September marks the release of USA Swimming’s SWIMS 3.0. This is a newly updated swimmer database/swimmer registration portal for members of USA Swimming clubs. The release allows athletes, parents of athletes, and non-athletes (e.g. volunteers) to register for USA Swimming online at the USA Swimming website while syncing their member details to their team management software (like SwimTopia!). 

In anticipation of the SWIMS 3.0 September 1 release, SwimTopia was hard at work this summer. Our developers crafted a smooth integration with SWIMS 3.0, ensuring that SwimTopia’s USA Swimming customers can fully utilize SWIMS alongside their SwimTopia features. The end result of this integration fulfills our mantra to ‘save customers time and money.’ In this blog, we highlight new features of the USA Swimming SWIMS 3.0 product and describe the benefits of SwimTopia’s integration with SWIMS. Read on for more!

In order to combat aging software and a need for flexibility as the sport of swimming continues evolving, USA Swimming developed SWIMS 3.0 for the club market. This release means the following for year-round swimming athletes, families, and participants:

• SWIMS 3.0 provides the ability to track and enforce compliance with USA Swimming’s required certifications/courses (for example: Safe Sport athlete protection and CPR/AED/water safety for coaches)
• It increases value of being a member and extends membership to include non-athletes like key volunteers 
• It creates adaptability for future database updates and will reassign new unique member IDs as athletes begin registering 9/1/2022
• As mentioned, it enables 3rd party team management softwares to “hand-off” registrants to the USA Swimming site after completing their own team’s registration. 

So, what about SwimTopia customers? What benefits does the SwimTopia/SWIMS 3.0 integration provide?

• Registered swimmers and key volunteers who are already USA Swimming members will have their SwimTopia accounts automatically synced if we can detect a match
• Users who are not already a member of USA Swimming will be prompted to sign up for a USA Swimming membership via a unique registration link specific to each team
• Team admins can manually sync SwimTopia users to USA Swimming IDs if there is a near-match that our system was unable to auto-sync
• Admins can track athletes and key volunteers who are not yet registered with USA Swimming
• Admins can monitor team members’ USA swim status on the People screen and the Meet Entries Matrix
• USA Swimming membership status is displayed to users in the My Account portal on the SwimTopia site
• Communication to members can be conducted based on members’ USA Swimming status
• Admins can run reports to monitor USA Swimming membership status of team members

In conclusion, USA Swimming’s SWIMS 3.0 software release makes it easier than ever to keep track of what’s important to athletes, parents, and participants. SwimTopia has worked concurrently with USA Swimming throughout the SWIMS development. We spent the summer crafting a smooth integration between our team management software and the new SWIMS release. We are excited to provide this integration to our current and future USA Swimming customers! 

Though originally created for the U.S. summer swim market, SwimTopia is constantly updating and advancing our solutions and products. We currently do not have the ability for teams to bill monthly, but we do offer many other features desired by year-round teams. We hope to more fully serve the year-round market in the very near future. See if we are a fit for your team here or contact us at 877-856-2940 ext. 1 for more information.