Sending messages has always been a weak link in TSTM services, mostly because we depend on external services to deliver the messages. Sometimes, thousands of mails are sent without issues but some other times, it just stops sending for no apparent reasons. Sending messages in time is very important for teams, especially during inclement weather. If you found TSTM is not sending messages, there is a feature to assist you to send the message from your own mail client. TSTM provides you with a list of addresses that you can plug into your email software. Here is how to do it.
Go to admin menu Other->Send messages.
Select your recipient criteria and click the "Show recipients" button.
On the new page, at the upper right corner (above the Subject field), there is a link called "Email address list". Right mouse click on the link and copy the addresses.
Go to your own email software and in the To, CC or BCC field (your choice), paste the address list.
Type your message there and send it!
This works for both email and text messages.
Although this is not as convenient as directly typing messages and sending within TSTM, it should be a good workaround. One other advantage to send messages this way is that your recipients can reply to your inbox directly.
Sunday, July 13, 2014
Tuesday, May 20, 2014
Transfer from one team to another
As the number of teams using TSTM grows, more and more families have the need to switch from one team to another due to moving or changing clubs. In the past, all such requests are manually handled by me. To facilitate such changes by all teams, a new feature has been implemented so that such team transfer can be accomplished between the transferring family and the new team administrators. Please save this link so you can refer to it when a family requests to be transferred to your team.
To securely transfer a family from one team to another, there are three steps needed.
1. The family goes to their Family information tab. At the lower right corner, there is a new drop down labeled "Transfer to". The family selects the new team they want to join and click the button "Go" on the right. An email will be sent out to the new team's administrators. BTW, this admin email address is set on the Team Setup page. Multiple emails can be set in that field delimited by commas.
2. When the new team admins receive such an email, s/he should validate if this request is true, not someone plays a hoax or accidental. The best way is probably through email or phone call. Once the admins confirm the request is legitimate, s/he should click on the link that is included in the transfer request email. The transfer is then approved and an email will be sent back to the family.
3. When the family receives the email from new team's admin, s/he should click on the link included in the email to complete the transfer. Note that the actual team transfer is done in the third step. The first two step hand-shake is just to make sure neither party makes any mistakes and the transfer is agreed by both parties.
In the past, all family transferred to a new team would lose their swimmer's past meet results. There is an improvement such that the past results will be carried over with the swimmer to the new team.
To securely transfer a family from one team to another, there are three steps needed.
1. The family goes to their Family information tab. At the lower right corner, there is a new drop down labeled "Transfer to". The family selects the new team they want to join and click the button "Go" on the right. An email will be sent out to the new team's administrators. BTW, this admin email address is set on the Team Setup page. Multiple emails can be set in that field delimited by commas.
2. When the new team admins receive such an email, s/he should validate if this request is true, not someone plays a hoax or accidental. The best way is probably through email or phone call. Once the admins confirm the request is legitimate, s/he should click on the link that is included in the transfer request email. The transfer is then approved and an email will be sent back to the family.
3. When the family receives the email from new team's admin, s/he should click on the link included in the email to complete the transfer. Note that the actual team transfer is done in the third step. The first two step hand-shake is just to make sure neither party makes any mistakes and the transfer is agreed by both parties.
In the past, all family transferred to a new team would lose their swimmer's past meet results. There is an improvement such that the past results will be carried over with the swimmer to the new team.
Monday, April 28, 2014
TSTM Social Event Signup
This function is to facilitate team social events management. Instead of using external signup web sites, admins can set up social events for team members to sign up within TSTM. Members can specify how many people will attend an event and add a comment along with the signup.
To set up a social event, go to the admin menu Setup->Social event . You can create a new event or delete an existing event. Each event can have a name, description, a URL and an attachment. It also allows members to specify how many adults and children will attend the event. To view the sign up results, click on the Signup column for the event.
Team members will see the list of available events from their menu after logging in and click on the Social event menu item on the left. They select the events to attend by selecting the corresponding checkboxes and specify the number people will attend the event.
To set up a social event, go to the admin menu Setup->Social event . You can create a new event or delete an existing event. Each event can have a name, description, a URL and an attachment. It also allows members to specify how many adults and children will attend the event. To view the sign up results, click on the Signup column for the event.
Team members will see the list of available events from their menu after logging in and click on the Social event menu item on the left. They select the events to attend by selecting the corresponding checkboxes and specify the number people will attend the event.
Monday, January 13, 2014
Line up all lanes for a time trial meet
In the past, the auto line up program only used half the lanes when seeding for a dual meet. For a time trial, teams want to use all lanes. This function has been implemented. If a meet type is 'Trial', all lanes will be filled. One limitation is that it only seeds even number of lanes. So if your team has a 5-lane pool, only 4 lanes will be lined up.
After a season is closed, team admins don't have access to past season meets in general. If you are not a new team using TSTM, you probably have meet results from the last season. If so, with premium feature turned on, you can take advantage of past season's results when creating the line up for a time trial.
Here are the steps.
Go to the Meet Setup page.
At the lower right corner of the page, you will see two arrows pointing left and right. Clicking on the arrow pointing left will bring back all past season meets. The results from these meets will be taken into account when you do a line up.
When you finished with lining up the trial meet, come back to the Meet Set up page and click on the arrow pointing to the right to hide the meets from the past season.
Caution:
DON'T delete the past season meets. Doing so will remove all result history of these meets from all swimmers. Using the right pointing arrow on the Meet Setup is the correct way to hide these meets.
Note that new or swimmers who didn't participate in the previous season will be consider having no times and thus will be lined up in the later heats in the events.
Line up will only consider swimmers who select to participate in a meet. You can use the green button "Attend all meets" on the Meet Setup page to make everyone select all meets. Also, please make sure that the pusher lists are not excluding any swimmers from attending any strokes from last season. It took me a while to realize that's the reason a swimmer was not seeded in a stroke during my test.
Exporting heat sheets of time trial meet can be used for PGTiming system. You don't need to do anything special.
After a season is closed, team admins don't have access to past season meets in general. If you are not a new team using TSTM, you probably have meet results from the last season. If so, with premium feature turned on, you can take advantage of past season's results when creating the line up for a time trial.
Here are the steps.
Go to the Meet Setup page.
At the lower right corner of the page, you will see two arrows pointing left and right. Clicking on the arrow pointing left will bring back all past season meets. The results from these meets will be taken into account when you do a line up.
When you finished with lining up the trial meet, come back to the Meet Set up page and click on the arrow pointing to the right to hide the meets from the past season.
Caution:
DON'T delete the past season meets. Doing so will remove all result history of these meets from all swimmers. Using the right pointing arrow on the Meet Setup is the correct way to hide these meets.
Note that new or swimmers who didn't participate in the previous season will be consider having no times and thus will be lined up in the later heats in the events.
Line up will only consider swimmers who select to participate in a meet. You can use the green button "Attend all meets" on the Meet Setup page to make everyone select all meets. Also, please make sure that the pusher lists are not excluding any swimmers from attending any strokes from last season. It took me a while to realize that's the reason a swimmer was not seeded in a stroke during my test.
Exporting heat sheets of time trial meet can be used for PGTiming system. You don't need to do anything special.
Saturday, July 27, 2013
Meet result in CSV file format and import a meet result file
The feature to import meet results is for teams not using Hy-Tek or don't have internet access at the pool and want to enter data into a file for later upload to TSTM when internet is available.
There are two formats you can use to enter meet results in a CSV file.
1. By event number:
The file has a header line (only the first line) as the following:
Event,SwimmerId,Time
Starting from the second line, you should enter a TSA event number in the first column, swimmer's ID or number in the second column and the time in the third column.
TSA event numbers are in this TSA document:
http://tsanc.org/documents/XLS/EventSheets.xls
The event column can be left empty if it continues the same event from the previous line. It is only required if the event is different from the previous line.
The time column can be entered in any of the following formats.
TSA event numbers are in this TSA document:
http://tsanc.org/documents/XLS/EventSheets.xls
The event column can be left empty if it continues the same event from the previous line. It is only required if the event is different from the previous line.
The time column can be entered in any of the following formats.
Example: the time is 1:23.45
The valid time strings are:
12345
1:23.45
2. By stroke:
The file has a header line (only the first line) as the following:
Stroke,SwimmerId,Time
Starting from the second line, you should enter one of the 4 strokes as the following.
Example for stroke column:
Free or Fr or fr or 1
Back or Bk or Ba or bk or ba or 2
Breast or Br or br or 3
Fly or Fl or fl or 4
The stroke column can be left empty if it continues the same stroke from the previous line. It is only required if the stroke is different from the previous line.
The second and third columns are the same as described in "By event number" above.
The second and third columns are the same as described in "By event number" above.
There are two template files for the two types of csv file at the following location. You can download and save them as a .csv file.
http://www.tsaswimteam.com/MeetResultByEvent.csv
http://www.tsaswimteam.com/MeetResultByStroke.csv
To upload result from a .CSV file (or Hy-Tek .zip or .cl2 meet result file), go to the admin menu Meet->Manage results. On the new page, select the meet you want to import. Then click on the import meet result icon (the first icon on the right side of the meet dropdown box). On the new import window, click on the Browse or Choose File button and look for the .csv file on your system. Click the Ok button to import. Note that if you use CSV format, the file name extension must be .csv.
Saturday, July 6, 2013
Meet Entry Export for TSA Championship or Cary City meet
Here are the steps to create a Hy-Tek compatible meet entry file for invitational meets:
Note this is a premium feature.
Meet creation:
Create a new meet on Championship Saturday or Sunday depending on your team's ranking or Cary City Meet. Choose "TSA Championship" or "Cary Meet" as your opponent team. Choose Meet type "Other" and check the "Show strokes" checkbox.
Stroke selection:
Notify team members to sign up for this meet. They should also select their preferred strokes for each swimmer for this meet on the Meet selection page.
After strokes are selected, do the auto lineup (Meet->Lineup, etc). Select 4 for Max events / per swimmer. The lineup results for individual events only serve as stroke selection, not real lineup for the meet (unless this is for a dual meet), but for the relay teams, they are actual teams. The seed times are personal best times. For relay teams, the seed time is the sum of all swimmers' personal best times in the strokes they will swim.
If admin/coach wants to drop a stroke for a swimmer, they can switch into the family's account and make such changes. Another option is to use the pusher list, Meet Setup->pusher list (the 5th icon) for that meet to drop certain strokes. Red color crossing out a name means a swimmer will NOT swim that stroke. Don't use the Orange color because it only prevents a swimmer from attending the first heat. When possible, use the family's Meet selection page instead of the pusher list to make stroke selections.
Meet entry export:
Go to the Meet Setup page and export the meet entry (third icon). It should be a .ZIP file. Pay attention to the date of the file to make sure it is just created. Download the zip file and save it locally. Send this file to the meet organizer.
Click on the report (6th) icon on the Meet Setup to create the Championship meet report (signup line items and total cost for the team).
Wednesday, May 1, 2013
TSA Swim Team Manager user guide
This guide is for all TSTM administrators what needs to be done at what time throughout a season. Team admininstrators come and go. The purpose of this guide is to help them to learn and manage their TSTM team site smoothly. It may take a new admin 15-20 minutes to read through various documents. Once doing that, the admin should have a good understanding what features the system offers and how to do most of the tasks. Doing things as designed in TSTM could save you and other volunteers a lot of time comparing to using traditional manual processes.
Close and Reopen the season:
Automatic line up:
All new admins are highly recommended to read through the basic admin guide page at:
Close and Reopen the season:
Before a new season starts, an admin must close the previous season and reopen the season on the Season Setup page. This cleans up all past seasonal data and prepare for the new season. Once a new season is open, please use the above guide to prepare the site for a new season.
Collaborating with Hy-Tek:
Volunteer assignment:
There are two volunteer assignment options in TSTM. One is first come first serve. The other type is to allow families to specify their preferred job types and which meets they are available to work. Actual assignment is assigned by admins or the system (auto assignment). This option is on the Team Set up page. If you want to use the second option, there is a guide for it.
http://tsaswimteam.blogspot.com/2012/02/automatic-volunteer-assignment-based-on.html
Team due and the premium options:
On 6/20 (at 3:00AM), team due and the premium features will be locked in for the season. Before this date, please double check the premium option setting on the Team Setup page (only super admins have access) and make sure all active swimmers are accurate (e.g. no duplicates, which may cost team extra unnecessarily).
http://tsaswimteam.blogspot.com/2012/08/tstm-premium-features.html
http://tsaswimteam.blogspot.com/2012/08/tstm-premium-features.html
For teams using Hy-Tek, after all swimmers are registered online (mid to late May), you should export swimmer roster from TSTM and import it into Hy-Tek. Please read the following link for details.
There are two volunteer assignment options in TSTM. One is first come first serve. The other type is to allow families to specify their preferred job types and which meets they are available to work. Actual assignment is assigned by admins or the system (auto assignment). This option is on the Team Set up page. If you want to use the second option, there is a guide for it.
http://tsaswimteam.blogspot.com/2012/02/automatic-volunteer-assignment-based-on.html
Automatic line up:
Before a meet, if your team plans to use the automatic line up function, please follow the directions in the following blog.
http://tsaswimteam.blogspot.com/2013/04/automatic-line-up-seeding-function.html
Printing functions:
With the result from an automatic line up, you can also print main event heat sheets and TSA meet sheets. Please read directions below.
http://tsaswimteam.blogspot.com/2012/02/printing-features-for-tsa-swim-team.html
Import meet results:
After a meet, you can either enter the meet results at the TSTM web site, or if your team uses Hy-Tek to collect meet results, you can import the meet results from an exported Hy-Tek meet result file (.cl2 or .zip).
Import meet results in .CSV file format:
http://tsaswimteam.blogspot.com/2013/07/meet-result-in-csv-file-and-import-meet.html
Create Hy-Tek compatible meet entry file:
http://tsaswimteam.blogspot.com/2013/07/meet-entry-export-for-tsa-championship.html
Still have questions:
Feel free to send me an email.
Printing functions:
With the result from an automatic line up, you can also print main event heat sheets and TSA meet sheets. Please read directions below.
http://tsaswimteam.blogspot.com/2012/02/printing-features-for-tsa-swim-team.html
Import meet results:
After a meet, you can either enter the meet results at the TSTM web site, or if your team uses Hy-Tek to collect meet results, you can import the meet results from an exported Hy-Tek meet result file (.cl2 or .zip).
Import meet results in .CSV file format:
http://tsaswimteam.blogspot.com/2013/07/meet-result-in-csv-file-and-import-meet.html
Create Hy-Tek compatible meet entry file:
http://tsaswimteam.blogspot.com/2013/07/meet-entry-export-for-tsa-championship.html
Still have questions:
Feel free to send me an email.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)