Configuring Sports, Teams, Rosters, and Event Information

Overview

When setting up the Athletic module, a number of things should be configured to get the most out of each area of the system.

Sport and Team Structure

Having a robust sport and team structure will pay dividends long term (for example, targeting all past Varsity Basketball players for an Alumni meetup). To that end, Veracross recommends ensuring that the structure for sports and teams are set up such that team level (Varsity, JV, etc) and gender are organized as separate sports. Configure Subjects, Sports, and Teams as follows.

Configure the subject first. Subjects should be set up by school level. A school with both a Middle School and Upper School athletics program would have two subjects, one with school level MS and the other US. This initial configuration is done on the System homepage.

Configuring Sports is done on the Athletics homepage by selecting “Add a Sport” from the Add drop-down menu . Sports should be organized in a way that provides a single team within each sport. For example Boys Varsity Basketball should be one sport, while Boys Junior Varsity Basketball is another.

Each sport configured should have the gender set along with other configuration such as whether or not grades will be posted to report cards or transcripts. Other fields like Link Style, Sort Key, Allow Waitlist, and others can be filled out if desired but are not necessary. The field ‘Include In Roles’ will configure the system to include the abbreviation in the title bar of each student participating in that sport.

In addition to fields on the General tab, a classification for either Varsity, Junior Varsity, Freshman, or Intramural should be added to each sport via the Classifications tab. Tagging sports with the correct classification has the additional benefit of categorizing sports so that the team quick links on the Athletics Homepage pull the right set of teams. To add a classification, click its name from the left column, which will move it to the right, and click “Update.”

Team Configuration

After configuring all sports, teams can be added from the Athletic homepage. Add a team by clicking ‘Add a Team.’ A sport will need to be selected to associate with the team along with Team ID and Description. Other details like Coach, Location, and Start and End dates are also entered on the General tab.

Use the Coaches tab to specify head coaches, assistant coaches, and other leadership roles. The Title field can be used in conjunction with the Other role to add people like Score Keepers and Logistics Managers. The other permission settings can be used to allow coaches with access to the faculty portal to take attendance, view report cards, progress reports, and other student data.

Adding players to each team roster can be done on the General tab using the input grid.

Event Travel Logistics Configuration

Veracross will automatically populate certain athletic event time fields like Campus Leave Time, Game End Time, and Return to Campus if the fields used in the calculations are populated. Learn more about how these values are calculated.

Add the values required for automatic calculation. Fields are found on the Team and Opponent records:
Team record: Early Arrival Duration
Team record: Game Duration
Opponent Organization record: Travel Time
All of these values are found on the Other tabs of each respective record.

To help facilitate where each team normally departs from, specify a Depart From value on the Other tab of each Team record. This value will be automatically populated on each Athletic Event created for this Team.

Event Checklist Configuration

Configure an event checklist by starting with the creation of checklist templates. It is possible to create different templates as the items required may differ based on the event (for example, an Away game has different tasks than a Home game). Templates are created on the System homepage under the Events subsection.

After templates have been created, configure an Event Logistics Checklist by adding checklist items. These items may be things like Opponent Confirmed or Referee Confirmed. During this configuration it is possible to add a Default Assigned To person, whether any are required, and an overall sort key. Lastly, tag individual items to created checklist templates on the Templates tab of a specific checklist item.

Event Notification Templates

There are three default Event Notification templates that need to be configured for use. They are:

• Athletic Event Notification
• Event Notification
• Game Outcome

Each email template supports a list of supported merge fields that are documented in each email template. Find the email templates on the System Homepage via the link Email Templates.

Each template supports HTML in the body along with merge fields. Once the templates are set up, notifications can begin to be used.

Other Configuration

Athletic Eligibility is a calculation that is based on school-specific logic. Speak with your Veracross Account Manager if you want to set up an Athletic Eligibility as the logic will need to be defined and implemented by an engineer.

Make it easier to find opponents by marking opponent organizations with the Athletic Opponent role.