Overview

  • Created : 10th December, 2016
  • Last Updated: 10th December, 2016

Table of Contents

SportyHQ provides a comprehensive online registration and payment solution to tournament organizers. There are many benefits to using SportyHQ's online payment platform:

  1. No merchant account required. SportyHQ provides you with a payment system that is ready to go in minutes. For tournaments in most countries, that means you'll be able to accept credit card and PayPal payments.
  2. Online payment requires participants in your tournament to pay up front. This saves you the administrative burden of having to chase payments during or after your event.
  3. Refunds can be easily managed through the SportyHQ interface.
  4. You have the option to sell additional items, such as extra dinner tickets or merchandise.
  5. Offer early bird discounts or prizes for early registration.
  6. The sign up process is a simple process that takes the average user under 3 minutes to complete.

This page will take you step by step through the process of getting your tournament ready for online registration using SportyHQ's system.

The only pre-requisite is that you have your tournament created.

Review the Checklist

You'll notice on your tournament page that there is a checklist with the key steps you need to complete in order to get your online sign up ready.

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They are:

  • Create at least 1 draw
  • Setup your pricing
  • Review the Sign-Up page configuration
  • Publish your tournament

Step 1: Create at least 1 draw

The entry form allows entrants to choose one or more draws that they will enter (depending on your event's allowance). For example, a user could enter in to the Men's Open draw. Or they might want to enter in to a Singles and Doubles event. To complete this step, click on the Manage Draws link in the Administrator bar.

Then click on Create Draw.

create-draw

Draws can be managed in a couple different ways depending on how your system works for putting players in the right division.  You can either just create a draw for the broad entries but once the draw is actually created, the tournament organizer can go into the draw and split the draw into sub draws, i.e Men's A, Men's B.

The other option is just to create an all the individual draws at the get go and when participants sign up for the event they can put their names directly into that draw.

In our example above, we can use the Create Draw screen to setup all of our draws. They are going to be Mixed Open, Mixed B, Mixed C and Mixed D.

  • You can restrict the Gender of entrants, for instance in a Men's draw, you will select the Male Option
  • You can set Age Limits, this will generally only be used in junior and masters events
  • From this page, you can also override the Age Cutoff that was defined on the Tournament setup should you wish too
  • Enable Handicap allows you to set a + / - score next to each person's name in the draw. That handicap will show up on the draw itself. i.e. On the bracket of a round-robin - this allows participants to see their own handicap and the handicaps of the people they are playing.

Once you've completed this page, click Submit.

[bs_notification type="info" dismissible="false"]Tip: If you'd like to change the order of your draws, you can drag 'n drop them on the Manage Draws screen. Just click on a white area of the draw you wish to move, and drag it to its new position.

[/bs_notification]

Head back to your main tournament screen to move on to the next step.

Step 2: Setup Your Tournament Pricing

Under the Sign-up Configuration heading in the Administrator bar, click on Setup Tournament Pricing.

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You'll use this screen to create the different pricing categories that you'll offer to your entrants. For example, you might create different pricing options for Adults, Juniors and Seniors.

Click on Create Payment Category.

You can optionally enter an early bird rate. For this example, we have added the Early Bird Rate at $30 while the Regular Rate is $40. You will see how this translates on the Sign Up Page.  For more information on setting up early bird incentives, click here.

You can Restrict Entries to any of your payment categories, this includes being born before, after, in and between specific years.

For now, we've created a pricing category for Adults (18+), with the price tag of $50. If you need to change the currency of your event, you should check out this article.

Once you've filled in the details, hit Submit.

You can add additional payment categories, as required by your tournament. We've also created a Junior category here.

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Once you're done adding your payment categories, return to your Tournament's main page for the next step.

Step 3: Review the Sign-up Page Configuration

Now that you have your draws and pricing setup, you're ready to review the sign-up page configuration. To do this, click on Sign-up Page Layout under the Sign-up Configuration heading in the Administrator bar.

This screen is a skeleton view of what your registrants will see when they're signing up to your event.

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On this screen, you have the option to include additional text, such as terms and conditions of entry. If you enter in text in to the text fields provided, that text will display on the live sign up page. We've added in some terms and conditions in to the final box to let entrants know about the insurance for the event.

You'll also see an option on this screen for Availbility. This lets players indicate to you when they're available or unavailable to play. Depending on your preferences, you can leave this feature enabled, or disable it. If players select anything other than Available, they are required to provide an explanation for why they are unavailable.

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If you leave this option enabled, our scheduling features try to accommodate these availability exceptions when auto-scheduling your event.

Once you've finished customizing this page, scroll to the bottom and press the Save button.

[bs_notification type="warning" dismissible="false"]Important! Even if you make no modifications to the sign up page layout, you must submit this page by clicking the Save button, otherwise your sign up page will not go live.[/bs_notification]

Return to your tournament's main page to complete the final step.

Step 4: Publish Your Tournament

This is the final step to getting your sign up online for the world to see. At the top of your tournament page, you'll see a red bar that tells you your tournament has not yet been published.

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In that box there's a link that will let you publish your tournament. Click it.

After that, your tournament will get sent to us for a quick review. We do this just to make sure everything looks accurate so that we avoid any unnecessary issues when people first go to register for your event. We typically review tournaments within a couple of hours.

After this, your tournament will show on our Tournaments page. You'll see a Sign Up button there next to your event. You'll also see a Sign Up button on your tournament page.

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And that's all there is to it. Your sign up page is now ready to accept entrants.

Further Reading