Make mine a Combo! Email and SMS all in one.

We’ve recently upgraded one of our best kept secrets, the brilliant functionality available in Sportzware Communicator.

For some time now some of our power users have been using Sportzware Communicator to send email communication direct to members from their database. We did some research recently though that told us that lots of our users did not even know this functionality existed.

So, time to remind you about it and time to tell you about some new features that will make communicating with your members all the more efficient and effective.

So what is Communicator?

When you log into Sportzware Membership (that’s your online club or league database) you would have seen a series of icons that appear in your navigation bar on the left hand side of the page. Your access to communicator is on the far right, depicted as a ‘speech bubble’, as shown below.



Until recently Communicator allowed you to send emails to predefined groups (players, match officials etc.) or custom groups that you set up.

But now, Communicator is twice as powerful. You can communicate with the same groups, you can even communicate with groups of people that you create in a report, and now you can also choose to communicate with those groups via SMS.

So why SMS?

Why choose SMS over Email?

No doubt there are times when you will want to get a quick message to a group and you want to be sure they got the message. In this case, SMS is a more effective solution than email for that because most people carry their mobile phones all the time.

On top of that, SMS is awesome for reminding groups of something else. Let’s say a league publishes its referees roster every Tuesday night. “Hi Guys, roster has been updated and emailed – please review asap”.

And of course, SMS is the only way to broadcast urgent messages.

Why use Communicator SMS and Email?

The answer is pretty obvious to us.

You should utilise your official database as the basis of your communication infrastructure.

This means there will be:
• No need to use your own email account as the basis of your communications.
• No need to send and track messages to hundreds of people in your outlook account, and for your colleagues to do the same.
• No need for multiple people in your organisation to maintain independent contacts lists.

Communicator empowers you to use your official database as your official communication channel.

What does all this have to do with a combo?

Let’s say you want to send a message to a group, and you are not sure that you have everyone’s email or everyone’s mobile number in your database. No problem, choose a combo message. A combo message automatically sends an SMS to everyone that has a mobile number listed and then emails the rest.

Even better, as you are setting up your message, Sportzware Communicator breaks down the numbers for you and tells you how many members have email address and how many have mobile numbers – before you even send it.

Check out this example:



So what do I need to do?

1. Login to your database and checkout Communicator
2. Click on the Profile Button to set-up how you will use communicator
3. While you are there, click on the ‘Create SMS Sender Account” button to set-up your SMS account and purchase your initial sms credits.
4. Revolutionise your communications by sending your first message today.

Want more information first?

No problem, as always, our Support Wiki has been updated to help you with this process:

• Information about pricing, signing up for an SMS account and our terms and conditions

• More information about Sportzware Communicator

And finally...
Check out our recent blog post about how you can now use Communicator directly from your mobile at m.sportingpulse.com.

Basketball Stat upgrades

We’ve made a great change to basketball stats layouts that is about to launch - its of particular relevance if you upload statistics for your competition, as we need you to check that these changes format properly on your website.

First, here are the change details:

The 'Competition Stats' page in your website will show all of the stats leaders for each category (including an image of the leader), with the option of clicking a link to show a complete list for that category.

Note: In the example below, 'Competition Stats' has been renamed to 'Season Stats'.

All individual stats pages have also been given an upgrade, with several improvements including:

• A feature box at the top highlighting four major current season stats for that player - points, rebounds, assists and field goal percentage.
• Career statistics added to the box underneath, accompanying the player's season statistics (and now with no more scroll bar!)
• A more user-friendly interface for the Game Log.
  

Note: Only the stats that you are recording will display on your new stats page – you don't need to worry about empty spaces on your websites…

However, this change may initially cause the layout of stats on individual player pages to display incorrectly, particularly in terms of the ordering of stats columns.

If this is the case, simply perform a competition upload and your data will be rectified.

Please log onto your website after Midday tomorrow and check to see if your stats are displaying correctly – if they are, great! If not, simply perform the upload…we’ll be keeping an eye out as well.

Should you have any questions or queries please feel free to contact our Customer Support Team at support@sportingpulse.com

Contacts & Locator – Make it easy for people to find you!

You’ve probably noticed that in the last few months, the Services area of your Sportzware Membership database has been upgraded with a module known as ‘Contacts & Locator’ - where clubs and leagues/associations can store and publish their important details, such as contacts and venue location information.

We’re pretty confident the upgrade will save you time, help you recruit and retain members and also allow you to talk more easily between your organisation, your members and your governing body.

To get the most out of this new functionality, it is very important to keep your club or league/association information up-to-date so that:

1. your participants (and future participants!) will know how to contact you, and;
2. the correct person is receiving right information sent to your organisation - either from your governing body, your state body or from SportingPulse.

The main changes are that a new section now exists for ‘Contacts’ that allows roles to be assigned to people within an organisation (e.g. President, Secretary, Treasurer, Committee Members). This is really helpful for situations where, for example, a club Treasurer can be directly sent information from your sport’s governing body about a current grant available.

The Contacts & Locator is also useful for setting out what information is made available to the public – e.g. on your governing body website’s ‘Club Locator’ tool – to make it easier for your participants to not only find you, but find the right contact information for your organisation in order to get in touch with you.

A couple of examples of this search engine (and the corresponding results) can be seen here:

• AFL - Where Can I Play?
• Rubgy League – Where Can I Play?

The Contacts & Locator Module can be accessed by clicking on the ‘Contacts and Locator’ link in the left-hand menu while in SWM, and is separated into three sections – Details, Contacts and Locator. Each section is marked with either a green tick (meaning info has been successfully entered in), or a grey X (meaning you still need to enter in some info).

The Details section is where you can store all the key details for the club or league, including postal address details and league or club phone number, email and fax information.

The Contacts section is where you can add important contact details for specific roles within the association or club. Each individual can be set to appear publicly or not, as well as being designated specific functional responsibilities (e.g. Sponsors & Fundraising, Website & Publicity) they hold within the organisation, and therefore which types of information they need to receive.

The Locator section is where you have the ability to enter all your ground/venue contact and location details, as well as giving an overview of the information that will appear publicly at the user-end when they search for clubs or leagues online.

Tip: Note: Most sports’ club locator tools allow the user to search by either Post Code and/or by Club Name, so be sure to enter all the relevant Post Codes into the Post Codes Serviced field, as well as entering the URL of the club’s website. And don’t forget to tick the ‘Show us in the Public Locator’ checkbox!!

Remember, the output is only as good as the information entered by you…

• Click here for a complete guide on using the new Contacts & Locator module of the Sportzware Membership System.

• Click here for a tutorial video that covers all the components of Contacts and Locator.

We really appreciate your feedback on our products, so feel free to make a comment below or Contact Us.

Build Your Own Ladder Now in SWOL

For quite a while now we have had leagues from all around Australia heckling us to build their unique ladder templates into their Sportzware Online databases.

And fair enough too.

We understand that each league wants to show their ladders their own way, which is why we have now put the power in your hands.

The latest Sportzware Online release means leagues now have the ability to make their own ladder templates with their own values for wins, losses, byes and any other match result you can think of.

Fields such as goals for, goals against and percentage can then be added to the ladder, and the display order of these fields can be easily set.

Finally the ladder sort order, which determines the positions of the teams, can be set to incorporate up to three of the ladder fields which will make sure your top team is always where it should be, on top.

Once you have built your ladder template this can be applied to whichever competitions you like, regardless of whether they are underway or they are new. You can also build multiple ladder templates if you need too for different levels of competitions and these can be applied accordingly.

This development has probably taken longer than we would have liked, so we appreciate your patience and hope you enjoy the new functionality!

Click here for a complete guide on the new SWOL Ladder Configuration.

Feel free to comment below and let us know whether you like it or not!!

Multi-Person Registration Feature ('Multi-Reg')

As part of our ongoing program of adding features and enhancements to Sportzware Membership, SportingPulse is launching a multi-person registration feature – we’ve nicknamed it 'Multi-Reg'.

Multi-Reg uses the registration forms as you know them (so there won’t be a lot of training necessary), but there are a few key changes we want to let you know about.

More details are below, but the key points are:

• You can allow people registering to register multiple adults and children at the same time when setting up or editing a registration form.

• Different pricing can be applied to the same product depending on whether it’s the first, second, third or subsequent adult/child being registered (ideal for families with multiple children!)

• Key fields are remembered from the initial registration, and pre-filled into the form, saving time re-typing the same details. E.g. when you reach the end of the initial registration, you’re asked whether you want to 'Register another person and pay at the end', or finish the registration and Pay Now. If they choose to 'Register another', they’re returned to the initial registration form page, and they can start to register the next adult or child, and certain fields - such as parents’ details and contact details - will be remembered and already filled in for you.

• A single payment can be made to cover all of the fees in the multiple-registration.

We’re excited about this feature, and we hope Multi-Reg makes it easier for your members and players, and especially families, to use our online registration and payment system.

• Click here for more information on how to setup Multiple Pricing Products

• Click here for the steps involved in setting up a ‘Multi-Reg’ Registraton Form