Not utilizing online registration or are you a SwimTopia Lite Customer? We recommend taking advantage of this feature to streamline your team management process. It can be as simple as capturing contact information and waiver sign-offs but allows your members to have an account to utilize the SwimTopia mobile app and allows you to keep track of your members' updated information in reports, and quickly reach out to your members using the communication feature. Just because a section is there, does not mean it has to be used. 

Choose the options that work best for you!

Each season we hear from teams who are trying to strike a balance between a simplified registration process and obtaining the required information. For some teams, this is compounded by a complicated fee structure. 

There’s no “one size fits all” approach. The beauty of SwimTopia is that, although you have a wide array of options, you get to decide what features to use. Every feature exists because some team requested it, but that does not mean every team needs every feature. We strive to provide robust team and meet management solutions, but we also value the need for simplicity and flexibility.

We’re going to keep this post high-level and will dig deeper into some topics in separate posts. Throughout the article, links are provided leading to specific articles or sections in our Help Center for further review.

Covered in this Article:

• Keep it simple and informative
• Let the system work for you - Online Payment Management
• Consider all features to help you manage your fees and discounts
• One Stop Shop - Selling merchandise, sponsorships, and fundraising
• Getting a jumpstart on your volunteer shifts
• Always preview before opening your forms
• Help Center Access

➧ Keep it simple and informative

• Does your team need to set a safe size limit this season? You can set Registration Limits (Overall and/or by Age Group), and create a Waiting List to pull from if needed.

• Do you find yourself having to merge duplicate athlete accounts each season? This can happen when returning members create a new account with a different email instead of logging into their existing account. Remind members in your registration announcements to use the "Forgot your password?" option on the login screen instead of creating a new account. (Keep an eye on your De-duplicate Athletes Tool during registration.)

• Do you need to open registration for your community association or returning members first? Either make your form private and send the private URL directly to the group in question, or leave your registration form public and make your Registration page private to require login (this only works for returning members since they would have an account already)

• Do you need your members to submit extra paperwork after registration, or guide them on what to do next? You can provide specific instructions on the Confirmation Page and can use the custom message option to direct your members to important pages on your site, advertise pre-season clinics, private lessons, meet and volunteer sign-ups etc.  

• What Medical Information is really required? We provide a lot of configuration options here, so determine exactly what you need to expedite the process. There are reports under the Reports tab that will provide you with this information.

➞ You’ll find all of these topics and more are covered in the Manage Team Section of our Help Center. 

➧ Let the system work for you - Online Payment Management

Stripe is our online payment management platform. It is essentially a banking relationship, so you can feel safe knowing that like any bank, Stripe is required by law to be secure. We highly suggest offering this online payment option to your members. Just imagine the amount of time and frustration saved tracking down check payments. It’s a game-changer, we promise!

• Check to ensure your account is in good standing each season: Although rare, there are times when Stripe needs to request information due to banking regulations, so it’s best to confirm at the start. This is found under Manage Team > Settings > Stripe Account

➞ See the Stripe section of our Help Center. We provide an extensive list of possible questions you may have regarding your account. You just might find your answer there.

➧ Consider all features to help you manage your fees and discounts

• Do you have different pricing by athlete group (i.e., Swim, Dive, Guppies, JV, Varsity)? Consider utilizing the Athlete Roster Groups screen on your registration form. 

• Do you need to charge different fees to different family groups (not age groups)? Maybe multiple forms would be easier to manage than one form full of fee complexities (i.e. early/late registration, first-year families, board members, etc). Our motto...use as many forms as you need, and as few as possible.

• Did you know you could enter a negative fee in an Acknowledgement form? Maybe you want to provide a discount for members of the neighborhood instead of charging an extra fee for non-members. 

• Do you have a hard time attracting older athletes to your team? Consider using the Age-Range Fee Override feature to provide a discount to specific age groups.

• Do your multi-athlete parents need a break? You can set up multiple levels of Additional Athlete Fee discounts. (Communicate to parents they need to sign up all athletes at once in order for this discount to be applied. Sibling discounts are calculated per registration form.)

• Do you have a hard time recruiting volunteers in time-consuming leadership roles? Set up Discount Codes on your Payment screen and entice volunteers with the savings.

• Do you feel like you’re pulling teeth each season just trying to get your parents to volunteer? Set up a Conditional Volunteer Fee. It would be an acknowledgment on the registration form you would require parents to accept. Stripe will not charge this fee at the time of registration, but the parent will see you are authorized to charge this amount at a later date if needed. 

• Do you need to consider how to recoup SwimTopia's per-athlete fee ($3/athlete - Premium, $1.50/athlete - Lite Customers) in your pricing? If applicable based on your team's billing plan and use of our efficient online payment feature, you can select to display an itemized "Per-Athlete Technology Fee" for your registrants to pay online during registration. Or you can roll this fee into your registration fee structure if you do not want this displayed as a line item to your members. Learn more about this fee ➞ SwimTopia Per-Athlete Fee Collection - FAQs

➞ You’ll find these topics and more are covered in the Registration Fees - Scenarios and Setup article in our Help Center. 

➧ One Stop Shop - Selling merchandise, sponsorships, and fundraising

• Do you wish managing your merchandise sales and delivery could be easier? It can! SwimTopia has partnered with SwimOutlet, the web's most popular swim shop, to streamline the management of your merchandise offerings directly from your SwimTopia team site! ➞ Learn how your team can manage your merchandise sales more easily than ever before - SwimOutlet Team Store Snippet

• Did you know you could fundraise during registration? You betcha! You could sell family and corporate sponsorships, raffle tickets or even request coach donations upfront to get it done! ➞ See our Registration: Merchandise Section article.

• Did you know you only need to set up ONE merchandise item to provide a free option for athletes but charge parents for extras? You just set up your item with the pricing you want and when you add this item to your registration in your Athlete Merchandise Offers, you’ll select to override the price and make it $0 if free. ➞ See our Merchandise article.

• Are you needing to set merchandise limits? Keep in mind, this feature is only enforced during registration. It was not designed to be used for the online store at this time.

• Did you know merchandise sales during registration are reported separately from your online store? We provide links to both in the Reports tab. ➞ See our Registration and Online Sales Reporting article.

➞ You’ll find all of these topics and more are covered in the Merchandise Section of our Help Center. 

➧ Getting a jumpstart on your volunteer shifts

• Did you know you can require a minimum volunteer requirement during registration? Help your Volunteer Coordinator by filling jobs & shifts before the season even starts! There are many ways to configure this to fit your needs - minimum points per family or athlete, maximum points, and exclusion of non-competitive athletes. ➞ See our Registration: Volunteering Section article to learn more. (Only jobs and shifts within events set to Open or Pending for volunteer signup are available during registration.)

• Are you still trying to fill some Coordinator, Board or other critical roles on the team? You can also enable signup for these season-long positions during registration. ➞ See our Registration: Volunteering Section article.

• Are there Roles that should be exempt from volunteering? Define these Roles with the exempt configuration and pre-assign people to them as you fill the spots.

• Do you offer a Volunteer Opt-Out buyout during registration? You can set up a Volunteer Opt-Out or Exempt role and configure the acknowledgment on your registration to assign anyone to that role who selects to purchase this exemption. This is useful if you’re strict about watching who is and is not doing their part.

• Would it help to communicate directly with specific groups of volunteers? You can communicate with these volunteer groups from within Meets, Reports, and the Communications tab.

• Does your Volunteer Coordinator need to make sure everyone is making their points requirement? There are Volunteer Reports available to assist in this process.

➞ You’ll find all of these topics and more are covered in the Volunteering Section of our Help Center. 

➧ Always preview before opening your forms

It’s much easier to complicate things than it is to simplify it, so think about this as you walk through the process. You will have to fill out fields as if you are going through the process as a parent, If you are using a general “team-admin@...” account to do admin work, we suggest having a parent account with admin privileges to Preview the registration form, so you don’t associate a bunch of test data to your team account.

➞ See Creating and Managing Registration Forms for more details.

Help Center Access

We know volunteers usually work after our business hours, so we strive to create easy to use self-help tools you can access 24/7. Our online Help Center contains a robust list of step-by-step articles organized by topic. You can access in three ways: 

1. Bookmark http://help.swimtopia.com
2. Click the "Help Center" link in the top right corner of any Manage Team page for sections or articles relevant to the page you're on.
3. Click the "Help" bubble in the lower right corner of any Manage Team page for suggested articles based on the page you're on, with an option to refine your search.