Setting Up Your Swim Meets

➧ Create Your Meets

There are several ways to create a new meet with the meet details, events, meet entry rules, eligibility etc.

1. Through a League Schedule Import
2. Import a Meet Event File
3. Create a New (Empty) Swim Meet*
4. Copy a Meet from a Previous Season

➞ See Creating Meets (Options) 

Once your meets have been created, follow the steps below to complete the setup.

*Make sure you create these as a "swim meet" and not a "calendar event." If you see an "RSVP" section, you have not created it as a meet.

➧ Set or Review Meet Details

Meet Details are basic what/when/where information, along with a few calendar, age-up date, and pool length configuration settings.

• League Schedule Import: If your league submitted a schedule to be imported, you should still review the Meet Details for each meet and make edits, if needed. Ask your league admin if you're unsure what changes are allowed. Leagues usually lock the settings they want configured across the league.
• Team Created/Copied/Imported Meets: If you create your meets, you will either be setting these meet details during creation or will want to review them if they were already set from a previous meet.

➞ See Meet & Event Details

➧ Confirm or Apply Team Meet Entry Preferences

A team's Meet Entry Preferences are default settings centered around how a team manages their athlete participation assumptions, meet entry signups, and relay settings. 

You can set up your team's default Meet Entry Preferences under your Settings (top right).  After setting your defaults, they will automatically be applied to new meets. However, if your league has imported your meet schedule, or if you apply a Meet Template from a previous season's meet, you'll need to check each meet's Team Preferences tab under your Meet Setup to confirm the settings are accurate. 

If you need to apply these default settings to an existing meet, you can do this from within the meet's Team Preferences tab (Action button). You can also update your default settings from within a meet.

➞ See Team Meet Entry Preferences

➧ Review Your Meet Setup

Once your meets have been created or imported and you have set (or reviewed if imported or copied) the Meet Details and Team Meet Entry Preferences, you will be able to complete or review the meet setup to ensure all settings are accurate.

➞ See Meet Setup & Management Overview

➧ Save as Meet Template

If you create your meets yourself, you can save valuable time each season by saving your meet setup as a Meet Template. This is done from your Meet Setup > Events > Actions menu.

➞ See our Meet Templates article for more on this topic.

➧ Apply a Job Template

With Job Templates, you can set up jobs and shifts that are commonly used at your meets. You'll likely set up Job Templates for your Intersquad and/or Time Trials meet, Home, Away, and championship meets your league participates in (if jobs vary). 

You'll need to apply the appropriate Job Template to each meet on your Schedule.

➞ See Job Templates

➧ Update Your Meet Status

Once your meet is set up and ready to go, it's time to edit your meet status.  This includes meet signups (attendance declarations and meet entries, if applicable for your team).  

PREMIUM Premium customers can also set their job signup status.

➞ See Meet or Event Status (Calendar & Mobile App Display)

➧ Ready for Entries and Job Signups

Now that you've set up all of the meets on your Schedule, your parents will begin signing up for meets. 

Coaches can review event entries selected by parents (if allowed) or create the meet entries for their athletes. They can also quickly generate relays using the Generate Relays "easy button", review coach notes (if configured for parents to enter), and run meet reports as needed (Participants, Missing Entries, First-time Entrants, Absences)

➞ See Meet Entries

PREMIUM Your volunteer coordinator can manage volunteer signups as parents sign up for jobs, and run job reports (Sign-in Sheets, Volunteer Data).

➞ See Jobs and Shifts

➧ Ready to Merge or Export Entries to Home Team

➞ Home Team - Using Meet Maestro

If you are the Home team running the meet using our meet management system, Meet Maestro, ➞ See SwimTopia Meet Entries – Ready to Merge 

➞ Home Team - Not Using Meet Maestro

If the home team is using another meet management system to run the meet, ➞ See Meet is Run in Another System (Meet Manager, Swimmingly...)

➧ Add Meet Files to Website: Pre-Meet Reports and Meet Details (Optional)

Use the “Files” section of your meet in SwimTopia to upload reports that your parents would like to access/print from your website before the meet, such as Heat Sheets, Session Report, Psych Sheet, Meet Details/Parking, Volunteer Report, Athlete Check-In / Meet Entries, etc. 

They can also include reports that families will access after the meet is complete, such as Results, Records, Championship Qualifiers, etc.

➞ Refer to the following Help Center articles: 

• Adding Files to Meet and Events
• SwimTopia - Pre-Meet Reports (Athletes and Entries) 

➧ Promote the SwimTopia Mobile App to Parents

SwimTopia’s mobile app allows spectators to follow what’s going on in the pool with our Live Event/Heat updater. See real-time results as soon as data is entered, upcoming swim reminders, results notifications, and more.

➞ Tools to Inform Parents about SwimTopia's Mobile App

➧ Meet Maestro - Best Practices and Meet Settings Checklists

For teams using Meet Maestro to run meets, we've compiled a best practices and meet settings checklist covering topics beyond the initial setup of your meet in your SwimTopia team management site. We want you to take advantage of all the great features and configuration options available.

➞ See our Meet Maestro - Best Practices for Running a Successful Meet (Start to Finish) Help Center article for a comprehensive checklist.

➞ See our Meet Maestro - Meet Settings Checklist article after your meet entries have been merged (you will see a link to this article on the merge/export screen as well).