Video Tutorial and Communications Center Access

▶️ Communications: Overview Video (5:53min)

This overview provides insight into how to designate who receives your communication, how to manage who can send communication from your team and through what email, and the features available when you compose your email.

➞ direct link to our Communications Overview video.

➞ See our ▶️ Training Videos - Communication article for more specific videos on our email and alert features.

➧ Accessing the Communications Center

Emails or Alerts are managed from the Communications tab in the Manage Team admin console.

➧ Permissions Required to Send an Email or Alert

Members with full Site Admin (red badge/label) access, and members assigned to a Role with Manage Communications permissions, can choose between sending an Email (detailed information) or sending an Alert (information you need to share quickly - meet delayed, practice canceled, etc.).

➧ Site Admin:

For instructions on creating Admins, ➞ see our Adding New Admins Help Center article. 

➧ Role Permissions: (designated on each Role)

For instructions on Roles ➞ See our Defining Roles Help Center article.

Sending Emails and Team Alerts/Push Notifications

➧ Team Alert Details

Emails or Alerts are managed from the Communications tab in the Manage Team admin console.

The purpose of using the Alert feature is to quickly broadcast a short urgent message via the SwimTopia Mobile App (i.e., Practice canceled due to weather). ➞ See our Community Post to learn about more benefits of using our Alert feature.

➞ Where do I send an alert?  

Alerts are sent through the Communications tool from your Manage Team admin console, or through the SwimTopia mobile app (under the key icon) ➞ See SwimTopia Mobile App - Overview & Admin Info

➞ What determines if a member will receive the alert on their phone? 

Sending an Alert triggers a push notification to team members who have downloaded and are logged into the SwimTopia mobile app, AND have enabled notifications within their phone settings, removing the need for a separate text or SMS message service.

➞ What about members who don't have the app downloaded? 

Team members who have not downloaded AND logged into the SwimTopia mobile app, OR who have not enabled notifications for their downloaded app, will receive the alert as an email instead of a push notification. 

» Note: Alerts cannot contain styled text or attachments and are limited to 160 characters. Every message must have a subject (which will appear on phones as a bolded line of text) and a body.

➧ Steps to Send an Email or Alert

Step 2) Determine Your Audience

In the To field, groups are labeled based on type, including (Age Group), (Role), (Roster Group), and (Group). Start typing the name of any user or group and select the matching user or group to receive the email or alert. (click Expand groups to display each individual user, or to remove any from your list)

» Tip: When typing in a group name on an iOS device (iPhone, iPad) you may have to try typing in the first few letters of the group or recipient name and then backspace a few letters to be able to select.

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Optional Selections

• Also publish as news post: will create a news post of your message along with the communication sent out that uses the subject as the title and the message as the content of the post. Attachments will not be included in the news post. (News posts are managed under Website > Posts, ➞ See the News Posts article for more details.)
• Send me a copy: Will send a copy of the message to the account being used to send the message.
• Allow recipients to see each other: divides the recipients into groups of approximately 50 and sends the messages out in batches. Delivery to every member will take longer when sending in batches, so give it time (hours to be safe). Since these messages are sent in batches of 50, not everyone will be able to see every other recipient; only those within their group of recipients.

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Step 3) Compose Your Message

Type your message and include any attachments as necessary. 

➞ Adding images to your message

Pasting images in the body of the message is not supported. Either use the "insert image" option from the editor bar, or if you know how to insert images using HTML, you can add images uploaded to your Settings > Uploaded Files page using the HTML editor "<>." 

➞ Sending large attachments (heat sheets, meet details)

There is a 20MB message size limit in outbound email messages. You will receive an error if you attach images or documents that are too large and will need to resize them to send the message.

Consider a better option of uploading these files to your meet under the "Files" tab instead. These files will display as links on your meet schedule. Then you can include the link to the meet in your communication. Parents won't have to save or search for past emails to quickly access the information.

Meet View:

Website View:

 

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Step 4) Send Your Message

Click Send to send and save your message in the Sent Messages area.

➧ Sending a Team Alert from the SwimTopia Mobile App

At the pool and need to notify your members quickly? No need to log into your team website from your phone browser or computer!

Admins with Site Admin (red badge) permissions, or assigned to a role with the permission to Manage Communications, can send an alert from within the app. 

Click on "Add all members" to include your active season roster, enter "Members (Previous Season)" to reach your past season roster, enter Role names, Athlete Age Groups, or School Year groups, etc. 

Enter your subject, short message (160-character limit), and click the Send button at the top. 

» Note: Sent alerts will be visible from within the Communications tab of your Manage Team admin console, not within the mobile app. If you want the alert posted as a News Post on your website, you must send the alert from the Communications tab in the system, currently. 

➞ This is also discussed in our SwimTopia Mobile App - Overview & Admin Info article.

Directing Communication to Specific Groups of People

➧ All Active Season Members

Email all members of the team in the active season by entering: Members

This group is intended for day-to-day team communications to reach anyone registered with an email address in the active season. 

All users affiliated with the active season are automatically added to your "Members" group through registration, or manual affiliation in their profile - including Paid, Approved, and Pending registrations (i.e., check or account# pymts, and waitlist submissions that are NOT moved to rejected).

It respects a family's communication preferences (like if a spouse opted out to avoid getting duplicate household emails). They will show as “Unsubscribed” when viewing their profile in People. 

➧ All Previous Season Members

Email members of the previous season by entering: Members - Previous Season

This is an excellent way to invite past season members to register for a new season.

All last season's imported members and registrations with an email address are included in this group unless their form is in the rejected status or they have opted out. They will show as “Unsubscribed” when viewing their profile in People. 

» Note: Any season marked "unofficial" will be skipped.

➧ Members in Any Season or Group

Do you want to send a message to a specific athlete roster group from the current or previous season, or members from seasons beyond the last? 

You can do this from your Reports.

1. Go to your Reports tab
2. You can do this from any report that contains parent information/emails, such as Registration Details / Data Export, Athlete Roster, or Parent Information.
3. Select a season, generate the report, then click the Compose button.
4. Even though you can't reach all seasons at once, you can add your active and previous season members at the same time as the season you selected by adding "Members (Group)" and "Members - Previous Season" to pull in two more seasons in a single send, which avoids duplicate emails to families who were on the team multiple years.
5. Then you'll go back to the report and select the next season, if you want to send to additional seasons. (Note: since this is a new communication, the system can't eliminate duplicates from the previous email for parents that span multiple seasons beyond the active and previous season if you included those in your first email, but you can expand the list and remove parents if you really feel they will care about a few duplicate emails.)

➞ See our Sending Email & Alerts to Groups through Reports and Meets tutorial for more details. 

➧ All Parents (use sparingly - disregards opt-out choice)

Email Parents only by entering: Parents

This is designed for urgent announcements. It completely bypasses all opt-out settings to force a message through to everyone with an email (like a last-minute weather delay).

Parents can unsubscribe from "Members" but not from the "Parents" group. Using the Parents' email group will send a message to every parent with an email address, even if they have opted out.

The Members group is likely smaller than the Parents group, but there’s no need to send to both groups in a single message. If you want everyone to receive the message even if they’ve requested not to be communicated with, use Parents (but use it sparingly).

➧ All Athletes

Email all Athletes on your current roster by entering: Athletes

Due to the Children's Online Privacy Protection Act ("COPPA"), only High School and Grown-Up Swimming teams can collect athlete emails during registration to send Communications directly to athletes. Teams can add emails to athlete profiles directly, but use caution when communicating with them due to the above act.

*See Note Below

➧ Athlete Age Groups or School Year Groups

Email specific Athlete Age Groups or School Year Groups by typing the age, competition category, or school year, and select from the drop-down list of choices. (15 + age groups are typically labeled “Men” or “Women.”) 

*See Note Below

➧ Athlete Roster Groups

➧ Role Assignees

If you tend to reach out to a subset of your members (i.e. your board, coaches, etc.), we suggest creating "Roles" for these groups and then assigning these members to the role. You can email all members assigned to a role by typing in the name of that role.

➞ See more information on Defining Roles and Assigning Volunteers to Roles.

*See Note Below

➧ Note:

Athletes Under 18: Each Parent/Guardian listed with an email is included in the communication sent to an athlete directly, or athletes assigned to an athlete group or role, and sent from athlete-specific reports (i.e., Athlete Roster). This happens regardless of whether the athlete has an email in their profile, or the parent/guardian chose to opt out of team communication (only acknowledged for "Members" groups).

Athletes 18+: Parents/Guardians are not automatically included for 18+ athletes. If you want to include parents they must be added manually or assigned to a role that you include.

Exception: if a team has a Masters program where adult athletes are also parents - the parent email will receive the communication.

Don't want to include a parent?: You can click on “Expand Groups” and remove them. Proceed with caution - - The Children's Online Privacy Protection Act ("COPPA") and SafeSport rules state that adults cannot communicate with minors under 13 (a parent or other adult must be copied).