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-- Starting a new season -- To start a new season, the SuperAdmin or LeagueOwner needs to send an email to Drew with a valid return e-mail address, the name league season you need to start (ie Pada_Edgley_Summer_2006, Pada_CCU_Summer_2006, etc), and the dates your league will start and finish. He will login to the AdminInvites page for that league and season, and generate a unique, one time use only, security code for the appropriate Admin, SuperAdmin, or LeagueOwner clearance level. This code will be logged in the database for that league and a personalized email will be sent to you with instructions on how to create your new elite access account with the authorization level specified. This code will automatically expire at midnight (cst) 3 days after its creation, or upon its use during account activation. You must login using the information provided in this e-mail within the time alloted. Once you have registered yourself, you will receive a second email with instructions for how to invite users to join as Captains and Users. Now you need to invite your captains to register under the appropriate team numbers. We suggest that you either send an e-mail to all your captains making them aware that their invitations will be coming soon, and to let them know which team # they have been designated for the season so that they'll have that number available to them during their registration process OR login to the Update Teams page prior to sending the invites, and pre-fill Team names and/or Captains name next to each team. We also recommend that you reserve Team 0 for non-playing administrative members of the league. Now, use the AdminInvites page to generate codes and e-mails for all your captains so that they can setup accounts. When they do so, they'll receive instructions about how to invite the players on their teams to sign up. If you are inviting multiple users to the same clearance level, you can enter all of their emails in the text box, separating each one by a comma or a single space. At this point, each captain will have three days to login and setup their team's account, and send e-mails to their team's roster inviting them to join the appropriate team number. There is not a time limit, or a clearance code needed to register as a user. -- Explaination of Clearance Levels -- -- Users: Permissions are limited to viewing all teams, and updating their own user account records, including deleting their account. User accounts are created by logging in with username:NewUser and password:NewUser -- Captins: Additionally allowed to edit records for users on their own team. Captains can add, delete, and modify event information regarding upcoming games for their team. Captains can change their displayed team name and displayed captains names. They also have the ability to move a player currently listed on their own team, out to another team in the league. Captains accounts are created either by logging in with username:NewCaptain, password:NewCaptain, and by then providing a common captains security codeword which changes each league season, or by an administrator elevating a user account to the captain's clearance level. -- Admins: Additionally allowed to make league wide changes including updating team schedules, displayed team names, displayed captains names, user account info and moving any user (including those of higher clearance levels) from any team to any team. An important restriction at this level prevents administrators from creating other admin accounts, sending invitations to create admin accounts, or elevating any user to a clearance higher than the captains level. They can downgrade their own account to a captains or user level. If someone needs security access above the captains level, this is the recommended first choice. Admins have enough access to effectively do everything nessisary to run & administrate a league for the season. They are only limited in their ability to recruit others to their authorization level. This is an important security measure which should be utilized. -- SuperAdmins: This security clearance level has been given full reign to make any changes deemed nessisary. SuperAdmins can upgrade anyone up to the SuperAdmin level and send invites for others to become SuperAdmins. It is recommended that only league board members be granted this level of access. It is also recommended that users should prove themselves on the admin level, before being granted clearance as a SuperAdmin. It is more than likely that you will use the UpdateUser page to elevate a person, who has proven themself over the years, to this level. Rarely should the need the arrise to send an invitation to create an account with this clearance. -- League Owners: Currently, the SuperAdmin and LeagueOwner clearance levels share the same permission set with one exception. League Owners can upgrade anyone to the League Owner level and send invites for others to become League Owners. It is recommended that only the site creator & one or two key league coordinators (who are technically savy) hold this level of access, should either the need arise to limit the functionality of SuperAdmins, or to add additional functionality limited solely to League Owners. Note that you will more than likely use the UpdateUser page to elevate a person, who has proven themself over the years, to this level. Rarely should the need the arrise to send an invitation to create an account with this clearance. -- It is not possible to change a user's name, username, or password, short of deleting the account and creating a new one. This prevents duplicates in the system and simplifies administration. This system does not support the use of nicknames. -- What do the event numbers mean? -- By the nature of databases, all tables need a key by which to reference data. The event number is simply the primary key used by the Intramural Attendance Keeper to track which game is which. This way, if a game is squeezed in between two existing records, the database can sort the table by date, keeping the information in proper sequence, but showing you which event each column refers to, in the event that you need to update game information. -- What are the numbers counting at the bottom of the chart? -- The Men and Women rows contain counts for number of players of each gender responding with a "Yes" or a "Yes & TimeKeep" to each game's column. It does not include players who may arrive late or leave early as history has shown that these responses are usually the same as someone saying they're just not coming. -- I'm a captain, and moved someone off my team by mistake. Can I move them back? -- If you just changed the drop-down, nothing has changed. However, if you clicked the Save *UserName* button, there is nothing you can do. We can't have our captains stealing players from other teams and while that is not your intention, there is the potential here for abuse. You'll need to contact an administrator, or the captain of the other team, and request that they move your player back onto your team. Once this has been done, you or your player will need to re-enter their attendance data. -- Can users update their own e-mail addresses? -- No. Once your account is created, only captains and above can change e-mail addresses. Again, this is a security measure to prevent tampering with league info. Our experience has shown that the e-mails stored in the Intramural Attendance Keeper are rarely used by living, breathing people. Most times, it's only there in-case you forget your username or password. No-one else really uses it, as you probably provided your e-mail to the league when you registered. So you probably don't need to worry about it. Unless of course you changed your e-mail and lost your username and password. In that case, ask your captain to update your e-mail address on the 'modify / delete users' page. -- Why do I have be so specific with dates and times for games? -- We realize the entry form is a pain in the butt... but so is trying to get a database to accept dates in 15 different ways... so let me put this nicely... "suck it up!" You shouldn't have any problem so long as you enter all of the information exactly. And don't try to do anything stupid like put in AP or MP or MA or impossible dates like 31/31/2025. It will error and that event will not be entered into your team's game list. Now, if you live in Europe and want to use DD/MM/YYYY instead of MM/DD/YYYY, We can't stop you, but you'd better hope that everyone else in the league does the same, or things might get really confusing. For speedy entry, try skipping the (:) colon. Instead just enter a time as 1230am or 0615pm and allow the javascript to format it for you. -- Can the Intramural Attendance Keeper also track our scores? -- Not at this time. Each team's game information is stored and processed independant of what any other team has entered. So at best, we could modify it to be a note card for individual captains to keep track of their scores, but there is not an easy way to track scores league wide, nor to keep track of standings. I recommend Score Reporter for this purpose. -- Are there any limits on number of users, number of teams or number of games? -- This system is designed to handle up to 299 teams, up to 49 games and the maximum number of players is not known at this time. However, our experience has been that most leagues run an average of 6-30 teams and 13-20 games. -- Is there a fee to use this service? -- Usage is free for any leagues Drew and Tracey participate in, which is currently limited to Pada's Chester County Winter & Summer Leagues. Usage is also free for the first season for any leagues & organizations wishing to test out the Intramural Attendance Keeper in a real season of play. Databases are purged and removed at the end of each season. After the intial trial season (typically 13-20 weeks), if organizations would like to continue to use the application for additional leagues or seasons, payment in advance can be made in U.S. currency via PayPal or Money Order. Arrangements should be made via E-mail. Fees are listed per league / per season and average $0.50 to $1.70 per player for the season: -- $ 50.00 : Leagues of 000-099 users -- $100.00 : Leagues of 100-199 users -- $200.00 : Leagues of 200-299 users -- $500.00 : Leagues of 300-499 users -- Leagues of over 500 users, please e-mail for pricing Please note that we do reserve the right to maintain access to your league records, and to keep a copy of your database on file. But that shouldn't be a problem for anyone since this application doesn't store addresses. I stores name and e-mail addresses. No, we don't plan to spam your users, but we do want to keep track of how many people signed up for your league and reserve the right to request addition payment should your usage rise above your initial indication. Note that deleting user accounts doesn't remove them from the database, but simply labels them inactive, so don't waste your time trying to buck the system to save money. Also be aware that we are not in the habit of providing any regular level of technical support. All pages, e-mails, and documention provided by the application are self explanitory. The system is free of bugs and glitches to the best of our knowledge and is provided as-is. (That's part of why you get the first season free... to see if you are smart enough to use this thing). We offer no gaurentees on accessibilty or against dataloss, mostly because our web hosting provider doesn't offer us any. We hope that explains things. Please e-mail us if you have any questions. |