Teams: New Season Transition Checklist – SwimTopia Help Center

With a little bit of housekeeping, your SwimTopia website will be ready for your new season to start! We have put together a checklist to make this as quick and easy as possible. Included at the end is a list of possible decisions to share with your board each season.

>>IMPORTANT NOTE FOR 2021: First things first, do not update your Season until you've reviewed the 2021 Setup Considerations article. If you have, just set the season back to 2020 for now. After completing any necessary 2020 Covid cleanup steps you will be directed to return to this article to complete your 2021 setup.

Covered in this Article:

Confirm Your Site-wide Settings
Edit Content on Your SwimTopia Site
Confirm Old Registration Forms are Closed
Update the “Season” on Your SwimTopia Site
Update Your Roster
Create New Registration Forms
Update Your Schedule
Update Role Assignments
Update Your Sponsorships
Create New Merchandise Items
Pre-Season Configuration Decisions

① Confirm Your Site-wide Settings

Most settings within your site-wide Settings will remain the same from season to season, but it is very likely your Billing Contact will change every few years or so. SwimTopia sends renewal reminders and specials to the email listed for your Billing Contact, so it's imparative that this remain up-to-date to avoid any disruption in service. This is found under Settings > Billing Contact.

➞ See more about SwimTopia Site-wide Settings.

② Edit Content on Your SwimTopia Site

First, 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 Manage Site > Edit Page Content.

>>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.

➞ See more about Managing Your Website.

③ Confirm Old Registration Forms are Closed

Before updating your Current Season (Step 3), you'll want to confirm that your prior season's registration forms are closed (if that season is complete). Go to Manage Team > Registration. If any forms are still open that should not be, slide the Open slider bar to the left until it says Closed.

It is possible to have multiple registration forms open if seasons overlap. ➞ See More about Multiple Seasons in a Year.

④ Update the “Season” on Your SwimTopia Site

You will be reminded to create a new season when you use SwimTopia and the current date falls outside the time that defines your current season. Before creating your new registration form(s) in the next step, you need to update your season to prevent registrations from being tied to the wrong season.

When you go to Manage Team > Schedule > Seasons, you'll see a warning that your season is out of date, and when you click on Fix the Current Season your new season will be created for you. Or you can select +Add Season to create one manually. Be sure to update the age-up date as well.

➞ See More about Creating & Managing Your Seasons

Where did everything go?

Once you change your Season, you might notice that some things seem to “disappear" depending on how you utilize your site. The following items are associated with the current season:

Registration Forms

People*

Role Assignments

Division Assignments*

Meets & Events*

Sponsors*

Reports*

When you change seasons, that information is retained but will not show up on your site since they are associated with a prior season. Past registrations can be found by running the registration report from the Reports tab.

* Any time you'd like to view these items from a past season, you can select that season from a drop-down box or select the season from the left margin.

⑤ Update Your Roster

When your members complete the new Season’s Registration form, they’ll be affiliated with the new Season and will display on the People page (you can easily change to a different season with a drop-down box on the page).

Even returning members should complete a new Registration – this will allow them to verify their contact information, update any medical info, agree to any releases and waivers, and pay any membership fees.

>>Tip: Remind returning parents to log in first. They will have much less info to enter during registration, since SwimTopia will automatically fill their data in for them.

Administrator accounts, those with the red "Admin" badge, will appear in People (even if they do not have a current season affiliation), but their Affiliation will not be automatically renewed with the new season. You can manually add a Season Affiliation to these members by clicking their name on the People page. On the right you will see “Add affiliation for.” Select the current season from the drop down box, then click “Save.”

>>Note: if they're a parent of a swimmer, their "Parent" affiliation won't transfer to the new season. These Admins must still register for the new season in order to maintain their family affiliations.

Some key members may not have children and thus would not register each year for your team, including some of your coaches and board members. You would follow the above instructions to update their season affiliation. (If they aren’t visible, you can search for them in a previous season using the Search function at the top of the People list.)

➞ See More about People/Roster

➞ See How do I add a coach to my team?if you have more to add.

⑥ Create New Registration Forms

All registrations are tied to a registration form, so at the beginning of a new swim season, you’ll want to create new forms to help you keep track of your members from season to season.

>>Tip: There are many reasons we stress the importance of not reopening old forms. If there are fee changes from one season to another, past members would show up with a balance due if the same form was just reopened. Required League forms could be different each season. So it’s best to set up new registration forms each season, and it’s easy to copy last year’s forms and make necessary modifications.

Go to Manage Team > Registration and click the Copy button next to the registration form(s) you’d like to copy.

Edit the new form to include changes for the upcoming year (Don't forget to Add appropriate league shared forms if any are found at the bottom of the first page)
It’s a good idea to include the year in your Registration form title, to keep them organized
Set your new form to “Open” when your team’s registration window begins. (Private forms must also be in an Open state for members to reach them)

➞ See more about setting up your Registration

⑦ Update Your Schedule

Meets and Events are managed from the Schedule > All Meets & Events tab in the Manage Team console.

Depending on your team's process, there are multiple options for how you can create meets:

Creating Meets thru a League Meet Schedule Import
Creating Meets by importing a Meet Event File
Creating Meets by Applying Meet Templates Saved from Previous Season Meets
Creating a New (Empty) Swim Meet (Optionally Apply Meet Templates)

➞ See more about Creating Meets (Options) to determine which option works best for your team

Meet Templates

If you are creating meets through one of the last two options above and utilizing this time saving feature of building a repository of "Meet Templates" to apply to your meets, you should review these templates each season to ensure they're set up properly.

Double-check that your Entry Rules and Seeding/Scoring Rules (if using SwimTopia's Meet Maestro™ to run your meets) still apply for the new season.

Once you've confirmed the setup of your Meet Templates, you can apply them to your meets as you fill out your schedule.

➞ See More about Meet Templates

Non-meet events

If you have recurring non-meet events (i.e. kick-off party, end-of-season banquet, etc.), copy the event from last season and make appropriate changes. Go to Manage Team > All Meets & Events > Select the previous season from the left margin > Click into the event > Click on Copy.

➞ See More about Non-Meet Calendar Events

Calendar display

Decide if you'd like the calendar on your team's website to show all events for the current season, or to show only upcoming events (with a link to toggle to past events). If you do not want your parents scrolling through a list of past events to reach the next event, then we suggest the latter.

➞ See More about Calendar Display Mode

⑧ Update Role Assignments

Role assignments are also associated with seasons. Some roles are set up so the assignments are seasonal, 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 role 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 step ⑥ Update Your Roster 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 Manage Team > 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.

➞ See More about Roles

⑨ Update Your Sponsorships

Sponsorships are tracked per season, so once you update your Season, old sponsors will no longer show up in the section of your website that is created by the Sponsor snippet. You'll need to set up new Sponsorships for the new season. We offer a handy tool for copying Sponsorships that renew from one Season to another:

Go to Manage Team > Website > Sponsors > Sponsorships

Select the last season
Select all the Sponsorships that will be renewing for the new Season - you can either select all by checking the box to the left of "Sponsor" at the top of the list, or you can select individual Sponsorships from within the list
Once you've selected one or more Sponsorships, you'll see a drop-down box that says "Copy to Season"
Select your new season

Once the Sponsorships are copied to the new season, you can edit their categories. And you can add new Sponsors to your new season's Sponsorships.

For more information ➞ See our Help Center article about Sponsorships.

Create New Merchandise Items

"Merchandise" items are not tied to seasons, so if you need to make changes after sales have occured or when transitioning to a new season, it’s best to archive old items and create a new item. If you were to simply edit the old item, it would effectively change the description or pricing of the item for all past orders, and would affect tracking and reporting.

Also, if you have any merchandise items with order limits, SwimTopia will see last season’s orders as accumulating towards the overall quantity ordered.

If the changes to an item are minor, it may be easier to make a copy of last season’s item and then make your edits (rather than create a whole new item). Go to Manage Team > Merchandise, then click on the item, and click on “Copy.” (you can archive old items from this screen as well)

➞ See More about Merchandise

Pre-Season Configuration Decisions

To ensure the most efficient setup process and elliminate tracking decisions in back and forth emails, we suggest sharing a google doc (or something similar) containing annual decisions with your team Presidents, Coach, Treasurer, Sponsor and Merchandise Coordinators etc. 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:

① Meet & Event Schedule

Request access to the meet schedule early so you can begin creating these in your SwimTopia 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 SwimTopia site.

② Date Confirmations

Open registration to Community Members first?
Early Registration: dates?
Late Registration: dates?
Pre-Season Clinics: Will the coach want to do these? If so, when?
Semi-private or Private Lessons: Will the coach want to do these? If so, when?
Registration / Kick-off Party: Will we have one? If so, when?
New Swimmer Tryouts: Does the coach want to have tryouts for particular age groups?
Practice dates/times: First day of practice, and what is the breakdown by age group?
Stroke Judge Certification: dates?

③ Pricing

Any changes to current pricing?
Do we need to price any athlete groups differently to entice signup?
Do we want to offer committee coordinator and/or board member discounts?
Will we offer early bird vs late registration pricing?
Will we offer a sibling discount?

④ Registration Limits

Do we want to set a registration limit to ensure the safety of the athlete's?
If so, do we want to set an overall registration limit or limit by athlete age group?

For more information ➞ See our Registration: Main Registration Section

⑤ Committee Contacts

Any committee changes this season?
If so, provide names, roles, and contact information
Make sure Billing Contact for SwimTopia is up-to-date on your Settings > Billing Contact page

⑥ Treasurer Updates

If the Treasurer is changing this season, the past season Treasurer needs to transfer the WePay account to the new Treasurer. ➞ See this step by step article - Transferring WePay Account Ownership

Other updates that occur when Treasurer changes:

Registration Reply-To box: An email is required. If a parent replies to their registration confirmation email with questions it goes here.
Registration Confrmation: Does the Treasurer want a copy each time someone registers?
Check Payments: If accepting checks during registration, an physical address is needed for registration payment page.
Online Store: Does the Treasurer want a copy each time someone buys?

⑦ Volunteering Decisions

Job signup during registration or parent selects X number of volunteer preferences? This decision depends on how your Volunteer Coordinator (VC) wants to manage the volunteer setup. Allowing parents to select their volunteer jobs during registration can save the VC time, but requires that you have your meets setup when registration opens. This does not guarentee a parent cannot come back into their account later and remove themselves from the job if something comes up in their schedule, so the VC has to keep an eye on signups. The volunteer preferences setup does not require that your meets are setup, but is more work on the VC to work with parents to determine their roles (not everyone can be a timer...). You would want to set up Roles for each job, so your VC can assign people to these roles for communication.
Conditional Fee Option: If volunteering was an issue last season, you can take advantage of our conditional fee feature. It would be an acknowledgement on the registration form that parents must accept. If they do not fulfill their volunteer requirements you can charge them a fee at the end of the season. The Treasurer can capture this charge from the View Registrations page at the end of the season if the family did not fulfill their volunteer requirements.

For more information on these topics ➞ See Registration: Volunteering Section and Conditional Fees: Approve, Capture & Release.

⑧ Merchandise

Will we offer the same merchandise or new items?
For any new items - pricing, sizes, and a gif/jpg of the item is needed for setup
Do we want to sell Sponsorships during registration? (sponsor levels will need to be set up as merchandise offerings)

Voilà! Your SwimTopia Site is Ready!

>>Tip: Don’t forget to mine your volunteer base for help! With all the parents on your team, it’s likely some have website management skills. Set yourself up for an easier transition when you know you will need to pass the torch, by finding an apprentice to learn along side you.

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