tcteams.com blog

Practice Schedule System Now Available on Club and League Sites

The new tcteams.com Online Practice Schedule System makes it easy for your visitors to print or download their practice schedules. When you use the online practice schedules system, the practices are automatically published on the individual Team Profile pages and on the respective League pages of your club or league website. In addition, the online practice schedule system is integrated with your tcteams.com team websites.

When you publish practices in the Online Practice Schedule System, it makes it easy for you to communicate cancellations and changes to team practices to all team members. When you cancel a practice, the online schedule will be updated to indicate that the practices are canceled, and all team members for the affected teams will receive automated email and text message alerts to notify them of the cancellation.

New Club and League Website Solutions Available

The fall 2012 releases of the tcteams.com club and league website solutions are now available. The new releases include a ton of great enhancements, including:

A new Message Slideshow widget for your home page. Now, when you add or update a home page message, you can add it to an interactive slideshow that will automatically scroll from message to message and will include any photo that you've added to the message. A great way to consolidate the content that you have on your home page and present it in a professional manner.
Automated Game Cancellation messages to coaches and players. Now, when you use the game scheduling system to post your games, you can quickly and easily get the word out if the games have been changed. When you need to cancel games, email and text messages will be sent out automatically to all members of the affected teams.
Send Reminder Emails to Coaches. When you use the game scheduling system, you can now send reminders to your coaches about upcoming games.
iCalendar Feeds of team game schedules. Your members who use a Google Calendar or Apple iCal application, or any other iCal-compatible applications, can now subscribe to their team's own iCalendar Feed. When they do so, their team schedule will be added to their iCalendar and any changes to their team schedule will be automatically synced.
Improved Venue Calendars which now include weekly and monthly views of the scheduled activities at the venues, as well as enhanced download options to make it easy to share reports in Microsoft Excel or PDF formats.
A new photo Slideshow, compatible with devices that do not use Flash, including iPads and iPhones.
One-click file downloading of Photo Gallery images and files posted on your Documents page.

This is just a brief list of the hundreds of enhancements that we've made to the club and league site solutions.

Pro Plan Available for Club and League Websites

tcteams.com is pleased to offer a Pro Plan for those clubs and leagues who want a more consistent branding experience and a more professional website. The new Pro Plan offers the following features:

Your organization's own custom website address,
Unlimited disk space,
10 free email addresses,
Access to your own web analytics tools,
2 hours of tcteams.com support to help you design your club or league site and help you get it set up.

If you already have a tcteams.com club or league website, you can upgrade to the Pro Plan from Your Account page. If you haven't signed up for a tcteams.com club or league website, the Pro Plan is just another great reason to do so. When you sign up for a Free Trial of our league or club site solutions, be sure to select the Pro Plan option.

New tcteams.com Team Website Release Issued

The new release of the tcteams.com Team Website solution was issued today. There have been a ton of small improvements to the solution. Some of the notable enhancements include:

A Message Slideshow for your home page. The Message Slideshow can consolidate the messages that you want to add to your home page into one interactive slideshow that automatically scrolls from message to message and will automatically include any photo that you've added to your message.
iCalendar Feeds for your schedule of events. If you already use a Google Calendar or Apple iCal application, or other iCal-compatible applications, then you'll want to subscribe to your team site's iCalendar Feed. When you do so, your team schedule will be added to your iCalendar and any changes to your team schedule will be automatically synced.
Photo and File Downloads. We've made it easier for your visitors and members to download photos directly from your photo galleries and download files from your Files page.
A new Photo Slideshow compatible with devices that do not use Flash, such as iPads and iPhones.
Enhancements to Contact List and Team Roster Downloads. Now, you can download your team contact list and team roster into richly formatted Microsoft Excel files.

tcteams.com Mobile Team Site Now Available

tcteams.com has launched a new mobile team site solution that is now included as part of a tcteams.com team website subscription. If you access your team site from a smartphone, you will automatically be directed to the mobile site, which provides a clean, simple and fast way to access your team information.

New: Automated League Scheduling System available on all League Sites

tcteams.com is pleased to introduce a new automated League Scheduling System that enables our League Site subscribers to create their season's league game schedules in just minutes.

The League Scheduling System creates round-robin competition schedules based on the number of teams that you have added to each league, and gives you the flexibility to assign specific venues for each league, set the number of times that each team will play against other teams, set the starting date for your season, add break times between competitions to allow participants to leave the venue before the next game starts, and much more.

New: Venue Calendars and Reservations available on Club and League Sites

Your club and league site now includes a Venue Calendar and Reservations System. This is a powerful new tool that can help you manage your venues and allow your members to request reservations when a venue is available.

To set up your Venue Calendar, log in to the site as the web administrator, and go to the Venue Calendar page. The first thing you should do is make the necessary changes to the General Reservations Settings, by selecting the general term you would like to use to describe your venues (e.g., field, court, etc.) and by selecting the type of user who you would like to grant permission to request reservations. You can choose to give reservations permission to:

No one, which means that your visitors can view the venue calendar but cannot place reservations.
Just coaches / team administrators (as you define on your Teams page)
Just members who are registered under your latest registration program
Both, coaches and registered members

Once you've edited your General Reservations Settings, you should select a venue from the list provided. If there are other venues that you manage that are not on this list, go to your Directions page and add the additional locations there.

When you select a venue, you will be presented with the set-up options for that venue:

Each venue can have a different venue manager who would be responsible for replying to automated email requests for venue reservations whenever a permitted user makes such a request. (See below). To set up a venue manager, simply enter the email address in the box provided.

You should select the time period for which you would like to publish the venue calendar and make reservations available to your permitted users. You will also need to define the duration of a reservation -- in other words, how long does a permitted user get to use the venue when he/she secures a reservation? You can also set a turn-over time between reservations to allow people to leave the venue before the next group can use it.

Finally, you'll need to enter the available start and end times for the venue for each day of the week that the venue is available for reservations.

Once you submit the set-up form, you will be presented with the venue calendar, where you can block additional reservations (within the start and end times that you set). When you place a reservation, you can add a description of the event, and you can have it recur for the rest of the day, the entire day, once a week, or once a month (on either the same weekday or the same calendar date). This is a great way to block off the venue for other events that fall within the reservation periods that you've made available to the permitted users.

Once your venue calendar has been made available to the public, a new "Venue Calendar" page will appear on the public site. Visitors can go to this page and view the venue calendar by selecting the specific venue from the list of venues you've made available. They can then click on an available date to view the schedule for that date, and they can log in and select an available time slot to request a reservation.

Once a permitted user, places a request for a reservation, an automated email will be sent to the venue manager. The venue manager can then simply click on either the "Approve this request" or "Deny this request" link. The permitted user will then receive an automated email response with the status of his/her request.

Standings Page Now Available on Club & League Sites

tcteams.com has just published a new Standings page, which will automatically show the position of each team within each league.

The Standings page is easy to set up. Just log in to the site, go to the Standings page and select the sports activity for your leagues. If points are assigned for wins and draws, be sure to enter the point values. tcteams.com will take care of the rest to calculate the leader board. If you want to make the Standings page available to the public, be sure to click the Page Status link to turn it on.

In order for the Standings page to work properly, you will need to post your game schedules on the Schedules page and you'll need to make sure that the game results are updated in a timely manner. Remember, for League site subscribers, your league site includes a complementary Game Officials site, where your game officials can update the game results, and these scores will automatically appear on your Schedules page and will be used to create the Standings table.

Add a Mailing List Sign-Up Widget to your Club or League Site

tcteams.com now helps clubs and leagues build their communities by offering you a "Mailing List" widget. Just add the Mailing List widget to your club or league home page, and your visitors can sign up to receive email, text message and post communications from you.

You can easily send emails and text messages to your Mailing List by logging in as the club or league site administrator, going to the Communications page, and selecting the Mailing List as one of your distribution options when you create a new email or SMS text message.

ILLUSTRATION OF THE MAILING LIST WIDGET

Merchandise Center Available for Club and League Sites

tcteams.com is pleased to introduce our new Merchandise Center, where clubs and leagues can sell merchandise to their members and visitors through their own online stores.

The Merchandise Center is an optional add-on to your club or league website. For only $99 per year, your Merchandise Center includes these great features:

Unlimited products
Drag-and-drop store management
Feature products on your home page
Real-time order history
Automated e-mail order confirmations
Online payments using your own credit card merchant account
Easy payment processing for offline payments
Refund management
Easy e-mail communications to customers who have placed orders

To sign up for a 30-day FREE trial of the tcteams.com Merchandise Center, log in to your club or league site and go to your "Store" page.

Venue Status Widget Available for Club and League Sites

As the rainy season begins in the northern hemisphere, we thought you might appreciate an easy way to communicate the status of your game and practice venues to your members. Add the Venue Status widget to your club or league home page and update it by simply clicking the status box next to each of the practice and game venues that you have listed on your Directions page.

Log in as the club or league site administrator and go to your Home page. Click the "Add a widget" link and then select the Venue Status widget from the list (be sure to enter the description for your venues -- like "stadiums", "gyms", "fields", or "pitches").

Edit the widget from your home page to update the status of each practice and game field that you have listed on your Directions page:

Your members and visitors will then be able to easily see if their games or practices are on for the day:

Club and Leagues Sites Now offer SMS Text Messaging

Long a feature of our team sites, SMS text messaging is now available on all tcteams.com club and league sites. When your members register on your site, or join your mailing list, they can provide their mobile phone numbers and mobile carriers. Club and League administrators can use the Communications page to send text messages to these members in just moments to get out important and timely information.

When club and league administrators add or update their team lists, they can also include the team contact's mobile phone information to send SMS text messages to just the team contacts, too.

To send SMS text messages, log in as a club or league administrator, go to your Communications page, and click the "Add an SMS text message" link. Enter a message (no more than 120 characters) and select from your available list of recipients. You can also send a draft of the text message to your own mobile phone before broadcasting it to your distribution list.

Please note that the list of mobile phone carriers currently available for SMS text messaging is limited to U.S. and Canadian carriers. If you have other mobile phone carriers that you would like us to add to the list, please send an email with the carriers' names to support@tcteams.com

Team Sites now offer Sponsor Management

tcteams.com has added a Sponsors page to its team site solution. Now teams can post sponsors' ads and links to sponsors sites on their Sponsors page. For team sites that are not part of a club or league site solution, the sponsors' ads will also appear on the right-hand side of every team site page. A great fundraising opportunity for your team!

Add Sign-Up Lists to your team events

tcteams.com team websites now let coaches and team managers add "to-do" or "to-bring" sign-up lists to your team events. Among other uses, the Sign-up lists enable you to ask your members to bring items to your event or sign up for a task. For example, if you need volunteers for the concession stand, you can set up a Sign-up list for specific shift hours. Having a team party? Use the Sign-up list to ask your members to bring items for the party.

When you add a Sign-Up list for an event, your members will see a sign-up icon in their event list (green if they've signed up for an item; orange if they have not). Coaches and team members can view the event attendance list to see what everyone else has signed up for.

Just another way that tcteams.com makes it easier than ever for you to manage team events!

Online Registration System Site launched today

tcteams.com has launched its stand-alone online registration system solution today.

The online registration system site is perfect for any organization that already has its own site and would like to offer online registration for membership, events, orders, and more.

The online registration system site also offers an optional merchandise center, which enables you to build your own online store and take payments for your merchandise online.

The online registration system is also great for our existing tcteams.com club and league site users who would like to offer additional online registration programs. When you sign up for an additional Online Registration System site through your current club or league site, you get the following additional benefits:

Universal member log-in: No matter where your members are registering, they can log in to any of your registration programs using their existing e-mail addresses and passwords.
Complete site customization: Use the same look-and-feel as your club site, or create an entirely different look for your online registration site.
Easy e-mail and SMS text messaging to all members who have registered through the Online Registration site.
Additional administrative security: set up separate Registration Administrators for the new Online Registration System or create a new master web administrator password for the Online Registration System site.

Each Online Registration System site costs only $129.95 per year.

New Facebook and Twitter widgets are available

We just added Facebook Like Box and Twitter Profile widgets to all team, club and league sites. If you have a Facebook or Twitter page for your team, club or league, you should consider adding these widgets to your site to add new followers and build connections with your current followers.

To add these widgets, log in to your tcteams.com site, go to the Home Page, and click the "Add a Widget" link. Then select the Facebook or Twitter widgets from the "Social Connections" or "Communications" widget categories. Be sure to enter your Facebook page URL or Twitter Username where requested.

tcteams.com moves to new, faster servers

We are delighted to announce that at 4am EST today, we've moved to new, faster servers to keep up with our rapid growth. Enjoy the speed!

The new releases of the tcteams.com club and league sites now available

tcteams.com is pleased to announce the release of our new club and league website solutions. Our new site solutions are available immediately to new subscribers and has been rolled out to all current subscribers.

For more information about our new club and league website solutions, please visit us at www.tcteams.com.

Easy Home Page Messaging Now Available on Team Sites

We have published a new release of the tcteams.com team site today that makes it easier to post messages on your home page. Log in as a coach/admin, go to the Home Page, and then just click on the "Add a Message" link in the toolbar. Then, enter a subject line and the message. Of course, you can add images and video to the message just like you do for Team News and Announcements.

Introducing the NEW Team Registration System

tcteams.com is pleased to introduce the new Team Registration System, our comprehensive solution to help you collect all the information that you need from your team members and collect money for all of your team expenses.

Use the tcteams.com Team Registration System for your seasonal member enrollment process, to have your members sign up for special team events, to order uniforms, to collect dues, and so much more. Our flexible, fully-customizable registration form can be used to meet all of your needs to collect member information and collect money.

Coaches, when you log in to your team site, you will see a new Team Registration page. Please visit that page for more information about our Team Registration System and to sign up today.

NEW FEATURE: Your custom team home page

We're really pleased with the new team home page. As the coach or team website administrator, you can now add, remove and rearrange a growing list of items to your team home page. To do so, click on the Home Page in the top navigation menu, then click the Add a Widget link to add new items -- News Feeds, Music Lists, Games, Team Results, Team Polls, and much more. To rearrange your items, click and hold the icon and drag the item to another location on the page. To remove an item from your home page, simply click the icon.

Team members: Help your coach make your site even better by joining playlist.com and creating a music playlist to post on your team site.

NEW FEATURE: Easier Team Schedule Management

Now it is easier than ever for coaches and team administrators to add team events, change these events, see everyone who is attending, and send reminders. You can do it all from your Schedules page.

To change information about an event, just click on the relevant item that you want to change -- for example, the Time that the event starts. Then enter the new information and click the icon to save your change.

Delete this event

Change the types of members invited to this event and send reminder emails to them

Show or remove the event from the public home page listing.

Make this a recurring event

Download this event in iCalendar format

For team members, it's now easier than ever for you to update your attendance for each event. Just go to your Schedules page, then click the text in the "Your Status" column to change your attendance status. Scroll over the icon to see who else is attending.

NEW FEATURE: Unlimited Photo Galleries and Slideshows

Your team website now gives you the ability to create an unlimited number of photo galleries, and each photo gallery can be displayed as its own slideshow.

Coaches, go to your Photo Gallery page to add new galleries, to upload new photos to your galleries, rearrange the photos (click and drag the icon), and add comments to photos within each gallery.

Team members, go to your photo gallery page and click on any photo to view the full-sized image.

NEW FEATURE: Improved Site Customization

The new team website software provides more powerful and easy-to-use tools to help coaches and team website administrators customize their team sites.

Go to the Customize Site page, and then click on the area of the team site that you would like to change -- for example, the team logo, the banner photos, etc.Then simply follow the instructions to customize that area of the site.

For independent team sites, you will see that we now give you the ability to select from a virtually limitless number of colors for your site, so you can easily match to your team colors (for team sites that are part of a club or league, these colors are set by your club website administrator).

NEW FEATURE: File and Image Browser

Coaches - It's now easier than ever to add images and hyperlinks to files that you have uploaded to your tcteams.com team website.

Use the Image tool to find and add an image to your web page (see Illustration 1).

Illustration 1:

Once you've clicked on the Image tool, click on the File Browser tool (see Illustration 2) to find the image that you have uploaded to your tcteams.com website.

Illustration 2:

Select the image that you would like to include on your page from the thumbnails shown in the File Browser window (see Illustration 3).

Illustration 3:

We recommend that you use the Appearance tab to resize your image to fit your page, and align your image on the page (see llustration 4).

Illustration 4:

You can also use the File Browser from the Hyperlink tool to find and link to files that you have uploaded to your tcteams.com team website.

Contact us at support@tcteams.com

Do you have questions or suggestions about your tcteams.com team, club, league or online registration system sites? Please don't hesitate to email us at support@tcteams.com.