Managing your swim meets effectively is key to a well-organized season. With SwimTopia’s “Admin” console, you can set up and manage your team’s Meets and Events effortlessly. All of these can be found under Schedule > All Meets & Events.
Here, you’ll see everything listed from your current season, but if you need to view events from other seasons, you can easily switch by clicking on the desired season name on the left. For additional guidance, check out our Help Center article: Schedule (Admin View): All Meets & Events.
- Creating Your Meets
- Using a Meet Template
- Apply an EV3 File to an Already Scheduled Meet
- Calendar Display Settings
- More Resources
Creating Your Meets
SwimTopia offers four flexible methods for setting up new meets:
1. League Meet Schedule Import
The easy button! – If all of the teams in your league are using SwimTopia, your league can send us the entire league schedule to import. With this import, the meets for each team will automatically appear on each team’s schedule, and all the meets for all the teams will appear on your league’s schedule. See our Import Your League Meet Schedule article to learn what your league needs to do to accomplish this task.
2. Creating a New (Empty) Swim Meet
Start fresh by creating an empty meet. Select “New (Empty) Swim Meet” from the green Add Swim Meet menu on your Schedule page to create a meet from scratch.
When you create a meet, you are taken to the Meet (or Event) Details page to provide basic meet information, along with a few calendar, age-up date, and pool length configuration settings. If your league schedule was imported, you’ll still want to review these details from the Manage Team > Schedule > Meet Name > Edit screen.
Once created, you can apply a meet template to simplify further setup, or, you can continue with manual set-up.
Be sure to review and edit each Meet Setup section, including:
- Team Preferences: settings that define how your team wants to collect entries and attendance information, along with relay setup preferences.
- Linking: Meet Linking is used between two SwimTopia teams to merge entries and run the meet together using Meet Maestro™, and for teams to share live event/heat status (via the SwimTopia Mobile App)
Linking a meet does not share the meet events between teams. If you are the home team, you should download and send the meet event file to the away team to ensure a smooth meet merge.
You may also find the following How-To videos useful:
- Meet Events (swim and/or dive): include individual, relay, diving and individual/relay event groups and are manually created here, or, imported from a meet template.
- Meet Entry Rules: We have many configuration options for entry rules. Before you can begin entering swimmers in events, you’ll need to confirm that your meet entry requirements and rules are accurately set. Not all rules apply to each team – you need only set the ones you wish to use.
- Entry Fees: Meet entry fees can be set up on your Meet Templates or directly within your Meet Setup. The fees will be calculated, but online payment or collection of entry fees during meet signup is not available at this time.
- Eligibility Rules: are useful for enforcing a minimum level of participation to enter the meet. A common case would be a championship meet with a rule requiring athletes to have swum in a certain number of meets during the regular season to enter the championship meet.
- Seeding & Scoring Rules: Just like meet entry rules, many leagues and teams will have varying seeding and scoring rules. These rules can be set in a Meet Template one time, or individually for each meet. Settings for seeding and scoring transfer to Meet Maestro when you merge the meet. Note: Seeding & Scoring Rules only affect meets run in our meet management application, Meet Maestro™. Please see SwimTopia – Setting up Seeding & Scoring Rules for more information.
Our Creating a New Swim Meet How-To video will help you through the steps.
3. Creating Meets with a Meet Event File (.ev3)
If you have access to a meet event file (typically sent by the meet host), you can quickly import it to create a new meet with all the event details pre-loaded. Click the green Add Swim Meet menu on your Schedule page and then Import Meet Event File. Upload the ZIP or EV3 file. This will create the meet, all the events, and any rules included in the Meet Events file. If your file includes qualifying times, these will be imported as well.
Watch our How-To video for a visual guide of the process:
4. Copying a Meet from a Previous Season
This is a great time-saving feature, but, you must update all dates in your meet setup if you choose to copy. These do not automatically update. Be especially careful to confirm your meet age-up date.
Learn more with our How-To video:
Using a Meet Template
One of the most time-saving features in SwimTopia is the ability to use Meet Templates to streamline the setup of your swim/dive meets. Meet Templates allow you to pre-define a list of events and rules for different types of meets such as Dual Meets, Divisionals, Champs, or Invitationals. Once set up, these templates can be applied to each meet, ensuring consistency and saving time during the busy swim season.
Once your meets are created, you can quickly apply the appropriate templates to each one.
Watch our How-To video on this topic:
Apply an EV3 File to an Already Scheduled Meet
Sometimes, you may have already created a meet and accepted swimmer RSVPs, but then receive an updated Meet File from the meet host. Instead of creating a new meet, you can update the events without losing your RSVP information. Watch our video to learn how: Adding a Meet Event File to an Already Created Meet – SwimTopia
Calendar Display Settings
On your team’s website, you have two display modes for your events:
1. Current Season Only – is the default and will only show the events listed in the current season’s date range. If an event is outside of the start and end dates of the current season, or selected to be hidden from the calendar on the event details screen, it will not be shown. The events are listed in chronological order from oldest to newest. Up to 12 events will be displayed at a time, ‘Previous’ and ‘Next’ buttons at the bottom will refresh to a new page with older or newer events. If a parent was viewing this calendar later in the season, they would have to scroll down through all past events to reach the current date events.
2. All Upcoming/Past Events – will display all events occurring after or during the current day, in chronological order from present to future. Past events will display only if the user chooses to view them.
We recommend using All Upcoming/Past Events mode. This ensures that only relevant events are displayed and avoids clutter. Events that fall outside the current season or are set to be hidden will not show up, keeping your calendar clean and easy to navigate.
You can adjust these settings by navigating to Manage Team > Website and clicking the Edit Navigation option in the admin menu. Look for the page labeled Schedule (or whatever custom name your team uses, such as Signup Calendar). You’ll find a Calendar display mode setting there, where you can choose your preferred view and save your changes.
For more details, visit our Help Center article: Schedule (Website View): Calendar Display Mode.
By following these steps, you can easily create and manage meets for your swim team. For more in-depth articles on managing Meets, Events, and Templates, check out our comprehensive Help Center guides.
Happy meet planning!
More Resources
You may also be interested in:
- Boost Efficiency with Job Templates: How to Create, Apply, and Update in SwimTopia
- Meet Templates Made Easy: How to Maximize Their Use in SwimTopia
- Team Gatherings Made Easy: How to Organize Non-Meet Events with SwimTopia
Published 09/18/2024. SwimTopia regularly releases new features, enhancements, and updates. Please visit our Help Center for the latest information on Meets, Events, and Templates.
