Teams

I'd like to introduce the most flexible sharing system we've ever had at TomorrowsPro. In older versions, teams would be stuck with a few options for setting their sharing options. Now you can pick exactly which groups can see which pages.

Heres how it works:

Set the Main Sharing Option
If you would like to set any of the specific share options to public, the team page must be public. This setting trumps all other settings. If this is not set to public, no one outside of your league/division/team will be able to see any piece of your team page. When you do change this setting to "Public", all of the sub-sharing options or section options below will have to be set to public for those pieces to be visible on the public page. If you had already set some of the options to public, they will be visible to the public at this time.

Set which groups can see which pages
The following groups have been created: (Only Team and Public options are available for individual teams)

• League Officials
• League Coaches
• League Members
• Division Officials
• Division Coaches
• Division Members
• Team Coaches
• Team Members
• Public

When using these groups you should look for a few things. The system automatically recognizes that some of these groups are actually included in other groups. If you select team members, you will also be selecting team coaches. If you select public, you are actually selecting every group.

Sharing View for Individual Team

Sharing View for Leagues, Divisions and Division Teams

Who gets access through "League Members" and "Divisions Members"?
One important distinction to make is with the different levels of access. If you select "Division Members" then division pages can only be seen by members of that division. Members of other divisions will only have access to their own division pages. If you select "League Members" the division pages can be seen any member of any of the divisions in that league. The same methodology works for teams that roll up into divisions.

Game reminders make the job of managing a team much easier for coaches and admins. They give you the ability to send e-mail reminders at specific time intervals before the game arrival time. You have the option of sending up to 3 game reminders per game. However, if you would like to save time, you can also set your 3 reminder interval defaults in the team settings area.

Each game reminder is sent to all active coaches, players, and parents on the team. By default, reminders will not be sent to anyone in "Not Available" status on the game roster. There is a setting that can be set so that people in "Not Available" status still receive the reminders.

There are custom links for each player in their e-mail that when clicked will update their status for the game on the game roster. Each admin/coach has access to the game roster and they can see the players available to attend the game in real time.

Reminders go out based on the Game Time minus the Pre-Game Arrival time. Game time's are assumed to be in your team's time zone from your "Team Edit" page. However, if you enter in a game location that is recognized as being in a different time zone, game reminders for that game will go out based on the location's time zone. (ex. If a game begins at 7pm and you have asked your players to arrive 2 hours early, a 4 hour game reminder will go out at 1pm because it is based off the arrival time.)

Game reminders are enabled by default, but you also have to set your intervals before they are sent out. First, check to make sure that your game reminder e-mails are enabled:

Next, set your team game reminders on the "Team Edit"->"Defaults" page.

Your team defaults page should look something like this once you have filled it in correctly. Remember, not all three are required. Once you have the defaults set, you can always override them on a per game basis. You will see an identical form for game reminder intervals on the game edit page.

One important thing to note: All game reminders go out based on the team's time zone or the game location's time zone if it is different than the team default. You'll know that the game reminders are going out based on a different time zone because you will see the time zone listed next to the game time in the schedule.

If you are curious about whether the reminders went out, you can navigate to the "edit" screen for the game and you will see sent dates if they have been sent. Notice in the example below that this game was created within the 7 day window so that game reminder will never be sent.

The game reminder e-mails will have links for "Attending", "Not Attending", and "Tentative". Each link is encrypted and customized for each person receiving the e-mail. If you forward these e-mails, other people can respond with your status for the games. You do not have to login to use these links. This was done to make it easier to respond, especially if you are using a mobile device.

The resulting message you will see if you click on the "Attending" link in the e-mail would be as follows:

As a coach or admin for the team, you will be able to view all responses on the game roster for that particular game. A response of "Attending" will move a player from the "Not Available" section to the "Bench". A "Not Attending" response will move any player on the "Available" or "Bench" to the "Not Available" list. A "Tentative" response will leave a player in the "Available" section if that is where they currently reside, otherwise it will move them to the "Bench".

Here is a view of a game roster before anyone responds:

Here is another view of the same roster after the coach responds that he is attending the game:

A help icon will appear next to each game roster response which will give you the time they responded in the team's time zone.

As more people respond to their game reminders they will appear in the game roster:

Game reminders are incredibly powerful. If you instruct your players and parents to respond promptly to these reminders, your job as coach will be much easier. In the future we will add e-mails to coaches if a status is changed withing x hours of the game so you can make some phone calls and try to work things out. We are also working on automatically e-mailing part-time players if the roster isn't full by the time the last game reminder e-mail is set to go out. Stay tuned for more updates...

To create a team on TomorrowsPro.com

1. Login with your e-mail address and password
2. Click on "Create Team" under "Teams" in the top navigation bar
3. Fill in the form as seen in the screen shot below:
• Team Name (ex. New York Demos)
• Team Location (ex. New York, NY)
• Team League (ex. NYC Little League)
• Sport (ex. Baseball)
• Games Played Percentage required to appear at top of stats (ex. 25% More Info)
4. Stat input Options (ex. Players can only view their stats) - These options allow you to give your players access to add or edit their stats. It is set to view only by default.



5. Team form continued:
• Team Sharing Options (ex. Public)
  • Public teams are not indexed by google, but if someone has the URL, they can view your team page. This option must be selected if you want any pieces of your team page to be public. This setting opens up the URL to the public and below you can select which sections of the team you wish to be public.
  • Private teams only allow members of the team to view the team page. You must appear on the roster in some capacity to have access. This includes Coaches, Admins, Players & Parents.
  • The most private option has all of the features of the Private option plus one more. Non-Admins (Players & Parents) can only see their stats or their children's stats on the stats page. They will also be able to see the team totals. Note: This does not affect the "Team Leaders" section. It will continue to show the names of the top players and their stats.




6. Team Section Share Settings
   • Each section has three available options for sharing:
     • Team Coaches/Admins
     • All Team Members (Parents Included)
       • This includes every member of any roster on the team including the parents roster.
     • Public
       • This option will allow anyone with the team URL to see this section. Choosing this option will only work if you also set the "Team Sharing Options" setting to "Public" as well. That is the master setting and each section can only truly be public if that setting is also set to "Public".
   • The sections available for sharing options are as follows:
     • Team Leaders
     • Team Player Stats
     • Team Schedule
     • Team Roster
     • Team Game Roster/Lineup
     • Team Parent Roster
7. Submit the form by clicking the submit button at the bottom and you will be redirected to your new team page which looks as follows:

Coaches now have the ability to e-mail all of the active players and parents on their team. Updates can also be added without sending e-mails if desired. Since all update e-mails are saved on the team page you will always have access to the latest team news.

If an update is only for the team admins (This includes Admin/Coach and Admin/Player levels) a coach also has the ability to create an update that only they can see.

As always, a new access control has been added to the "Team Edit" page which allows you to decide which access level is required to view this section. This will allow you to make the updates public if you wish.

Here is a screenshot of the main page and where you can find the link to add a new update:

Once on the add page you will want to make note of a few things. You have to pick which group of people you want to have access to the update. This will also be the people that are e-mailed if you check off the "Send Update via E-mail" check box. There is also the option to pick which roster to use by allowing you to pick the season. The dropdown will default to what you have selected as your default season. The "Send Update via E-mail" check box will send the update via e-mail if checked or skip the sending of the e-mail if not checked. Either way, the update will still be saved and shown on the team page.

Here is the resulting e-mail:

If you would like to restrict access to stats so parents can see stats for all of their children and players can only see their own stats follow these steps.

1. Set your team's share settings to "Most Private"

2. Add Parents to your team roster and associate them to their children. (See this blog post for more information - Give Parents Access to your Team and their Children)

3. Here is the view of the team stats from an admins point of view:

4. Here is the view of the team stats from a parent's point of view. To be specific, this is John Trava's point of view. You can see from section 2 of this post that he is the parent of Frank Kessler and Frank Taylor.