member Query form.  This form is used to find members in the database and generate reports based on the results of the query.  You can find members by name, member type, email, age range, team position, or team membership. If you enter nothing on the form, all members will be displayed. Names will be found that begin with the letters you type. That is, entering "sm" will find all Smiths or Smyths, etc. Name searches are case insensitive. You can enter names in either upper or lower case. The Notes field is also case insensitive; however, text you enter here may be found anywhere within a member's Notes field - not necessarily at the beginning, like a name field.

Ranges, such as "Between the age of," can be used to find members who fall between a range of values. A number in the first field will find members with a value greater than or equal to the entry. Likewise, a number in the second field will find members with a value less than or equal to the entry. If you enter one but not the other, your entry will be either a floor or a ceiling value.

You can select more than one team position or team name by holding down the Ctrl key and clicking the desired choices. To select a range of choices, drag (hold down the left button while moving) the mouse over the desired choices.

Queries are additive. That is, specifying selection data in more than one field means that member data must match all the data specified. For example, Setting the Type drop-down menu to "Parent" and the Has EMail menu to "No" would yield only members who are parents and don't have email addresses. Note, however, that when you select more than one item in either the "Position" or "Team" lists, the selections within the list are put together with the "Or" operator. That is, any member belonging to any of the selected teams (or selected positions) will be selected. This only applies within the list, however. The selected teams are still put together with the other fields on the form, with the "And" operator as already explained.

The fields on the form are the following:

• Add a new member link:
  Click this link to go directly to the Member Information form to enter a new member.
   
• Import Member Data from a File:
  Click this link to specify a file to upload containing member information.  See Importing Member Information later in this chapter.
   
• Lookup a Member's Password:
  Click this link to locate an existing member's password. This can be especially useful if a member has changed their email address and it has not been updated in the system.
   
• Report Type:
  The Report Type drop-down menu contains the list of available reports for your query.  The report types are as follows:
   
  • Directory Listing Report:
    This report simply displays the selected members along with their addresses, phone numbers, and email addresses. With this list, you can click on any member's name to bring up the information form so that you can make changes. You can also delete members from this listing by clicking the Delete button to the right of each entry.  The listing will be divided into a list of 50 members per page if your query yields more than 50 members.  In this case, there will be links with letter ranges at the top of the report so that you can easily find people by their last names.
    
    You can now clean up duplicates from your member database using a drag and drop selection method on the Member Listing page.  To copy one member's data over another's and consolidate them, click and hold down the left mouse button on the newer member's name.  Now move the mouse to the member you want to overwrite and let go of the mouse.  You'll then be prompted as to whether you want to overwrite the target member.  Click Ok and the following will happen:  
     
    1. The contact data from the first (dragged) member will overwrite that of the member you dropped them on.
    2. If you dragged a parent's record, any children that referred to the member (as their guardians) will be updated to point to the member who was dropped on.
    3. Any roster assignments involving the first member will now point to the dropped on member.
    4. Any player statistics involving the dragged member will be changed to the dropped on member.
    5. Any registrations involving the dragged member will be transferred to the dropped on member.
    6. The dragged members data will be deleted.
       
        
  • Send Email (Email Local Members) :
    This report allows you to select specific search criteria and returns an email form that is pre-populated with all members that math your criteria. Note that if the same email address matches your criteria more than once (i.e. multiple family members using the same email address) only one email will be sent per email address.
    
    Also, Each email will be mailed individually to each recipient.  For example, if your email list contains 100 addresses, 100 separate emails with a single recipient address in the "To" field.  This way, the privacy of the other recipients will be preserved and spam filters won't automatically flag the message as a group spam.
     
  • Email Client Clubs:
    This tool will allow "Parent" league administrators to send an email message to positions within its member clubs' databases. You can choose to send email to positions on the Boards of member clubs or to assigned positions on connected teams. You may also choose to send email to selected positions of individual clubs/teams by selecting the symbol. This action will generate a list off all member clubs or, in the case of selecting team members, a list of all connected teams. You may select specific teams by checking/un-checking the box to left of each club/team. The list is defaulted to select all clubs/teams.

    By selecting a position from the list of available positions in the window on the right, the system will search for members who have team or Board assignments containing the selected position in your member club's databases. For example, selecting a Board position of "President" will return members with "Vice-President", as well as "President" Board assignments. You can add multiple team/Board assignments by selecting from the list or typing positions separated by commas or one per line. The entry made here will be remembered for future visits from the same computer.

    Once all sections have been made, click the "Find Them" button. The resulting page will contain an email form, pre-populated with the email addresses of all members that fit your criteria.

    • Keep in mind, the system will query not just member databases but the "Parent" database, as well. If at the "Parent" level you have members with team and Board assignments that match the query, those members will be returned as part of your email list along with the selected clubs/teams. Also, if the position window is blank when searching, the system will return all Board/team members from member clubs. This feature should not be used unless absolutely necessary.
       
  • Mailing Label Report:
    This report is used to generate a page that can be printed onto standard Avery #2160, 3-across mailing labels. Instructions for setting up your printer and aligning the labels are given before the labels are displayed.  The instructions include the following:
    
    Before printing the page of labels, you'll need to set the Top, Left, Bottom, and Right margins of your browser's Print Setup to 1/2 inch. To do this with Internet Explorer, use the File - Page Setup menu commands to bring up the Page Setup dialog box. Also, turn off any headers or footers specified on the same dialog box.
    
    You can choose to create only one label for each household and last name. That is, only the alphabetically first adult with the same last name residing at the same address will be printed. Everyone else will be skipped, thus eliminating duplicate mailings to the same household. Persons with the same last name but different addresses will be printed separately. People with different last names residing at the same address will also be printed separately.  You can also choose to sort labels by either last name or zip code.  If you're doing a bulk mailing, you should use the latter choice.
    
    The label page is designed for use with standard # 2160 Avery labels that are 1" x 2 5/8" and are printed 3 across. Computers and printers have different settings for the number of "Pixels" in a given fixed unit of measure. Unfortunately, browsers only allow columns and rows to be formatted using pixels - not fixed units, such as inches or centimeters. This being the case, your labels may not line up with the text that is printed by your browser. You can use the settings on the instruction form to adjust the way labels are printed relative to the actual physical labels. You may have to print several test pages to experiment until things line up properly, but the default values given are usually correct and should get you started. Try using regular paper for your experiments to save expensive labels. Once things line up, your settings will be remembered the next time you print labels.
     
  • Download Data:
    This report type will create a tab delimited file that can be used with Microsoft Word to create custom mailings and letters for your members.  The file can also be imported into Microsoft Excel to create a spreadsheet of your member database.
    
    After the query is complete and the file is generated on the server, a "File Download" dialog box will be displayed; choose "Save this file to disk" and press "OK."  In the resulting "Save As" dialog box.  Click "Save," and the Mail Merge file will be downloaded to your computer. 
    
    When you're ready to perform the mail merge in MS Word, choose the file you saved above as the "Data Source."  Word will automatically interpret the fields within the file and make them available to you for your document.  See your MS Word documentation for instructions on how to create Mail Merge documents.
     
  • Little League Export (Only available for Baseball Clubs)
    This report produces a .txt file formatted with all information to be exported to Little League.
     
  • Cybersport Export (Only available with Hockey Clubs)
    This report produces a .txt file formatted with all information to be exported to US Hockey via Cybersport.
    
     
• First Name:
  Enter a person's first name here.  As explained earlier, you can enter a portion of the name, and the query will match only the letters you type at the beginning of the name.  The search is case insensitive; you can use either upper or lower case letters.
   
• Last Name:
  Enter a person's last name here.  Again, you can enter a portion of the name, and the query will match only the letters you type at the beginning of the name.  The search is case insensitive; you can use either upper or lower case letters.
   
• Type:
  Use this drop-down menu field to search for either parents or players.  If you choose "Parent," then only parents that match the other selection criteria will be returned.  If you choose "Player," then only players will be returned.  The default of "All" turns off filtering based on Member Type.  Member Type is explained below under the Member Information Form topic.
   
• Has Email:
  This drop-down menu allows you to find members who have email addresses and those who do not.  This could be useful for mailing out information to those members who don't yet have email and would thus miss email broadcasts.  You could also do a mailing asking these people to send in their email addresses if they have them but are not in the system yet.
   
• Email Addr:
  You can use this field to search for a specific email address or part of an email address.
   
• Phone:
  This field will allow member queries by home, work or cell phone numbers. The phone number does not have to be specifically formatted and members can be queried based on partial numbers as well. For example, if "1234" is entered in this field, the query will return all members who have that exact string of numbers in any of their phone records.
   
• Gender:
  Use this dropdown list to search for males or females or both (the default of "All").
   
• Born Between:
  Use these fields to filter members by age.  The field to the left is the low birthday and the one to the right is the high limit.  Similarly, you can use the In Grade fields to specify members whose school grade is between the numbers you enter here.  Not Kindergarten is specified with a "0".  For pre-k use "-1".
   
• Notes:
  Use this field to find letters, words, or phrases within members' notes fields as entered on the Member Information form.  The text you type here can be found anywhere within the notes data, unlike the name fields above where text is only found at the beginning.
   
• Modified Since:
  This field can be used to do a search for member records that have modified since the date you specify here.
   
• In Zip Codes:
  You can use this field to query members in a particular zip code(s). If you are performing a query for multiple zip codes, each zip code must be separated with a comma.
   
• Registered in Program(s):
  This area lists the names of all online registration programs.  You can use the list to specify members enrolled or not enrolled in one or more programs.  To find enrolled members click the name of any program to highlight it.  To specify more than one, hold down the Ctrl key while you click each one.  To find members who are not registered in particular programs, check the "Not" box above and to the left of the list while highlighting the programs of interest.  You might want to use the "Not" registered search criteria for an email reminder to prospective members to go register.
  
  In addition, you can also search for registrants who have either paid or not paid for their programs.  Use the check boxes below the list to specify which you'd like.
   
• Positions:
  This menu can be used to find members of various types based on their positions on teams.  You can, for instance, choose to find members who are either coaches or managers by holding down the Ctrl key and clicking both "Coach" and "Manager."  To select a single position, just click it without the Ctrl key. 
  
  The choice at the top of the list "Not Assigned" can be used to find members who haven't yet been assigned to a team.  If you use this in conjunction with the Type field to find all players who haven't been assigned, you can generate a "work list" of members to assign to teams so no one falls through the cracks.
   
• Teams:
  Use the Teams fields (Season drop-down and team lists) to find members of various teams.  The Season drop-down list specifies the team's season (as explained below under the Teams topic), and the list below it contains the teams themselves along with their parent leagues denoted by an asterisk (*); refer also to the Leagues topic. 
  
  You can choose multiple teams by holding down the Ctrl key and clicking individual team names.  To select a range of teams, click the first team in the range, and then hold down the Shift key and click the last team in the range.  All the teams in between will then be highlighted.  Once you submit the Query form, all the members of the selected teams will be returned.
   

Member Information Form:

Enter member information using the "Add a new member" link on the Member Query form, or on any Directory listing.  You can edit existing member information by clicking any member's name in a Directory listing.  On the Member Information form, you can enter information, such as name and address, email and phone number, parents, and age.  When entering new members, you should enter parents before their children so that you can associate one or both parents with each child.  Once you've created teams as explained below under Teams, you can create rosters by assigning members to teams on the Member Information form.  The form contains the following fields:

• First Name:
  Enter the person's first name here as you would like it to appear on rosters and on mailings.
   
• Last Name:
  Enter the person's last name here as you would like it to appear on rosters and on mailings.
   
• Type:
  Select the members type from this drop-down list.  The choices are "NA," "Parent," and "Player."  Select "NA" for members who don't fit such categories as non-parent board members or administrators.  Use the latter choices to designate parents and players.
   
• ID:
  This field is used to specify an optional serial ID number for each member.  Some organizations or their governing bodies require that each member be given a unique identification number.  You can manually enter a member's ID number here or leave the field blank to have the form automatically assign one.  The assigned number is based off the number given on the Configuration page.
   
• Guardian:
  The two Guardian fields are used to associate parents (or guardians) with their children.  When entering a child's information, you can select guardians from either of the drop-down lists.  The lists contain the names of all previously entered members designated as Parents using the Type field mentioned above.  For this reason, you'll need to enter parents before their children for all new registrations. 
  
  Hint: type the first letter of the guardian's last name in order to jump closer in the list, rather than scrolling all the way.
   
• Address:
  Enter the member's address in either or both of the two provided fields.  Each field is limited to 32 characters. To the right of the entry, you can select to to have the address:
  • Private:
    This selection makes the entry available only to Administrators and Coaches with rights to view Member Information.
     
  • Roster:
    This selection makes the entry available only to those members with access to team rosters via an Administration Password or Team/Manager Password. This is the default selection for all personal information.
     
  • Public:
    This entry is primarily for Adult positions such as Coach, Manager or Board Members. This will make the entry available to all visitors to the website on pages such as "Contacts" and "Team Contacts"
     
• City, State and Zip Code:
  Enter the city, state, and zip code portions of the member's address here.  The City field is limited to 24 characters, and the State allows two.  The Zip Code field is limited to 10 characters, which must begin with numeric digits and can include a dash (-) between the first 5 and last 4 characters.
   
• Phone, Work Phone & Cell:
  Enter the member's phone numbers here.  The first field is used for the home number, and the second for the work number. To the right of the entry, you can select to to have each phone number:
  • Private:
    This selection makes the entry available only to Administrators and Coaches with rights to view Member Information.
     
  • Roster:
    This selection makes the entry available only to those members with access to team rosters via an Administration Password or Team/Manager Password. This is the default selection for all personal information.
     
  • Public:
    This entry is primarily for Adult positions such as Coach, Manager or Board Members. This will make the entry available to all visitors to the website on pages such as "Contacts" and "Team Contacts"

  The dropdown to the right of the cell phone field can be used to specify your cell phone carrier. After you make this selection, all broadcast email messages, including schedule change notices sent from the site will also be sent to your cell phone as text messages. So now if they cancel the game while you're on the road, you'll know about it right away.  A few notes about text messages:
  
  1) Just as with email, only one copy of a message is ever sent to a cell phone number regardless of how many family members have the same number. This is true for all message types. Schedule change notices are sent to both the player's and their parent's cell numbers if configured.
  
  2) You should be aware that "text message" means exactly that. We strip out any and all HTML formatting prior to sending text messages, so be aware that things may not look the same on one's cell phone as they do in your email inbox. Formatting like bolding, underlining, italics, centering and underlying links will not be preserved and embedded pictures will be removed entirely. Tables will not line up in neat columns but their lines will be preserved.
  
  3) Also be aware that text messages are limited to 170 characters, including the From address, title and body of the message itself. Anything beyond that will be cut off. For this reason it's probably a good idea to get your main point across early in your message. Email recipients will get the whole thing but only the the first part will be visible on people's cell phones.
  
   

• Email:
  Enter the person's email address here.  When entering a child's address, you can enter that one here or one that belongs to a parent.  When entering parents, you might enter a home address for one parent and a work address for the other.  That way, messages and notices will be sent to each. 
  
  Note that it's also possible to enter more than one address in the field.  Just separate each address with a comma, for example, MyName@home.net, MyName@work.com.
  
  To the right of the entry, you can select to to have the email address:
  • Private:
    This selection makes the entry available only to Administrators and Coaches with rights to view Member Information.
     
  • Roster:
    This selection makes the entry available only to those members with access to team rosters via an Administration Password or Team/Manager Password. This is the default selection for all personal information.
     
  • Public:
    This entry is primarily for Adult positions such as Coach, Manager or Board Members. This will make the entry available to all visitors to the website on pages such as "Contacts" and "Team Contacts"
     
• No Emails:
  When checked, the member will not be included in Email Broadcasts sent from the site. The member will still receive Schedule Change Notifications and Game/Practice Reminders, if applicable.
   
• Remind Of:
  By checking either or both of the boxes, automatic email reminders, will be sent for Games (which include all game types with the exception of "Practice") or Practices. You can also allow your members to determine, for themselves, whether to receive these reminders or, optionally, you can set a global setting that all members receive reminders or not.  These settings are located in you site's "Configure" section.
   
• Date of Birth:
  Enter the person's birthday here.  You can later use this information to find children by age when creating teams.  Otherwise, if you don't need this information, you can leave the field blank.
  
  Note that the check box to the right of this field can be used to specify that this person's birthday will appear on their team's schedule and calendar pages.  If checked, a birthday item will appear for this date annually showing their first name and the first letter of their last name.  If left unchecked (the default), the member's birthday will not be displayed. You can suppress all birthdays from being shown on calendars and schedules by un-checking the "Show Birthdays" box in the Configure section.
   
• Birth Certificate:
  Select from the dropdown "All", "On File" or "No" to query members who have a Birth Certificate (or other accepted form of ID) on file.
   
• Grade:
  Use this field to enter children's school grade if your organization divides players by grade.  Otherwise, you are better off just using birthday.
   
• Notes:
  You can enter any kind of information you like in this field, such as special instructions or other data not contained elsewhere on this form.
   
• Photo File:
  Use the "Browse" button to locate a photo on your computer and then upload to the system. The photo uploaded here will appear as a thumbnail on the member information page and will also appear on the Player Profile page - the resulting page after the Player's name is clicked on the full contact roster. Any picture uploaded here will be resized to a width of no more than 400 pixels wide.
   
• Register in Program:
  You can use this selection to manually register a member to a specific program. Select the program from the drop down list of current registration programs and click "Register". On hte resulting registration form, fill out all required information and click "Submit". Optionally you can choose to delete or edit current registration information by selecting the program from the "Current Registration" window and clicking "Edit" or "Delete".
   
• Team Assignments:
  These fields are used to assign members to teams, thus creating rosters.  You'll need to choose a season from the drop-down list, which will default to the current season.  See the Teams section later in this document for information about seasons and teams.  You can make up to four team assignments per season in the fields below:
   
• Team:
  Select the name of a single team from each drop-down list where you want to make an assignment.  Note: Only select a team name, not leagues or divisions that have asterisks in front of their names. 
  
  You'll also notice several special teams toward the top of the list.  These are "Board", "Friends", "Officials" and "Inactive".  The Board team is for your association's board of directors.  The members you assign to the Board team will appear on the Contacts page of the web site.  You can assign them positions, such as "President," "Secretary," etc., using the New Position fields discussed below.  In addition, you can control the order in which board members are displayed on the Contacts page by entering numbers in the "No" field on the right.  The person with a "1" in this field will appear first, followed by the person with a "2" here, and so on.  If you don't enter numbers here, contacts will be sorted by position or by name if no position is specified.  For more information on the Contacts page, click here.
  
  The Friends team is used for association members who aren't members of any other team including the board.  These might be contributors, alumni, or anyone whom you want to receive broadcast emails from the site.
  
  The Officials team is where members, such as referees or umpires, should be assigned. By assigning these members, the system will automatically create an "Officials Area" page on your site's home page. This page is where you can keep articles, documents or bulletins that apply specifically to officials. Optionally, this page can be password protected by entering an "Officials Password" on the Security page. Members assigned as officials will also be able to be assigned to specific games on the New Game Information form. Once assigned, officials will also be able to create a schedule of their assigned games in the Officials Area. The system will also automatically notify officials of games they have been assigned to, as well as, sending out an email reminder, at minimum, 24 hours before the game.
  
  The Inactive team is for members that you wish to keep in your database, but are no longer actively involved and thus, are excluded from email blasts and communications. 
   
• Position:
  Select a position from the list for each assignment.  Standard positions include "Coach," "Asst Coach," "Manager," and "Player."  You can add to the list by entering a new position type in the New Position field to the right.
  NOTE: There are a couple of keywords that when used in a Team Assignment's POSITION will trigger the member being included in the TEAM CONTACTS. Those are:
  Coach
  Manager
  Assistant
  Coordinator
  Parent
  Director
  Scheduler
  Representative
  Referee
  Treasurer
  Primary
  Trainer
  Commissioner
  
  Also, if you'd like to add a Position to the Team Contacts that does not fit the above criteria, simply create a new position and include a tilde (~) in the Position. This will tell the system to include those assigned this position as Team Contacts.
   
• New Position:
  You can optionally enter the name of a team position here that doesn't appear in the "Position" list to the left.  This allows you to create new positions for this and subsequent assignments.  That is, anything you type here will later appear in the list to the left. 
  
  A word of caution: Be careful when adding new positions.  The list of positions can get very crowded and hard to navigate later as you add new ones.  They're also hard to get rid of if you later change you mind about a name.  To eliminate a position other than the standard ones, you'll have to find all members who are assigned the position and reassign them to another.  Once they're all reassigned, the former position will disappear from the list.
   
• No:
  This field is used for the player's assigned number.  The number will appear on rosters and can help identify players on the field. This field can also be used to position Board members on the Contacts page.  For example, the person with a "1" in this field will appear first, followed by the person with a "2" here, and so on.  If you don't enter numbers here, contacts will be sorted by position or by name if no position is specified.
   

Importing Member Information:

You can import member information from a spreadsheet file rather than entering it all by hand using the Member Information form mentioned above.  To do this, you'll need to create a spreadsheet file containing a row for each member 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 or as a tab delimited text file (.TXT) before it can be imported.  Files of these types can be generated from Excel using the Save As dialog box.  To perform the actual import see the link towards the top of the Members search form.

You can also use a file that was downloaded from the site using the "Download Data" Report Type on the Members Search form.  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 mass 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 First and Last name columns.  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.  Columns can be in any order.

Note:  The first row of data must be contain the names of the columns as specified above.   Any columns except first and last names can contain blank data. 

Separate records will be created for each guardian listed and linked to their children. If they happen to be a coach or other official, there is no need to list them on their own. If on the other hand, you have personnel that don't happen to also be parents, then you'll want to list them separately in the import file.  If a parent is listed on their own line, the data encountered there will overwrite any previously inserted data created by a Guardian reference and visa versa.

For a spreadsheet template with common column headings already specified, click here.

Online Store:

The online store is a great tool for your organization to sell merchandise to the general public or throughout the organization. Whether using the Online Store as a retail-style storefront or as a fundraising tool, it can be a valuable part of your organization.

There are four different administration menu choices for the Online Store: Properties, Store Items, List Purchases, and Reconcile Credit Card Payments. All of the choices are simple and easy to use tools to get your store up and running and keep it that way.

Let's get started:

Properties:

The Properties section of the Online Store is the first step to setting up your store. We will enter some basic information about the store in this section.

• Place on Menu:
  This drop down menu indicates which menu tab the online store is to be under. Any menu tab that has been set up for your site will be available except the Admin. page. Generally, if the store is available to the public or all members, it is placed under the "Association" tab.
   
• Menu Title:
  This is the name that will appear on the menu choices to the left of your screen. The name entered here will also appear at the top of the store's page.
   
• Description:
  The information entered in this field will appear at the top of the online store's page. This should be a brief description of the store. Generally the description includes information about the store, the types of items that are available in the store (equipment, apparel, etc.) and optionally a slogan. This is an optional field.
   
• Live:
  This box should be checked if the online store is to be visible to the public. This box can be unchecked to hide the store from the general public while you are testing it.
   
• Email Purchase information to:
  This is the email address of the responsible party for the store. Generally, this is the person responsible for shipping and/or inventory management. More than one email address can be entered if separated by a colon or semicolon.
   
• Shipping Methods:
  In this field you may add a new shipping method by selecting the "Add" button. In the resulting window, enter the type of shipment (next day, ground, etc) in the "Name" field and the cost associated with shipping. In the "Store Items" section , you can assign a shipping price for each item. In this case, the base cost field should be left blank.
  
  If you have already entered a shipping method, you may edit or delete the existing entry by highlighting the choice and selecting the corresponding button. Optionally you can move an existing entry up or down on the choice list with the same procedure.
  
  If your site does not ship out any products, this field may be left blank.
   
• Shipping Policy:
  Generally, this pertains to how quickly the product will be shipped out. The shipping policy will be displayed along with the availability status on the product's description page.
   
• Sales Tax by State:
  In this section you have three choices: "Add" a new state, "Edit" an previously added state, or "Delete" a previously entered state. To add a new state, select the "Add" button. On the resulting window, enter the state and the appropriate tax rate. The "Edit" feature can be used by highlighting the previously entered state on the menu and selecting "Edit" (the resulting screen will be the same as the "Add" selection.) Remember that your organization only needs to collect tax in the state in which they are located, so only enter the sales tax rate for the home state's) of your organization. It is up to each site to determine the applicability of sales tax in your state.
   
• Merchant Accounts:
  If you are accepting credit card payments, check the box of the corresponding Merchant Account or Pay Pal account that you wish to use. If any updates need to be made to your merchant account, such as updating your "M_Key" or Transaction Key, those changes must be made in the "Merchant Account" section of the Administration area.
   
• Return Policy:
  Enter your online store's return policy, such as "All sales are final" or "Returns made for store credit only."
   

Store Items:

After you have setup the online store's properties, you are now ready to stock the shelves. This is done in the "Store Items" section. In this section, you will be able to add new items to your store, as well as edit and delete existing items from the store. Once you've selected the "Store Items" selection, the resulting window will give you the option to "Add a new item." Once you have added items to the store, two additional choices: edit an existing item (the to the left of the item) and delete an existing item (the icon to the right of the item) will be available. When adding or editing an item, a form with the following fields will appear:

• Name:
  The name of the item you are adding or editing.
   
• Item ID:
  This is a number that you can assign to identify the item such as a model number or SKU number.
   
• Inventory:
  The resulting window for this choice will allow you to enter the "Quantity in stock" of the item. The store will countdown the quantity as the items are sold, When the "Quantity in stock" reaches zero, you can select to have "Sold Out" or "Backordered" displayed as the status. If this is an item that the store will continually stock, "Backordered" should be selected.
   
• Public:
  Check this box if you would like this item to be available to the general public. This box can be unchecked to hide the item from the general public while testing.
   
• Full Description:
  Enter a complete description of the item in the text box. You can use the WYSIWYG editing features to customize your text.
   
• Tagline:
  A very brief description of the item. This field will appear under the item's name on the store's homepage.
   
• Picture File:
  This field is used if you wish to upload a picture of the item. You can optionally enter the file path of the photo on your computer or browse your computer for a picture file. The picture you upload should be the full size version. The store will automatically create a thumbnail size image that the user will be presented with and can click on to access a full size version.
   
• Caption:
  This a brief description or phrase located under the photo.
   
• Option Groups:
  This field is used to set your selections such as size, color and style. First, enter the option (size, color, etc.) you wish to define choices for under the "Prompt" column. Next, click the "Edit" button. On the resulting window, there will be choices to "Add" a new choice, "Edit" an existing choice, or "Delete" an existing choice.
  
  On the resulting window of "Add" or "Edit", you can enter the choice (small, medium, large, etc.). The Value field is an optional name for your choice. For example, if you were entering extra large as a size, XL could be substituted for the full name when inserted into the database. The "Extra cost" field should be entered only if an additional charge is applied for the choice. If there is no additional charge, leave this field blank. The "Selected" box, if checked, will make the choice the default choice.
  Repeat these steps, for each choice.
   
• Pricing:
  These choices are used to enter the price of the actual item, the shipping cost for the item, and discounts for bulk purchases (if any apply):
  
  Unit Price:
  This is the price of the item. If an amount was added in the "Extra cost" field in the Option groups, the amount will be totaled in the customer's cart.
  
  Shipping cost:
  Enter the cost for shipping the item. If you have multiple shipping options, there will be multiple options. This field will override the base shipping cost entered in the "Shipping methods" section. If you wish to use the base shipping cost, leave this field blank.
  
  Discount Schedule:
  This table is used only if the store is to offer discounts for multiple purchases. If no discount is available, leave this table blank. First, enter the quantity at which the bulk discount will start. Next, enter the discount rate to apply to the bulk purchase. You can choose to discount by percentage or by a fixed dollar amount. For example, if you wish to offer a 10% discount on purchases of five or more of an item, enter "5" in the "Qty" column and "10" in the "%" column.
   
• Shipping Policy:
  Enter this field only if you wish to override the entry made in the "Shipping Policy" section in "Properties". If you wish to use the standard policy you have already set, leave this field blank. If there is a special policy that pertains only to this item, give a brief description of the policy in this field.
   
• Return Policy:
  Enter this field only if you wish to override the entry made in the "Return Policy" section in "Properties" If you wish to use the standard policy you have already set, leave this field blank. If there is a special policy that pertains only to this item, give a brief description of the policy in this field.
   

List Purchases:

This reports lists all purchases made in the store. The report can be sorted by date processed by clicking on the "Processed" heading, date ordered by clicking on the "Ordered" heading, or by customer name by clicking on the "Customer" heading. The box listed under the "Processed" heading can be checked by the administrator to help keep track of orders that have been processed and orders that still need to be completed. Also, the COD heading indicates the amount that is due on each order and totals those amounts at the end of the report.

Download Item Purchases:

This report will create a csv spreadsheet for each item ordered through the online store. Information conatined in this report includes the First and Last Name of the purchaser, date purchased, item number, description, as well as all options and prompts for each item.

Reconcile Credit Card Payments:

This report categorizes and totals credit card payments made to a merchant account within a specified time period. When this tool is selected, the resulting window will allow you to select the merchant account id from a drop down menu, and specify the time period with a start date and an end date. If the "Between dates" fields are left empty, the report is generated from the origination date of the merchant account to the current date. The report will categorize and total payments made for the store, as well as online registration and payments made to other online forms you have created. Optionally, the report can be printed by clicking the "Print" icon () at the top of the report page.

Menu Tabs:

Your website comes with a standard set of menu tabs across the top of each page.  The leftmost tab is where we put most of the predefined pages we supply with the exception of those on the Team tab.  This serves as your site's home tab and the accompanying menu can contain additional pages you define using the Menu Page form explained below.  The next tab is labeled Team.  This is where you can find team specific pages such as schedules, game results, rosters, etc..  To this list of tabs, you can also add new ones to help organize your site.

To enter a new tab or to edit an existing one, click the "Menu Tabs" choice on the Admin menu.  This will bring up a list of Tabs already defined.  You can click any Tab's name to edit its information or click the delete button to delete it.  Note however that you cannot delete Tabs that have pages attached to them and in these cases, the delete icon will not appear.  To add a new Tab, click the "Add a new Tab to the horizontal menu" link at the top of the page.  This will bring up the Tab Information form with the following fields:

• Caption:
  Type the title or caption of the tab here.  Whatever you enter will be displayed for this particular tab on the horizontal row of tabs.
   
• Position:
  You can use this field to specify the order of Tabs other than the home and Team tabs with are fixed.  The subsequent tabs are sorted and displayed alphabetically by default.  You can override this order by assigning numbers to Tabs to control their order.  For instance, to make a Tab appear as the first tab immediately after the Team tab, you could assign it the position number - 10.  The next tab could be numbered 20, the third 30, etc..  By leaving a numerical gap between numbers, you leave room to insert other tabs within the order later.
   
• Password:
  This field can optionally be used to password protect an entire menu on your site.  Visitors will be prompted for the password you specify whenever they navigate to this tab.  Thus, all pages assigned to this tab will be in effect password protected.  You could use this feature to secure a board members only or coaches only area on your site.
   

Note: Newly created tabs will not appear on the tab row until they have at least one page associated with them.  To create a new page and assign it to a tab or to reassign an existing page to a tab, see New Menu Pages below.

New Menu pages:

The "Pages" option on the Admin menu brings up a form that allows you to add new pages to your web site.  You can enter either HTML source code or just plain text.  The form also allows you to enter menu text for either the site's Association or Sport Name menus.  The fields on the form are as follows:

• Place under menu:
  Select the menu on which to display a link to your new page.  Choose either a top level menu tab or another page.  If you choose another page, the current page will become a sub-page of the parent page.  You can build a tree structured menu of pages in this way.
   
• Menu Text:
  Type the menu caption you want to appear on the menu you chose above.  You're limited to 16 characters for space reasons so try to keep it brief.  Also make sure your caption isn't already in use on the same menu.
   
• Position:
  You can use this field to specify the order of pages within the menu selected above.  Assigning numbers to pages, controls their order.  For instance, to make a page appear at the top of the menu, you could assign it the position number - 100.  The next page could be numbered 200, the third 300, etc..  By leaving a large numerical gap between numbers, you leave room to insert other pages within the order later.  Note that these numbers only effect the order of pages you create.  The built in pages of your site appear in predetermined positions within each menu that cannot be changed.
   
• Publish On:
  This field will be filled in automatically with today's date whenever you create a page.  You can change this to a date in the future if you'd like to hide the page until that time.  Hidden pages will not be visible to the public but administrators logged in with page editing rights will still be able see them with a line through their menu text indicating their hidden status.  This allows you access to edit or reinstate hidden pages by clicking their edit icon on the page itself.  Enter any date you wish as long as it is in the correct format: "MM-DD-YYYY" or "MM/DD/YYYY.".  If left blank, the page will be assumed to be visible immediately.
   
• Expires After:
  This field specifies the date after which the page will no longer be displayed to the public.  You can use this feature to hide or archive pages during periods where they're not relevant or until needed later.  Hidden pages will still exist in the system but will not be visible to the public.  They will however appear with a line through their menu text when you're logged in with rights to edit pages.  This allows you to edit or reinstate hidden pages by clicking their edit icon on the page itself.  As above, dates should be in the format: "MM-DD-YYYY" or "MM/DD/YYYY.".  Since this field is optional, you can leave it blank in order to indicate that the page should not expire.
   
• Password:
  You can optionally password protect this page by entering a password here.  If specified, visitors will be prompted to enter the password before they can view the page.
   
• URL:
  Optionally enter the address of another web page you'd like this page to be redirected to when its menu item is clicked.  If you check the "New Window" box to the right, the page will be displayed in a new browser window.
   
• Margin:
  This entry determines the amount of whitespace that will appear to the right and left of your page entry. This amount is entered in pixels and set to a default of 16 for all new pages created.
   
• Page Colors:
  Use the Background, Text and Link color fields to specify colors for your page. Use the palette buttons to select colors from a pop up display or type RGB color values directly.
  
  You can also choose to make the page's background transparent by clicking that choice on the pop up display or by simply typing the word "transparent" into the background field. In this case, the site's background will be used.
  
  Note that if you leave any of these fields blank (the default), your message will inherit its colors from those specified on the Admin/Configure/Appearance/Page Content form. If you make it a practice of not entering colors for individual pages, you can use the Appearance page settings to globally change all your pages. This will also make for a more consistant look throughout your site. For this reason, it is recommended that you only enter color values on the page form for pages that need to be different for some reason.
   
• Text Window:
  Use the large text editing window to compose or paste your page's text. If you are using most any modern browser, you will be able to take advantage of our WYSIWYG editor to format your page.

After you submit the form, your new page will appear on the menu of your choice.  If you've already logged into the Admin area, your page will have two icons at its top.  The first can be pressed to bring up the entry form for editing.  You can then edit the text, change the menu, or the page's menu caption.  The second button can be used to delete the page altogether.

Results:

The "Results" menu choice is used to enter game results in a consolidated, centralized location.  The form lists all the games for the last week and all un-entered games prior to that.  If you log into the Admin area with a team managers password, only the games with teams (home or away) for which the password grants rights will be displayed.  Games whose scores have not been entered have an input box next to each team where you can quickly enter the score.  You can enter as many sets of game scores as you like on the form and then press the Submit button to save them all.

This saves time when you need to enter scores for multiple teams.  Otherwise, you'd need to go to each team's results page and enter each score on a form individually.

Documents:

The "Documents" choice on the Admin menu is used to upload association documents to the web site and make them available to the public through the "Documents" menu choice on the Association menu.  Documents are listed there along with their descriptions, and users can download them simply by clicking on their names.  Note that the "Documents" menu choice on the Association menu will not be visible unless at least one document has been uploaded.  You can upload documents (or files) of any type, although MS Word or Adobe Acrobat files are the most common and most universally readable to most users.  Some common types of documents include paper registration forms, code of contact statements, release forms, and club by-laws.

To upload a document, click the "Documents" menu choice on the Admin menu.  The resulting form has the following fields:

• Name:
  Enter the name of the document as you would like it displayed on the Documents page.  This can be any brief name you choose, not necessarily the file name.  Use a name that clearly identifies the document to the public.
   
• Description:
  You can enter a description of the document here.  This is a good place to thoroughly describe the file and give instructions on what to do with it once it is downloaded.
  
  Note that you can include HTML formatting tags in your text like "<b>Bold</b>" or "<i>Italic</i>" or even a hyperlink like: "<a href='http://WebSite.com'>A Web Site</a>".
   
• Document:
  You can type the name of the document file on your computer or use the Browse button to display a file dialog box that you can use to locate the file on your computer.  It is probably a good idea to limit the kinds of files you upload to those that most visitors can read, such as Microsoft Word or Adobe Acrobat files. Note: While there is no limit to the amount of documents that you can have in this area, the file size of any one document cannot exceed 1 MB.
   

Sponsors:

You can create a "Sponsors" page for your site under the Association menu that lists your association's sponsors along with a description and link to each one.  In addition, each sponsor's name will be featured on the top right portion of you site at random whenever a page is displayed.  These are great ways to give your sponsors the notice they deserve and to attract new ones as well.  Note that if you choose not to enter any sponsors, the "Sponsors" menu choice will not appear under the Association menu, and the top right area of the site will remain blank.

To enter one or more sponsors, choose (click) the "Sponsors" choice under the Admin menu.  The resulting form has the following fields:

• Name:
  Type the name of the sponsor here.
   
• URL:
  This is the address (or URL) of the sponsor's web site if there is one.  If the sponsor doesn't have a web site, leave this field blank.
   
• Description:
  Describe your sponsor here.  You can enter as much information as you like.  If the sponsor doesn't have a web site, you may want to ask him or her for a paragraph or two to put in this field.  The text you enter here will appear below the sponsor's name on the Contacts page.
  
  Note that you can include HTML formatting tags in your text like "<b>Bold</b>" or "<i>Italic</i>" or even a hyperlink like: "<a href='http://WebSite.com'>A Web Site</a>".
   
• Club Sponsor:
  This checkbox indicates that the sponsor should be displayed on the Association Sponsors page and that their name or banner image should be part of the rotation for all pages.  If unchecked, the sponsor will not de displayed in any of these places but will be available for selection as a team sponsor.  See below for details.
   
• Team Sponsor:
  This checkbox indicates that the sponsor will be available for selection as a team sponsor on the Team information form.  Team sponsors will be featured on all pages for a particular team.  The sponsor's banner will be featured at the top of all of that team's pages and their logo image will be included within each page as well.
   
• Banner File:
  Use this field to upload a banner image file that will be displayed at the top of pages in place of the sponsor's name.  Banner images should be no more than <%=gPageWidth%> pixels wide and any height so long as it's consistent with the height of all other sponsor banner images.
  
  Logo File:
  Use this field to upload a logo image file that will be displayed on the Sponsors page and optionally,  in the right hand column of the home page, when "Sponsor Logos" has been selected.  Logo images should be no more than 250 pixels wide and any height you choose.
  
  Use the Browse button to locate the image file on your computer.  The selected image will be uploaded when the form is submitted.  To remove an image from the site, uncheck the box to left of the input box.
   

Web Links:

Your site can include hyperlinks to other web sites for such information as your association's governing body, equipment suppliers, or whatever you think might be interesting to your members and visitors.  Many times other web sites will ask you to link to them and in return will link to you.  This can help improve your ranking with search engines, such as Google, since they base "relevance" off of the number of links to a site.  With the simple form explained below, you can set up links with ease.

To enter one or more links, choose the "Links" choice from the Admin menu.  The resulting form has the following fields:

• Name:
  Type the name of the link here.  The name you type will appear in bold on the Links page and will be the actual link to the web site.
   
• URL:
  This is where you type the address (or URL) of the target web site. 
   
• Description:
  Describe the site here.  You can enter as much information as you like.  The text you enter here will appear to the right of the name given above on the Links page.
  
  Note that you can include HTML formatting tags in your text like "<b>Bold</b>" or "<i>Italic</i>".
   
• Logo:
  Use this field to upload a logo image file that will be displayed on the Links page and optionally in the right hand column of the home page, when "Link Logos" has been selected.  Logo images should be no more than 250 pixels wide and any height you choose.
  
  Use the Browse button to locate the image file on your computer.  The selected image will be uploaded when the form is submitted.  To remove an image from the site, uncheck the box to left of the input box.
   

Picture Album:

One great way to customize you site is by uploading pictures. Since LeagueAthletics.com does not limit the amount of pictures that you can upload to your site, "Picture Albums" can be a great way to organize your pictures by category or time frame. This will make each picture easier to locate.

• Name:
  This is the name of the picture album you are creating. Frequently, Admins will also add a date to the name, for example, "Championship Game -1/1/01".
   
• For Season:
  This drop-down list defines this season in which the photo album will exist.
   
• Team:
  You can select what team page the photo album is displayed. The "Club Pictures" selection creates a menu page under the Association Tab

Note: If your site chooses to use the "Picture Slideshow" feature on the Association (Home) page, only the pictures NOT in albums will be used. Optionally, you may create an Album titled "Banner Montage" to store pictures for use with the Auto-Generated Banner.

Pictures:

• Can't Download Active X...
  When using Internet Explorer, you may be prompted to download an Active X file type. This will aid in the upload of Pictures, when using Internet Explorer, allowing you to upload up to 30 pictures at one time. In some cases, due to Security Restrictions on your computer (i.e. using a Work computer), you may not be allowed to download this file. In these cases, simply click this link and your page will reload with non-Active X Picture Upload. This will allow you to only select up to 10 pictures to upload at one time.
   
• Season:
  This drop-down list defines the season in which the photo page will exist.
   
• Team:
  You can select what team page the photo is displayed. Selecting a team will automatically create a "Pictures" page selection for that team, if one has not already been created. The "Club Pictures" selection creates a menu page under the Association Tab.
   
• Link To:
  This feature allows you to enter a website (URL) or email address to link uploaded pictures to. This allows visitors to click on the photo and be directed to another website or prompted to send an email regarding the picture. This can be particularly handy for professional photographers or those clubs who sell their own photos or have a website where members can purchase the photos.
   
• Watermark:
  This tool allows you to enter text that will appear as a watermark across the image. This will allow visitors to view pictures as samples but prints will have the entered text across them. See Below for an example:

  
   

• Original:
  When checked, this tool will allow you to make the original uploaded, full resolution picture available for download directly to the site. This is designed specifically for clubs that wish to allow their members access to pictures without paying any fees or restrictions. When viewing a picture, there will be a "Download" button available on the Picture page. If un-checked. the "Download" button will be unavailable and only the standard size, 580 pixel wide version will be available. 

• File Name:
  You can enter the file path of the photo on your computer.
  
  Optionally, you can select to browse folders on your computer by clicking the "Browse" button. When using the "Browse" button you can select up to 10 (30 for Internet Explorer users who have downloaded the Active X file) pictures per upload . After the first picture has been selected, click on the "Browse" button to select an additional picture. This must be done for each additional picture that you wish to upload. Each picture that you have selected will appear below the file name selection.
   

Files:

This section is specifically for miscellaneous files such as audio or video files. If you are uploading a document of picture, use the respective menu page choices from the Admin section. Users are limited to 500 MB of miscellaneous file storage with a maximum size of 50 MB per upload.

• Upload File:
  Enter the path of the file on your computer.
  
  Optionally, you can select to browse folders on your computer by clicking the "Browse" button. When using the "Browse" button you can select up to 10 miscellaneous files per upload. After the first file has been selected, click on the "Browse" button to select an additional file. This must be done for each additional file that you wish to upload. Each file that you have selected will appear below the file name selection.
   
• New Sub Folder Name:
  You can create a folder for specific files by entering in a folder name here. Keep in mind, only new files may be uploaded into the folders created. Previously uploaded files cannot be palced in a new folder.
   

Contacts:

Your web site can have a Contacts page where the members of your board or other important people can be listed with their contact information included.  This can help members and visitors get in touch with the appropriate people in your organization.

To create a Contacts page, you'll need to assign members to the Board team using the Member Information form documented earlier.  Fill in each board member's information on the form and under "Team Assignments," select the Board team toward the top of the "Team" drop-down list.  If the member's position on the board (such as President, Treasurer, etc.) is already listed on the "Position" drop down list, select it there.  Otherwise, type the position name in the field provided to the right named New Position. 

To order positions on the Contacts page, you can type a number for each board member in the No field to the right of the position fields.  The member with a number 1 will appear before any others on the list.  The member with a 2 will appear second, and so on.  If you don't use numbers, the Contacts list will appear in alphabetical order by position name and last name.

Note that the Season field on the Member Information form does not apply to members of the Board team.  That is, they never expire.  To remove a member from the board and thus the Contacts page, simply assign them to the topmost "NA" choice on the "Team" drop-down list.

Seasons:

Your organization's teams are organized for and play during a specific period of time or season.  The teams that you'll define later exist only for that period of time.  Typically, a team might play during the spring or fall, or perhaps for a whole year.  The "Season" forms allow you to define a season's name as well as it's beginning and end dates.  Once defined, you'll use it to assign teams to and thus define their playing season.

To create a season, you'll use the "Seasons" menu choice on the Admin menu.  When clicked, this choice brings up a Season listing page that displays the seasons already defined so far.  At the top of the page is a link titled "Add a new Season to the list."  Click this link to bring up the Season Information form.  The form has the following fields:

• Name:
  Type the name of the new season here, up to 32 characters.  This is the name that will be displayed to the public so it should be descriptive but also as short as possible.  Your site's Team tab has a horizontal menu bar that displays the currently selected season, league and team in separate drop down boxes.  Since these all must fit within the width of the page, it's best to keep names as short as possible.
   
• Start Date:
  Enter the date on which the season will start.  Use the form - "MM/DD/YYYY" to specify the date.
   
• Finish Date:
  Enter the date after which the season will be over.  Again, use the form - "MM/DD/YYYY" to specify the date.

Leagues:

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 "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 to the list."  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.
   
• Child of:
  This is where you designate the parent of the new league.  Initially, this list will be blank.  As you add new leagues, they will appear in the list.  If you select a league name from the list, it will be the parent of your new league.  If you don't make a selection, the new league will become a top-level league.  In this way, you can define your organization's structure.
   
• Little League Type (for Baseball clubs only):
  If you're running a Little League Baseball or Softball club, you'll want to designate the type of this league according to Little League's categories.  This information will be used when exporting team members to be sent to Little league and also for calculating pitcher availability.
   
• League Standings:
  You can use the choices below to specify whether or not team standings will be displayed on the Standings page found on the Teams menu.  Standings are based on the number of wins a team has divided by the number of games played to date when compared to other teams within a league.  The choices for Standings display are as follows:
   
  • "Don't show standings"
    Use this button (the default) to specify that standings will not be shown for this league on the standings page.  If this is a travel league for instance, that only plays teams outside of its own league, intra-league standings would be meaningless.
     
  • "Show only to xx places in standings"
    This choice specifies the number of top places that are displayed on the Standings page.  The provided input box allows you to specify the number of displayed places.  If you enter 3 for example, the teams in first second and third place will be shown but no others.  If however, there are ties for any of the placings, there will be more teams displayed than the number specified here.  If for instance, there were two teams tied for 2nd place in the previous example, four teams would actually be displayed.  The teams in first and third place would be shown along with both the second place teams.
    
    This method may be a good choice for semi competitive leagues or leagues for young children where a low ranking may be seen as counterproductive and may have a negative effect on team moral.  With this choice you can reward the top performers without hurting the rest..
     
  • "Show all teams in standings"
    Click this choice to specify that all teams within the league will be displayed on the Standings page in order of their placing to date.

  Note: If none of the leagues in your organization are set up to display standings, the "Standings" choice will not be displayed on the Teams menu.

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 "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 the list" 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:
  Each team exists for a set season only.  That is, you can define a season as being within some date range, such as "3/1/2002" through "6/1/2002"; the team exists for this period of time.  Next season, you'll define another team (probably with the same name).  This way, each team is preserved in time along with all its associated data, such as roster and game results.  In the future, you'll be able to go back in time and display data from previous seasons for comparison's sake or just for fun.  Season's don't have to be annual.  You could have both spring and fall seasons.  You can also have pre-season tryout or evaluation teams that only exist for a short period before the playing season begins.
  
  Select the desired season name from the drop down list.  To create or modify a season, see Seasons as documented earlier in this document.  If you've already defined another team, this field will default to the season of the previously defined team.
   
• Division/League:
  You can set your team's parent league here.  The list box will display all the leagues defined so far, and you can click on any one to set the parent league.
   
• 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.  That is, you don't have to enter anything here, but if you do, it's a great way to get sponsor recognition.  Alternatively, you can choose a sponsor from the list of available sponsors for your club using the list box below.
   
• Outside League/Parent Team:
  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. 

• 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.
   
• Manager's Password:
  Each of your teams can be assigned a manager's password that allows its users 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 members 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.

• 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.  As long as you've logged into the Admin area, you'll be able to see all the events scheduled for any team regardless of the date set here.  See the Schedules section later in this document for an overview of scheduling.
   
• Schedule is Live:
  When this field is checked off, any changes that are made to the team's schedule will cause an automatic email 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.  See the Schedules section later in this document for an overview of scheduling.
  
  Note: Simply 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 itself. 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 and possibly printed or whatever. 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.
   
• 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. When checked, The "Manager can schedule new games" box will allow managers access to the Scheduling menu choices on the admin menu and can perform any scheduling task. If the "Managers 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.
   
• Email:
  The email address entered in this field will automatically be notified if a game is scheduled with this team. This field is optional.

• 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.

• 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 member's birthday will be hidden from the full contact roster. Admins and Team Managers will still have access when logged

• 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, do not select "Not Available". One of the "Available" options must be selected.

• Sponsor(s):
  If you've already defined sponsors through the Sponsors form 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.
   

You can also Import Team data from a spreadsheet. This will allow you to easily create your teams in bulk or make updates to existing teams in bulk.

Importing Team Information:

You can import team information from a spreadsheet file rather than entering it all by hand using the Member 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 mass 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 First and Last name columns.  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.

Note:  The first row of data must be contain the names of the columns as specified above.  

Rosters::

Team rosters can be created by using this simple to use tool. Once the below fields are entered, the pool of participants is narrowed to a specific group. Admins can then simply click on a participant to assign them to a team.

• Select a Team::
  First, you must select an available season from the drop down menu. Next, select a team from the resulting drop down menu. This is the team whose roster you will create.
   
• Select Participants:
  From the drop down menu, select a group of participants to be available to choose from. If this is the first team you are creating a roster for you should select "All participants". Select "Currently Unassigned" for all subsequent rosters.
   
• Type:
  You can select from "All" members, which includes parents as well as players, or "Players Only" from the drop down list.
   
• Of Gender:
  If you have both female and male participants to choose from, you can limit your roster to "Male", "Female" or "Any".
   
• Born Between:
  Use these fields to filter members by age.  The field to the left is the low birthday and the one to the right is the high limit. 
   
• Between Grades:
  Use these fields to specify members whose school grade is between the numbers you enter here. Kindergarten is specified with a "0".  For pre-k use "-1".
   
• Registered in:
  Select the program from the drop down menu that the participants are registered in. If you wish to select all participants select "None".
   
• Notes Contains:
  This selection is optional. Enter any keywords that you would like the roster tool to search for in the notes field. For example, if you are looking for left handed pitchers you can enter "left" in this field. This tool will work only if you have entered notes in the members information.
   

Facilities:

Facilities are the places you play your practices, games, or tournaments.  These must be defined before you begin scheduling on the site, since each event must take place somewhere.  Your web site can also provide visitors with useful information about these facilities, such as location, maps and driving directions, and comments.  These will be greatly appreciated by new players and especially their parents.  Facilities are displayed for visitors on the Sport Name menu with the name you chose for facilities using the Association form, such as "Field," "Rink," or "Court."

To enter a facility, click the "Facilities" choice on the Admin menu.  This will bring up a list of facilities already entered.  You can click any facility's name to edit its information or click the delete button to delete it.  To add a new facility, click the "Add a new facility to the list" link at the top of the page.  This will bring up the Facility Information form with the following fields:

• Name:
  Type the name of the facility, up to 16 characters.  This should be just the name.  You don't have to include the city as this information is entered below and also displayed on listings.
   
• Alias:
  This optional field can be used to specify an alternate name for the facility that would appear in imported game schedules.  When you use the Game Import feature and facility names within your import file are not the same as the Name field above, use this field to specify the alias name.  When your schedule is imported, the import utility will first try to match facility names in the import file to the Alias field.  If this field is blank, the utility will then try to match the Name field.  If no match is found, an error will be reported and the particular game will not be imported.
   
• URL:
  Optionally enter the address of another web page you'd like this page to be redirected to when this facility is clicked, on any schedule or listing.
   
• Address:
  The address is optional, but if given, it will cause a Map button to be displayed for the facility on its Detail page.  If the user presses it, a detailed map shows the location given by the address.  If you're not sure of the number, just use the street where people park and perhaps guess at the number until the map is close enough.
   
• City, State and Zip:
  The city and state are not optional and must be entered for listings to be displayed properly.  Visitors can choose to sort the list of facilities by either the facility name or its location.  This makes it easy to find what they're looking for whether they know the name or location.  Also, a city map can be displayed for the visitor using the information you enter here.
  
  Note: for Canadian addresses, enter the province as an abbreviation in the State field and enter the country in the next field.
  
  Canadian Province Abbreviations:

  Alberta	AB
  British Columbia	BC
  Manitoba	MB
  New Brunswick	NB
  Newfoundland and Labrador	NL
  Northwest Territories	NT
  Nova Scotia	NS
  Nunavut	NU
  Ontario	ON
  Prince Edward Island	PE
  Quebec	QC
  Saskatchewan	SK
  Yukon	YT

  
   

• Country:
  Optionally enter the name of the country in this field.  If left blank, the United States is assumed.  For Canadian addresses, you must enter "Canada" here in order for the pop up maps to work correctly.
   
• Home:
  This check box is used to designate a home facility - a local place where your association plays home games.  Facilities designated as Home will appear at the top of scheduling lists in order to make it easier to find them when scheduling games.
   
• Drive Time:
  Use this optional field to give local visitors an estimate of how long it takes to get to the facility from some central location.  This can be invaluable information for team members in helping them arrive on time for games and practices.
   
• Phone #:
  Some facilities, such as ice rinks and indoor basketball courts, have phone numbers that members may want to call to inquire about the facility or games taking place there.  You can optionally enter this information here.
   
• Comments:
  Enter any comments about the facility here, such as its usual condition, parking or seating arrangements, or whatever you like, up to 50 characters.
   
• Directions:
  This field is optional, but members (especially new members) will greatly appreciate whatever information you can provide here.  This is a free-form field where you can enter as much information as you like.  You can even include HTML formatting tags in your text like "<b>Bold</b>" or "<i>Italic</i>" or even a hyperlink like: "<a href='http://RinkWebSite.com'>Rink Web Site</a>".
   
• Map File:
  You can optionally upload your own map file to the site using this field.  To upload a map, enter the path and name of the file on your computer or use the Browse button to the right to find the file.  Once the form is submitted, the map will be displayed on the facility's Detail page along with the other information you enter here.

NOTE: Optionally, you may choose to mark a facility as "Closed", "Open", "TBD/CHECK" or "N/A". This can be done on the main Facility page (this page may be called "Rinks", "Fields", "Courts" or whatever you have entered as you Generic Facility Name) selection on your home page when logged in as an Admin.

When a facility is marked as "CLOSED", ALL games at the selected facility will be "CANCELLED". If the affected teams' schedule is set to "Live" then an email will be generated, alerting all affected members of the schedule change. This will only affect games scheduled between the time the facility is closed and the remainder of that day.

When a facilty is set to "TBD/CHECK", it will have no affect on the games scheduled at the facility, rather, this is simply a visual message letting visitor know that a decision has not been made or that they should check their individual team's schedule.

At the end of each day, the status for a CLOSED facility will be reset to "N/A", so if the facility needs to be closed on consecutive days or if the facility needs to be listed as "OPEN", the status will need to be updated. You may also choose to add a "Today's Field Status" section to the right column of your home page, if applicable. This tool will show the status of all facilities that are listed as "OPEN" or "CLOSED". For more information on adding tools to the right column of your home page, CLICK HERE.

Schedules:

Schedules are what your organization is really all about.  They are probably the most important pieces of information you can put on you site; most visitors will come for them.  Schedules are visible to the public by individual teams.  Each team will have its own listing showing just their games and practices with dates, times, locations, opponents (if any), and comments.  Games that have changed since a visitor's last visit are shown in red to distinguish them.  Schedule changes can be automatically emailed to all affected team members and their parents whenever they are made if you so designate on individual team forms.  See "Schedule is Live" in the previous "Teams" section.  You can also publish you schedule incrementally through dates you specify on individual team forms.  See "Schedule Through" in the previous "Teams" section.  Note that in the following documentation, the generic word "Event" refers to any kind of game or practice.

Before you can start creating your schedules, you must complete the following tasks:

1. All leagues must be defined.  See the Leagues chapter earlier in this document.
2. Teams must also be defined for the coming season.  See the Teams chapter earlier in this document.
3. Facilities must be entered with at least their name, city, and state.  See the Facilities chapter earlier in this document.

Once the above have been completed, you're ready to begin entering your schedule on the site.  To this end, there are several tools at your disposal:

• A yearly calendar where you can select events for editing by date.
   
• A weekly calendar where the master schedule is displayed for an individual week.  Individual events can be selected for editing or deleting from this schedule.
   
• The Event Information form where you actually define or edit the various aspects of an event, such as date, times, location, and the teams involved.
   
• Recurring event generator that can be used to create a series of regularly scheduled games or practices.
   
• Facilities schedule report that list all events for a particular facility.  This is useful for determining if a facility is over- or under-booked.

To create your schedule, you'll typically begin by entering events via the Event Information form or the Recurring event generator.  These tools are described in detail in the following chapters.

Adding a new event:

As mentioned previously, you begin scheduling by adding events.  To do this, click the "New Event" choice on the Admin menu.  This will bring up the Event Information form where you can enter the following information:

• Date:
  Enter the date of the event using the form "mm/dd/yyyy" or "mm-dd-yyyy."  Note: This field will default to the date that was last entered using this form.
   
• Start:
  Enter the start time of the event using the form "hh:mm."  If the time is in the morning, this is all that's needed.  If it's in the afternoon, you need to add a "p" to the end or use 24-hour time instead.  Note: This field will default to the start time that was last entered on this form.
   
• Finish:
  Enter the time the event is over using the same form as above, that is, "hh:mm."  Again, If the time is in the morning, this is all that's needed.  If it's in the afternoon, you need to add a "p" to the end or use 24- hour time instead.
   
• Season:
  Select the appropriate season from the drop-down list. This will populate the "Team" and "Opponent" drop-downs with only teams from the selected season.
   
• Team:
  Select the name of the home team for the event from the drop-down list of association teams that have already been defined.  See the Teams chapter for information about adding teams.  If this is an inter-organizational event, such as a house game or practice, you can select the away team from the Home Opponent list below.  Please do not re-enter this event for opponents from your own organization.  The web site will break out individual team schedules for you based on the master schedule.  If you enter a home team and a home opponent on this form and submit it, the event will appear on the schedules of both teams.
  
  Also note that you should NOT select league names from the list.  These are designated with an asterisk at the beginning of their names.  They are here only to distinguish the various teams defined for your organization.
   
• Or Winner/Loser of Game #:
  Optionally enter the game ID of a preceding game in an elimination series bracket. The ID must be the internal database ID like the one displayed at the top of this form (if an existing game).  You can also get a game's ID by moving your mouse over a game's edit icon on any schedule.  Your browser's status bar will display the link which contains the ID number. 
  
  If you are creating a single elimination tournament, select winner from the drop down window. If you are creating a double elimination bracket you have the option of selecting the winner or loser of a previous game.
  
  See the chapter on Brackets for information about setting up a playoff elimination series.
   
• Location:
  Select the location of the event from the drop-down list.  See the Facilities chapter for information about adding facilities.
   
• Category:
  Select the category of the event.  The standard categories built into the site are "Tryout," "Practice," and "Game."  You can add to this list by entering new categories in the Other field to the right of the "Category" list box.
   
• Other (Category):
  If the category you want is not in the list box mentioned above, you can enter your own category by typing it into this field.  After you submit this form, whatever you typed here will show up in the "Category" list on subsequent forms.  Be careful when adding new categories.  If you create too many, the list will be hard to understand and navigate.  If you later decide to eliminate a category that you've added, it won't be easy.  First, you'll have to find all events that use the category, and then either change or delete them all.  This can be a very daunting task so think carefully about adding new categories.
  
  Also, a very important note to observe is that game results are only shown for events that have the words "game" or "tournament" somewhere in their names.  Everything else is ignored so be sure to include one of these words somewhere in your new category names if you want them to show up on results pages.
   
• Notes:
  Use this field to enter event notes for the event.  You're limited to 32 characters, but you should try to keep the notes as brief as possible as they will cause schedules to expand in width by the length of whatever text you type here.  If you add too much data, team schedules may end up being wider than can be printed on standard paper.
   
• Opponent:
  If this is an inter-league (or association) event, such as a "house" game or practice, select an opponent team from the list of association teams.  As noted above under Team, you should not re-enter this event as a separate event for this team.  The web site will break out individual team schedules for you based on the master schedule.  If you enter a home team and a home opponent on this form and submit it, the event will appear on the schedules of both teams.
   
• Outside (Opponent):
  Select the name of an outside (non-association) opponent from the list of previously entered opponents.  If the opponent is not in the list, you can use the Other field to the right of this one to enter new outside (or travel) opponents.
   
• Other (Opponent):
  Use this field to enter new outside (travel) opponents.  Names you enter here will appear in the "Travel" list in subsequent forms.  Be careful when adding new opponents here.  If possible, use as generic a name as possible for each.  For instance, it's probably best to use the name of the opponent's club or town alone, rather than a specific team.  This way, you can reuse the opponent name for various league or division games with different teams within your organization.  Otherwise, you'll end up with a large amount of opponents that are very hard to understand and navigate.  For instance, it's probably enough to know that your "Squirt" team is playing "Lancaster."  You don't need to specify "Lancaster - Squirts."   This way, "Lancaster" can be used to designate other teams as well, such as "Lancaster" PeeWees, etc.  In this situation, you'll only have one "Lancaster" opponent name in your opponent list that is used for several association teams.
   
• Officials (optional):
  Once you have entered members as officials, this section will appear with a list of all officials in your database. You can select the checkbox to the left of their name (for officials with multiple positions assigned, you can select their position from a drop down window) and the official will be assigned to the game.
  
  Note: Officials will automatically be emailed a reminder of their assignment, at minimum, 24 hours prior to their assignment.
  
   

Create a Schedule

The LeagueAthletics.com Scheduling module will generate a schedule based on the parameters entered in this section. The system can automatically create a practice schedule for a given set of teams, a balanced "Round-Robin" type schedule - where each selected team plays each other a specified number of times, a "Best Fit" if there isn't sufficient time for full round robins, a tournament series where multiple games are played each day - or a Single-Elimination tournament - in which case, Tournament Brackets will be created and appear in each selected team's area. This service is designed for organizations that need to create/generate their own schedules. Organizations that receive their schedule from a third party or create their schedule offline should use either our Import or New Games tool to enter schedules into the site.

Let's get started...

First, on the initial page, you will have access to the Schedule Rules Control Panel. This view will allow you to Add a new Rule or change an existing rule. If there are no rules that have been created, the control panel will appear with only an "ADD RULE" button as shown below:

Otherwise, if rules have already been established and saved, the control panel will appear as a listing of these previously saved rules along with additional control options. See below:

• Add Rule - This button will always be available from the Scheduling Control Panel. Click this button when adding a new rule.
   

• Clone Rule - If you are creating multiple, similar rules, this tool can be a time saver. Simply select the rule that you wish to copy and press this button. A new rule will be created, with the same name and parameters as the one selected. There will be a number after the new rule indicating the number of times that the rule has been cloned. See the example below:
  
  
  
  
   

• Edit/Generate - This tool will allow you to make changes to an existing rule that has been previously saved. Optionally, you can also select to Generate the schedule from the Edit view.
   

• Show Events - By selecting a rule and then clicking this button, you can view the events that been created using this rule.
   

• Delete Rule - Deletes the selected rule.
   

• Delete Events - Deletes all events that were created by the selected rule.

Creating/Editing a Rule

If you have selected to "Add a New Rule" or to Edit and existing Rule, the resulting screen (shown below) will allow you to create or edit the parameters of the scheduling rule - Who, What, Where , When and How.

WHO

• Rule Name:
  This should easily identify your rule to other Administrators with scheduling rights. Since you can have several rules created on the same site, you may want to make this name descriptive and unique from other rule names.
   

• Teams:
  For this entry, you'll first need to select the appropriate season. This entry will default to the current season. In the event that there is not a season that is current, the next future season - determined by Start date will be selected by default.
  
  After you have selected the season, All available teams within that season will be available for you to select. Use "CTRL" + Click to select multiple teams to use within the schedule. Alternatively, you can quickly select a range of teams by first clicking the top or bottom team of the range, then scrolling to the other end and while holding down the Shift key, click the opposite end team.  This will highlight and select all the team in between.

WHAT

• Game Type:
  Select an appropriate Event (Game) type from the drop-down list available here. Optionally, if you are creating a NEW Event type - one that is not currently available from the drop down list - select "Other ->" and then enter you new Event Type in the provided space.

WHERE

• Locations:
  From the list of Facilities provided, select the location(s) where the scheduled events are to be played. Use CTRL+click to select/de-select multiple facilities or use Shift-click to select a range of facilities.  If the various teams have "Home" facilities defined on their team forms, the system will try to assign the home team to one of these, if it's also highlighted above.  If home teams have not been defined or a team's home facility isn't selected here, the system will simply assign the game to the next available location selected above.  You may also choose whether to distribute the games evenly in this situation throughout all facilities or to fill a facility before moving on to the next selected one.  The later option may be useful for filling facilities with games of the same age group so that referees don't have to travel as much to officiate at events they are qualified for.
  
  Note that the system will use a combination of the times specified below and those specified on each facility's information form (if any) as well as any existing schedule data in order to avoid conflicts.  You can also specify the number of simultaneous events that can occur at a facility on its information form.
  
  If no venues are selected, all generated events will have their location and time listed as TBD. This may be helpful with larger programs that allow the home team to determine where their games are played. 

WHEN

• Beginning On/Through:
  Enter the date that you want the schedule to start being generated on and the date that you want the schedule to be generated through.  If the start date does not fall on a weekday specified below, the next available date will be used instead.  Depending on other parameters selected, the last playing date may fall short of the end date specified here.  Similarly, events may need to be scheduled after the end date as well depending on other constraints of the schedule.
   

• Begin Events:
  Use this field to specify odd start times for events.  Enter the number of minutes after the hour to begin each event.
   

• Duration:
  Enter the approximate time for each game/event. All times must be entered in terms of minutes - for example, one and a half hours should be entered a 90 (minutes). Only numeric characters will be accepted.
   

• General Availability:
  On the Grid provided, you can create a General Availability for the selected facilities. Select the days and times that games are generally available to be played on. Keep in mind that the availability for individual facilities, if entered will override these settings. If available days and times are listed both here and with the individual facility, schedules will be created only where they overlap.
   

• Except From:
  Enter a time span that the facility may be unavailable - i.e. holidays, previously scheduled tournaments, etc.  You can enter as many of these blackout periods as you like.  As you enter new ones, extra blank ones will appear.  Note that you can also specify location specific blackout times on any facility's information form.

HOW

• Schedule Type:
  From the drop down list provided, select the type of schedule that you want to create.

  • Practice Schedule
    Generates a series of practices for the selected teams on the weekdays specified on the When tab.    You can specify whether one or two teams will be assigned per time-slot and also whether teams will occupy a regular time-slot for the whole series or whether teams are alternated.
     

  • Game Series
    A "Balanced Round Robin" schedule type will match each selected team against each other the same number of times. You can specify how many times each team should play all other teams by entering a number in the Games Per Team field.  In cases where there is not enough available time for each team to play all other teams, the system will generate as many events as possible between the start and end dates and use one of the following methods to favor the possible pairings:

    1. Random, unique matches: This choice will simply match opponents at random but make sure teams don't play each other twice unless they've first played all other teams.
        

    2. Between opponents with similar power ratings: When selected, the system will try to select pairings between teams that are similarly ranked.  Power Ratings can be entered for each team on its information form.  Note that all teams must have power ratings entered in order for this method to be effective.
        

    3. Between closer opponents: This selection will use the location of each team's home facility to determine the distance between the two opponents and try to match opponents that are closer together.  This option may be helpful in scheduling events for large state or regional organizations in order to minimize travel times for participants.  As above, all teams must have home facilities specified on their team pages, and those facilities must have zip codes specified in order for this method to effectively match nearby opponents.  The system uses zip code center locations to determine the distance between teams.
        

  • Single Elimination Tournament
    This option will schedule several rounds of games based on the number of teams entered. You can create tournament seeding by entering a numeric number below next to each team. If you have specified an unbalanced tournament - where the number of teams selected is not an exponent of 2 - i.e. 2, 4, 8, 16, etc - the system will create "Play-In" games for the lower seeds or Byes for the higher seeds. The first round of the tournament will be created with the highest available seed playing the lowest available seed - for example in a tournament of 8 teams, seed #1 will play seed #8; seed #2 plays seed #7, etc.  If there are standings for the given teams, seeding will automatically be determined based on their current standings.

After you have set the parameters of the scheduling rule, you can choose to save the rule for future use or, optionally to generate the schedule when saving.

Don't be afraid to experiment with the scheduling system as it's easy to delete an entire generated series of events or overwrite them by subsequently regenerating the schedule.  You won't loose or overwrite schedule data entered elsewhere and the system won't overbook any of your facilities, regardless of how other events are generated.

Adding recurring events:

The Recurring Event tool makes it possible to easily add a series of events that occur on a recurring basis.  If your teams have regular practices or games, this can save you lots of time setting up your schedule.  A word of caution: You'll need to be careful when using this tool.  If you make a mistake and generate a bunch of faulty events, you'll have to delete them one by one.  There is no mass delete or undo tool available on the site.

To use the Recurring Event tool, click the "Recurring" choice on the Admin menu.  This will bring up the Recurring Event form where you'll need to fill in the following information:

• Every:
  The two fields at the top of the form allow you to specify how often the events occur.  The first field is where you type the frequency as a number.  The second lets you select the units of the frequency.  If, for instance, your practice occurs every two weeks at a certain field, you would type a "2" in the first field and then select "Week(s)" from the drop-down list.
   
• Date Range:
  Use these two fields to specify when to start and stop generating events.  The first field specifies the date to start generating events and the second specifies when to stop.  Enter dates using the form "mm/dd/yyyy" or "mm-dd-yyyy."
   
• Time:
  Enter the start and finish times for the event using the form "hh:mm."  If the time is in the morning, this is all that's needed.  If it's in the afternoon, you need to add a "p" to the end or use 24-hour time instead.
   
• Team:
  Select the name of the team that will have the regularly scheduled practice or game from the drop-down list.  Note: Please don't select league names from the list.  These are designated with an asterisk at the beginning of their names.  They are here only to distinguish the various teams defined for your organization and should not be selected as a team.
   
• Opponent:
  Optionally select the name of an opponent team if the team selected above regularly plays another team.  Note that only association teams are listed here.  Leave the field with the default "NA" choice to generate events with blank opponents.  These can be filled in later using the Event Information form.  Note: Please don't select league names from the list.  These are designated with an asterisk at the beginning of their names.  They are here only to distinguish the various teams defined for your organization and should not be selected as a team.
   
• Location:
  Select the location of the event from the drop-down list.  See the Facilities chapter for information about adding facilities.
   
• Category:
  Select the type (or category) of the event from the drop-down list of event categories.
   
• Notes:
  Use this field to enter any notes about the event up to 32 characters.
  
   

Once you complete the form and press the Submit button, the events within the date range will be created.  You can view and edit them using the Calendar and Event Information form covered elsewhere in this document.

Example: To generate alternating practices, where a team plays on one field one week and another the following week, use the Recurring form tool twice.  On the first form, enter a "2" in the first field ("Every") and select "Week(s)" from the drop down.  Next enter the date range and times, and then select the first playing field from the Location drop-down.  Submit the form to generate the events for the first playing field.  Next, invoke the Recurring Event form again.  Again enter a two-week frequency and fill in the dates starting with the first event at the second playing field.  Fill in the remainder of the form fields and select the second playing field from the drop-down list.  When you submit the form, you'll generate the remainder of the alternating events.

Game calendar and weekly schedules:

The game calendar displays a yearly calendar with dates with scheduled events highlighted for your reference.  Weekends are highlighted in darker colors and are on the right side of each month's calendar.  Weeks always start on Mondays.  To change to a different year, select it from the Year drop-down list at the top of the page.  You can click any date to bring up the weekly schedule and move to the selected date.

The weekly master schedule shows all the events for a given week.  The date range is displayed at the top and bottom of the page with links to the left and right for moving to the previous and next weeks respectively.  There are also links at the top and bottom for creating new games and for creating a printable version of the page without borders.  The body of the page lists all the events broken down by day and location.  Each event has an Edit button to its left and a Delete button on its right side.  If you click the Edit button, the Event Information form will be displayed with the event's information ready for you to edit.  You can use the Delete button to remove an event from the schedule after being asked if you really want to do this.

Event Maintenance:

This tool is a simple way for you to change the name of a specific event, outside or non-league opponent, and facility name. When selected from the drop-down window, the system will search for the specific event, opponent or facility and change it to the current name that you have selected.

Note that in order to change a facility's name the you must add the new facility in the "Facilities" section of the Admin area.

Facility schedule report:

This report displays all the events currently scheduled for a particular facility.  This can be useful for determining if a facility is either over- or under-booked.  You'll be able to see all the playing times for each date listed in order.  This should make it easy to spot conflicts or gaps in the schedule.

To bring up the report for a particular facility, click the "Facility" choice on the Admin menu.  This will bring up a simple form where you select the name of the facility from a drop-down list and press the Submit button.  Once you do this, the report will be displayed.

The report shows the facility's name and location at the top along with a link for creating a new game.  The body of the report shows all the events broken down by date and time.  Each event has an Edit button to its left and a Delete button on its right side.  If you click the Edit button, the Event Information form will be displayed with the event's information ready for you to edit.  You can use the Delete button to remove an event from the schedule after being asked if you really want to do this.

Importing events:

If you use a spreadsheet or third party program to create schedules, or if your club's game scheduling is done by an outside organization, it's possible to import those schedules in one of several predetermined file formats.  The first file type is LeagueAthletics.com's own standard for importing and the others are special built formats used to import data from specific organizations.  For the purposes of this documentation, we will only discuss the layout of the standard format.  If your organization would like a custom format supported, please contact LeagueAthletics.com for pricing and availability.

A LeagueAthletics.com Standard Event File consists of any number of lines of data where each line defines an event consisting of data fields separated by commas.  An Excel template file can be downloaded by clicking here (special thanks to Bill Kamenides for contributing this).  The field order and meaning is as follows:

1. Club ID/Unique identifier:  This can be any number or combination of numbers and letters up to 64 characters that make up a unique identifier for the event.  This field is used to match existing records when re-importing data or when importing changed data.  As long as these serial numbers stay unique, data can be re-imported over and over without duplicating existing events. If this column is not entered, the system will automatically assign a unique number to the event, by locating the largest value entered in the Game ID field and increment it by 1.
    
2. Event Date:  This is the date the event occurs in the format "MM/DD/YYYY" or "MM-DD-YYYY".
    
3. Start Time:  Time the event starts in the form "HH:MM AM (or PM)" or "HH:MMa (or p)" or use 24 hour format.  Alternately, you can leave this field blank for an undetermined time.
    
4. Finish time:  The time the event is over.  Use the same format as above. If this field has been left blank, the system will default to one hour after the start time.
    
5. Team Name:  The name of the home team participating in the event.  The name you use here must match either the Alias Name ( up to 64 characters) assigned to a team (see Alias under Team Information) or the actual name of the team (up to 32 characters).
    
6. Facility Name:  Enter the name of the facility where the event will occur.  The name you use here must match either the Alias Name (up to 64 characters) assigned to a facility (see Alias under Facility Information) or the actual name of the facility (up to 16 characters).
    
7. Event Type:  Specify the event type such as "Game" or "Practice" using the same terms you use in your other scheduled events (32 characters maximum).  If a new event type is encountered, it's name will be added to the list found on Event Information forms.
    
8. Opponent Name (optional): The name of any opponent for the event.  If you specify the name of another team within your organization, it must match exactly with either the team's Alias (64 characters max) or its actual name (32 characters max).  If no match is found, the name will be added to the list of travel opponents (32 characters max).  See Opponents under Event Information.
    
9. Note (optional): Enter any extra information for the event here such as comments, notes, etc. up to a maximum of 64 characters.
    
10. Cancel (optional): This field can be used to either cancel or delete an existing event with the same Unique ID.  Insert the word "Cancel" in this field to mark the event as cancelled or use "DELETE" instead to delete it entirely.

Again, each line of the file contains an event.  The fields that define an event must be listed in the order shown above and must be separated by (but cannot contain) a comma.  The following is an example of what a Standard Import File might look like: