Meet Templates

Meet Templates allow you to define a list of events and rules for different types of meets throughout the season (e.g. standard dual meets, tri meets, Divisionals, Champs, or Invitationals). Once you have defined the templates, you can simply drop them into the appropriate meets on your calendar.

Each Meet Template defines:

• Events
• Meet Entry Rules
• Meet Entry Fees
• Participation Requirements/Eligibility
• Seeding & Scoring Rules

>>Note: Team Preferences are not part of the Meet Template. Preferences can be set up at the meet level, and they can be defined at the team level under Settings.  For more information, see our Help Center article about Team Meet Entry Preferences.

Creating a New Meet Template

To create a new Meet Template, go to an existing meet that is set up the way you'd like, and save that setup as a new Meet Template (you can edit the Template after it's created):

Go to Manage Team > Schedule > select the name of a meet

Go to the Meet Setup subtab, then click on "Events." Click on "Template," then click "Save As Template"

Editing and Managing Meet Templates

Your current Meet Templates can be found at Manage Team > Schedule > Meet Templates.

To edit your Meet Template, click on the name of the template.  There, you'll find four tabs:  Events, Entry Rules, Meet Entry Fees, and Participation Requirements.

You can save multiple Meet Templates for various kinds of meets.  Once you've created one Meet Template, you can copy it and make any modifications so the new template can be used with a different kind of meet, such as a championship meet.

>>Note:  For leagues that use SwimTopia league-wide, the league can define Meet Templates to share with their teams - these will automatically be populated in their teams' Meet Templates.  Some leagues may even lock their teams' Meet Templates such that the teams are unable to edit any of the settings.  You can make copies of the league's Meet Templates and then make changes to the copy.

Events

Your events will be listed under the Events subtab:

You can edit the events or add new events:

>>Note: if you don't have any meets on your site with all of your events in it, you could add each event one-by-one to your Meet Template, but that would be a lot of work. If at all possible, we recommend you create a new meet by importing a Meet Events file, then you can save your Meet Template from there.

Meet Entry Rules

Set the rules for your Meet Template under the Entry Rules subtab:

Meet Entry Fees

Meet entry fees are added as Host Fees and Athlete Fees.

>>Note: This setting will calculate meet entry fees but does not enable online payment or collection of entry fees at this time. Detailed fee reports can be found in Manage Team > Reports > Swim Meets > Meet Entry Fees. You could create a meet entry fee as a Merchandise item to collect during registration and/or on the online store.

• The meet host fees are the fees the meet host charges the team when they submit their entries.
• The athlete fees are the fees the team charges the athletes.
• By default, the meet host fees will be passed through to the athlete fees unchanged, but the team has the option of overriding those charges, either to increase the fees to cover coaching and travel costs, or to discount or eliminate fees the team will cover, such as relay entry fees. Click Override next to the Athlete Surcharge, Individual Event Entry Fee or Relay Event Entry Fee to change what is charged to individual athletes by the team.
• Because relays are subject to last-minute changes, athlete relay fees are often more accurately calculated based on actual results, so you can charge athletes for relays based on meet results instead of meet entries. 
• Should an athlete only entered as a relay alternate be charged the per-athlete surcharge

Participation Requirements/Eligibility

Participation Requirements are useful for tracking and enforcing rules that require a minimum level of participation. A common case would be a championship meet with a rule requiring athletes to have swum in a certain number of meets during the regular season to enter the championship meet.

Participation requirement rules can vary by age, and can require both a minimum number of meets since a given date, and a minimum number of swims per meet.

For the purposes of participation requirements, either a valid time or a DQ or DNF (did not finish) is considered a "swim". Swims in "unofficial" meets are not counted.

Seeding & Scoring Rules

Seeding and Scoring Rules are only necessary when using SwimTopia's meet management application, Meet Maestro. See our article on SwimTopia – Setting up Seeding & Scoring Rules for more details.

Applying Meet Templates to Your Meets

Now that you've set up your Meet Templates, you're ready to apply a Meet Template to your meets. If you haven't set up any meets yet, see our Help Center article about Creating and Editing a Swim Meet.

Go to Manage Team > Schedule, and click on the name of a meet.

Go to the Meet Status subtab, and click on Events.

Editing Meet Setup That's Linked to a Template

While setting up a Meet Template, admins can decide whether to lock the template to prevent any changes from being made to any meets that are linked to this template:

Once a Meet Template has been applied to a meet, when you click on any of that meet's four template subtabs under Meet Setup, you'll see a message saying the meet is linked to a Meet Template (along with the name of the template).

If the Meet Template is not locked, you'll see a message like this one:

Click on "Unlink Template" to make edits to any of the four subtabs or to apply a new Meet Template.

If the Meet Template is locked, you won't be able to edit the any of the four subtabs, and you'll see a message like this one: 

>>Note: If your league used the Meet Schedule Import feature, check to see that the proper Meet Templates have been applied to each meet.  During the Meet Schedule Import, your league may have defined and locked your Meet Templates, meaning you won't be able to edit any of the four subtabs.

Changes to the Template

When you change any part of a  meet template, any upcoming meet linked to it will update with the changes you have made. Past meets, however, are not changed. If changes to the template would eliminate events with entries, the changes will not be applied to the meet. If your meet is not updating as you would expect, please contact your friendly Customer Happiness Team.

Meet Preferences

Now that we've talked about the Meet Template and its four subtabs under Meet Setup, you may be wondering what the other subtab, “Team Preferences,” refers to and how that works.

Under Meet Setup, we’ve divided out things that are considered “rules” and those that are considered “team preferences.” Rules are things that the league typically governs in by-laws and meet guides. Team preferences are just that, settings that relate more to how your team likes to collect entries and attendance information, along with relay setup preferences.

You'll define your Meet Entry Preferences under Manage Team > Settings > Meet Entry Preferences. And you can “Apply” those preferences to each meet, making any necessary modifications on a meet-by-meet basis.

For more information, see our Help Center article about Team Meet Entry Preferences.