New Season Setup Guide (for Teams)

With a little bit of housekeeping, your SwimTopia website will be ready for your new season to start!  

» Note: If this is your first time setting up your site, See ➞ SwimTopia Quick Start Guide (for Teams).

Covered in this Article:

➧ Support Tools

• Checklist Version
• New Site Admin
• Product Support Options

➧ Steps Prior to Creating Your New Season

• Discuss Annual Team Configuration Updates
• Confirm Old Registration Forms are Closed
• Confirm Site Settings - Billing Contact & Online Payment

➧ How to Create Your New Season

• Update the “Current Season” on Your Team Site

➧ Steps After Creating Your New Season

• Update Access to Site Administrators & Other Coordinators
• Update/Create Coach Accounts
• Update Role Assignments
• Edit Content on Your SwimTopia Site
• Update Sponsorships
• Create New Merchandise Items
• Update Online Store And/Or SwimOutlet Team Store Offerings
• Update Your Schedule and Meet/Job Templates
• Create New Registration Forms
• Update Records & Time Standards
• Communicate to Previous & New Season Members

➧ USA Swimming Teams

• USA Swimming Teams - Check Member Status

» Note: This is a suggested order, but proceed however works best for your team, and skip areas not utilized. 

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Support Tools

➧ Checklist Version

If you like checking off tasks as you move through your setup steps, we've created a handy checklist you can print ➞ New Season Setup Checklist. 

➧ New Site Admin

Are you a new Site Admin this season or want to start using more features? ➞ Check out our Quick Start Guide (New Site Admin).

➧ Product Support Options

We offer many support options to accommodate our customer's needs and schedules. We are happy to assist you with your new site setup as needed. ➞ See SwimTopia Support - How can we help you?

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Discuss Annual Team Configuration Updates

To eliminate tracking decisions in emails, we suggest sharing a google doc (or something similar) containing annual decisions with your board members. Everyone can update as decisions are made, and refer to this document at any time before, during, or after the season to recall configuration decisions. Below is an example of some decisions you may want to include:

➧ Role Updates: Board, Committee Leads and Coaching Staff

• Are there any changes to who is assigned to each Role? 
• Are there any changes to Role descriptions?

➧ Treasurer Updates

If the Treasurer is changing this season, the following configurations need to be updated:

• Online Payment: Transfer the online payment account to the new Treasurer ➞ Reference our Stripe Account Access & Management article for details.
• Registration Reply-To box: If a parent replies to their registration confirmation email with questions it goes here. An email is required.
• Registration Confirmation: Does the Treasurer want a copy each time someone registers? 
• Check Payments: If accepting checks during registration, an physical address is needed for the registration payment page. PREMIUM
• Online Store: Does the Treasurer want a copy of each purchase? PREMIUM

➧ Date Confirmations 

• Early Registration: Will registration be open for returning members first? What dates? 
• Late Registration: Will there be a late registration timeframe with an extra fee? If so, when?
• Pre-Season Clinics & Lessons: Will the coach want to do these? If so, when?
• New Swimmer Tryouts: Does the coach want to have tryouts for particular age groups?
• Registration / Kick-off Party: Will you have one? If so, when?
• Practice dates/times: First day of practice, and what is the breakdown by age group?
• Stroke Judge Certification: dates?

➧ Pricing

• Registration Fees: Any changes to current pricing (early/late registrations as applicable)?
• Sibling Discounts: Do you offer a sibling discount?
• Age-Range Fee Overrides: Do you offer a price break for older athletes to entice signup?
• Per-Athlete SwimTopia Technology Fee: Do you want to display this fee for the member to pay during registration? (N/A for teams where the league pays this fee on behalf of the team. Learn more about this fee ➞ SwimTopia Per Athlete Fee Collection - FAQ)
• Discount Codes: Do you offer committee lead & board member discounts?

➧ Registration Limits

• Do you want to set a registration limit to ensure the safety of the athletes?
• If so, do you want to set an overall registration limit or limit by athlete age group? Learn more about this topic ➞ Registration Limits

➧ Volunteering Decisions

• Job signup during registration or parent selects X number of volunteer preferences? This decision depends on how your Volunteer Coordinator (VC) manages volunteers. Allowing parents to select their volunteer jobs during registration can save time, but requires that you have your meets set up when registration opens. A parent can come back into their account later and remove themselves from the job, so the VC has to keep an eye on signups. The volunteer preferences option does not require that your meets are set up but is more work on the VC to work with parents to determine their roles (not everyone can be a timer). You would set up Roles for each job, so your VC can assign people to these roles for communication. Learn more about this topic ➞ Registration: Volunteering Section
• Conditional Fee Option: If volunteering was an issue last season, you can take advantage of our conditional fee feature. It would be an acknowledgment on the registration form that parents must accept. If volunteer requirements are not met, the Treasurer can capture this pre-approved fee from the View Registrations page at the end of the season. Learn more about this topic ➞ Conditional Fees: Approve, Capture & Release.

➧ Merchandise & Sponsorships

• Offer the same merchandise or new items? (pricing, sizes, and gif/jpg needed for each new item)
• Sell Sponsorships during registration? (sponsor levels need to be set up as merchandise offerings) PREMIUM

➧ Meet & Event Schedule

Request access early to begin creating the schedule of events on your team site. It is important to confirm specific warm-up/start times for each meet since these can vary at away meets.

» Note: This is only applicable if your league is not importing your schedule into your team site.

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Confirm Old Registration Forms are Closed

Before updating your Current Season, it's imperative to confirm that your prior season's registration forms are closed (if that season is complete).

Go to Manage Team > Registration. If any forms in past seasons are still open that should not be, slide the Open slider bar to Closed.

It is possible to have multiple registration forms open if seasons overlap. Learn more about this topic ➞ Multiple Seasons in a Year.

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Confirm Site Settings - Billing Contact & Online Payment

➧ Billing Contact

Most configurations within your site-wide Settings will remain the same each season, but your Billing Contact will eventually change. SwimTopia sends renewal reminders to the email listed as your Billing Contact, so it's imperative that this remain up-to-date to avoid any disruption in service.

This is found under Settings > Billing Contact.

➧ Online Payment Configuration (Stripe)

Ensure your Stripe account is in good standing each season. Although rare, there are times when they need to request information due to KYC (Know Your Customer) banking regulations.

» Tip: Don't save this step until right before opening registration. We may not be able to help you get issues resolved immediately, so we stress this for your benefit.

This is found under Settings > Stripe Account.

» Note: If you do not yet have a Stripe account, you will need to set up an account to accept online payments. Reference our step-by-step tutorial ➞ Stripe Account Setup

➞ Reference our article on SwimTopia Site-wide Settings to understand the additional "site-wide" settings you can update as needed.

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Update the “Current Season” on Your Team Site

➧ What is a Season?

A Season is simply a span of time during which your team’s activities take place. 

• A season defines a range of time, from the start date to the end date (default is the calendar year).
• Seasons are used to organize your events, athlete affiliations, role assignments, sponsorships, and registrations.
• The selected current season determines which season is active, regardless of the current date.
• Members affiliated with the active current season are included in Communications and Reports.
• If a season has an age-up date, that date is used to determine athlete ages for age groups.
• By setting the current season you can control when your team "rolls over to the next season."

➧ How do I update my season?

When the current date falls outside the time that defines your current season, you'll see a gentle reminder that your season is out of date. When you go to Schedule > Seasons and click on Fix the Current Season, your new season will be created for you.

Or you can select +Add Season to create one manually. (also update the age-up date)

➧ Why did information disappear?

Once you change your season, you might notice that the previous season's registrations, role assignments, people/roster, division assignments, meets/events, sponsors, and reporting information seem to “disappear." This is because this information is tied to the previous season.  

Past season data can be found by selecting the season from a drop-down box or from the left margin where applicable (meets and events), and past registrations can be found by running the Registration Details / Data Export report from the Reports tab.

» Note: If you open your new registration form before creating a new season and setting it as the "Current Season," new registrations will be tied to a previous season. If you forget, contact your Customer Happiness Team with the form name and corresponding season, and we’ll be happy to help.

Learn more about this topic ➞ Creating & Managing Your Seasons and Multiple Seasons in a Year

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Update Access to Site Administrators & Other Coordinators

As teams set up for the first time, or transition to a new season, one of the first tasks is to ensure board members, coordinators and coaches (discussed next) have access to all or specific areas of the team site.

➧ Site Administrator Access

“It takes a village,” right? Make it easier on yourself by delegating team management responsibilities to your capable teammates. 

Administrator accounts from the previous season, those with the red "Admin" badge, will automatically carry over each season in People, but their "Parent Affiliation" to the current season will not be automatically renewed. This occurs when they register for the season.

If there are admins who will not return, you can click the Revoke Admin button in their profile.

» Tip: To give you more control over who has the ability to make changes that could affect your parents/athletes and your site, we highly suggest limiting the number of administrators with full admin privileges.

➧ Other Board Members and Volunteer Coordinators

Many Board Members and other Volunteer Coordinators only need to access particular areas such as People, Registration, Meets/Events, or Reporting. You can grant partial privileges based on a “Role” to limit access for each volunteer.

➞ Learn more about managing access for your site admin and coordinator roles in our Adding New Admins and Defining Roles articles.

➧ Manually Add Season Affiliations

When your new and returning members complete the new season’s Registration form (if you use online registration), they’ll be affiliated with the new Season as Parents and will display on the People page. 

If some of your key coordinators go above and beyond the call of duty and are not a parent of an athlete, you can manually add a Season Affiliation to these members by clicking their name on the People page. (If they are not visible in the People list, you can search for them in a previous season using the Search function at the top.)

On the right, you will see “Add affiliation for.” Select the current season from the drop-down box, then click “Save.”  

Learn more about managing your members ➞ People/Roster

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Update/Create Coach Accounts

More often than not, the Coach does not have children on the team, and sometimes the Assistant Coaches are athletes who are also competing now or they have in the past. We’ve created a short step-by-step guide to follow based on your specific scenario.

➧ Options for Adding a Coach:

• Coach has an existing Parent or Athlete account in your system
• Coach does not have an account, and does not have athletes competing
• Coach has an athlete to register (or doesn't, but you need a form filled out)

Keep in mind, if you try to use an email address when creating a new account that is already on your site in a previous season, or on another SwimTopia site, you will see a message informing you that “this email is already taken”. 

This is not an issue when people register themselves and use the exact same first name, last name, and email address, but manually creating accounts is a different process. If this occurs, submit a support ticket with the name/email, and we will be happy to help.

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Update Role Assignments

Role assignments are also associated with seasons.  Some roles are set up so the assignments are seasonal, and others can be set up so the assignments are ongoing from year to year when assignees do not change often.

➧ Seasonal roles

If “This role is reassigned every season” is checked, the role assignments will be reset at the change of a season, and all members who were assigned to those roles last season will no longer be assigned to those roles. If you know that any of your members are repeating their roles from last season, you have the ability to manually reassign them, but keep in mind, you won't be able to assign somebody to a role if they aren’t a member of the current season.

See ➞ Update Access to Site Administrators & Other Coordinators if you need to manually affiliate someone to the season.

➧ Ongoing roles 

If “This role is reassigned every season” is unchecked, role assignments will carry over from season to season.  Once you've updated your Current Season, you'll see people in your Roster with this Role badge next to their name. They won't have the Parent badge until they have completed the registration form. If a member is not returning to one of these roles in the new season, you’ll need to manually remove them from their role assignment.

Go to Roles and then click on Role Assignments in the upper right corner.

• To remove a name, click on the “X” next to the member’s name
• To add a name, click on “Add/Remove” next to the role
• Begin typing in the name of the member, and select the name when it appears
• Click “Save.”

» Note: Once a Role has been set up as being reassigned each season (or not), it's best to leave that setting as-is.  If you need to change that setting, it's better to delete the Role and create a new one. Changing the setting from one season to the next may produce unexpected results for previous vs new assignees.

Learn more about how Roles are used ➞ Defining Roles

PREMIUM Volunteer management features that are demonstrated in this video are available to our Premium customers.

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Edit Content on Your SwimTopia Site

First, since your members may start looking at your site early, scan through your website content to see if there are any references to policies, dates, deadlines, etc. that are relevant to the last season but may have changed for the new season.  You can edit those pages directly by going to Website > Pages.

» Tip: Limiting specific dates throughout your site will expedite this process each season. If you need to list specific dates, keep track of the pages that will need to be updated.

Learn more about this topic ➞ Managing Your Website

➧ Do you need some inspiration?

Check out how other SwimTopia teams have set up their sites ➞ Example Customer SwimTopia sites 

➧ Do you want to require a CAPTCHA to prevent spam?

If you use the Contact Us Form snippet, you might want to consider turning this feature on if your team has received any spam through your Contact Us page. You can turn this setting off at any time and revisit the need for this extra security level each season.

Learn more about this topic ➞ Contact Us Form Snippet.