Program structure setup guide
Attention: This article is for organization administrators on TeamSnap for Business. Check your version at the bottom of your organization screen.
Need some guidance on the best way to structure your organization using programs? This article will help you plan your organization structure in TeamSnap.
Words to know
Program(s): The organized grouping of activities for categorizing services to athletes.
Program Attribute(s): Information that determines the properties of a program's underlying structure.
Season(s): The portion of the year in which the program is active.
Division(s): A number of teams grouped together by a common attribute(s).
Team(s): A group of participants working together to score points, reach a goal, and have fun.
Overview
In TeamSnap for Business, organizations are structured using programs. Programs contain seasons, and seasons contain a single layer of divisions. Divisions contain teams, which contain participants. We recommend taking some time to identify the way in which your organization currently groups activities and offerings for participants. Your organization may already have this structure laid out on its public-facing website, so you should be able to easily recreate your existing structure using our program>season>divisions setup.
Program structure examples
Single program
Multi-program
Understanding program attributes
Program attributes are created when structuring your organization. They are used to identify characteristics of your organization for creating divisions when applied to a program.
There are two kinds of program attributes:
- Descriptive (currently used for labeling and not directly involved in structure):
- Sport (located in Settings>General)
- Areas of Operation(located in Settings>Program Attributes)
- Structural (used for auto-creating divisions):
- Age Divisions (U16, Grade 6-8, 12 & Under, 14U, etc.)
- Competition Genders (Male, Female, etc.)
- Competition Levels (Division I, AAA, Silver, Varsity, Major, etc.)
Program attributes are created for any characteristics that could apply to any programs within the organization. Once created, attributes can be selectively applied to each program so that divisions are automatically created from all possible combinations of the applied attributes. For example, if six age divisions, two competition genders, and two competition levels are applied, 24 divisions are created (best practice is to have no more than 30 divisions created in a single season).
Learn more about how program attributes are used.
Deciding on a structure
Important considerations:
- Attributes: Age divisions, competition genders, & competition levels attributes are descriptive of the program and are used to help division creation. Areas of operation & sport attributes are currently only descriptive attributes of the program that should be entered when possible for future product updates incorporating these attributes.
- Registration: Registration is currently at the season level, allowing you to focus forms on the needs of that specific program versus one complicated form for many programs. Forms can be duplicated within a season and copied to the next season within the same program.
- Scheduling: Schedules are set up at the season level. Structure any areas of the organization that need to share schedule items under the same program.
- Divisions: We recommend not exceeding 30 divisions under a single season for optimal performance and manageability.
- Financials: The same bank account information can be added to each season within a program, or if desired, different bank accounts can be added to each season. If using the same bank account for every season, the account must be added to each season that will need its funds deposited to that account. This will be reflected in your organization's financial reporting, so if you prefer to have your financial reports based on certain areas, you'll want to be sure to set those up as separate programs.
- Administrator Management: Consider which administrators oversee and should only have access to specific programs. Staff roles & permissions utilize the program structure to determine who can access these programs.
- Still not sure about your structure?
- Does your organization operate in more than one area or region?
- Does your organization provide multiple sports or events as part of its offerings?
- Does your organization differentiate groups of participants based on competition level?
- Does your organization group participants by gender?
- Does your organization arrange participants by age group?
When setting up your organization, you will want to map out how those groupings should translate to the structure of your organization while considering how you would like registration to be handled for those groups.
Example Programs:
North / North East / West
Recreation / Competitive / Camps & Clinics
Academy / Camps and Clinics / Eastern Recreational / Western Recreational