Leagues that use SwimTopia to host their website* can now define league templates for meets and jobs, making it easier for teams using SwimTopia to get set up for the season. Once you’ve created meet and job templates, you can share them with all of your teams who are also using SwimTopia (league-wide use of SwimTopia is not a prerequisite).
League Meet Templates
Leagues can now define various meet templates that teams can apply to meets as they set up their schedules for the season (e.g. dual meets, championship meets, invitational meets, etc.). We talked about meet templates in general in another blog, but the main benefit of meet templates for leagues is that league templates are “read only.” League’s can set the events and entry rules for the different types of meets, and when applied to a meet, teams are not able to edit the rules or settings. When the templates are “read only” it decreases the likelihood that teams will accidentally (or intentionally ☺) make changes to their meets that deviate from league by-laws and rules.
The main benefit for the teams of having league templates for meets is that team admins can drop the templates into the meets they are creating and not worry about accidentally editing the settings incorrectly. Because volunteer turnover is high on summer swim teams, features that improve continuity and standardization are a plus.
League Job Templates
Leagues can now define job templates that can be shared with teams too! Managing volunteering can be highly variable from team to team. Different teams develop different systems and strategies over time. Even so, there can be a benefit to the league defining a “best practices” job template. Sometimes leagues have minimum requirements for certain volunteer positions at meets (e.g. you must have one timer from each team per lane, or you must have one stroke and turn judge per team on each corner of the pool, etc.). With our shared job templates leagues can define minimum requirements or an example template that can provide a guideline, or starting place, for teams to build on. Our league templates for jobs, like the league meet templates, are “read only.” For teams to use the league job template as a starting point they should copy the template, then they can add and edit the jobs, based on unique team needs and practices.
*SwimTopia websites are FREE for swim leagues. If your league doesn’t have a website, or could use a free SwimTopia website, simply have a league representative fill out our free trial signup form to get started (choose “Swim League – Governing Body for Summer/Rec Teams” from the “Organization Type” dropdown box).
