Managing Players

Managing players with ease is a critical part of managing a dynamic tournament and SportyHQ provides you with a wide variety of tools to help you with any scenario that might come your way. This section will take you through how to manage your players. From adding and removing, to swapping out and withdrawing.

Using SportyHQ for Tournament Registration

If you are using SportyHQ's online sign-up process, then the initial step of adding players to your tournament will be made much easier. As players sign up to your tournament, they automatically get added in to their applicable draw. You can, of course modify where they are positioned, but using us for tournament registration will not only make collecting entry fees much simpler, but it will also help save you time with getting people in to the system.

If you are unfamiliar with our tournament registration features, we recommend you look at this article.

Manually Adding Players

There are two main methods in which you can manually add players to your tournament. You can add them one-by-one, or you can get our assistance to help you import a batch of players from a spreadsheet file.

Adding Players One-by-One

While this task might sound arduous, it's actually easier than it sounds. If you belong to a region that is actively using SportyHQ, you'll should find that most of the players in your tournament are already registered in our system. And for those who aren't, it's very easy to add them in. As you become more familiar with the tournament system, you'll find that there are a few places where you can add players in. For now, we'll focus on the Player Management screen.

From your Administrator bar on your tournament's main page, select Player Management.

This screen shows you all of the draws in your tournament and lists the players registered in each draw. For the purposes of this article, we are using our Example Tournament which currently only has one person registered.

To add a player to a draw, look for the Add Player button under the draw section that you want to add them to. This will open a popup dialog.

Type in the person's name that you want to add. You should enter their name naturally - first then last name. For example, John Smith, not Smith, John or any other variation. Our system will do a search to see if we can find that player already in our database. The search engine recognizes common misspellings as well as synonyms, so if you enter Bob Smith, the system will also return results for Robert Smith.

If one or more matches are found, they'll be displayed after you type in a few letters of the name. If the person belongs to a club, then the club name will display as well.

If you don't find a match, then click on the Create a Player button. You'll be prompted to enter in their first name, last name and email address.

Once you've either found an existing player in the database, or added a new player, the page will refresh and you'll see the player added to your selected draw. Check out the video below to see the process we've used in our Example Tournament.

Importing Players from Another Draw

To import players from another draw, select Manage Draws from your Administrator bar on your tournament's main page. Click the Import Players... button.  From the drop-down menu, select the draw which has the players you would like to import and click Import Players.

Adding Partnerships into a Doubles Draw

When adding players for a singles tournament, it can be done either via the Manage Draws page or via the Player Management page.  However, creating partnerships for doubles tournament must be done via the Manage Draws page.  There are two ways to do this.

The first way is to click the Manage Draws on your tournament's home page. click the Players button for the draw you would like to add players too.

In the Add Partnership to Draw box, type the first player's name, select the player you wish to add and then type the second players name, select the person you want to enter and click the Add Partnership button.

Alternatively, you can add players one by one using the Add Single Player to Draw box.  Type in the player's name and select the player you would like to add.  Do this for all the players you would like to add.  After you have done this click the +Add button next a player's name.

In the pop-up window, simply select the player from the drop-down menu.  Only players who have already been added to your draw will show in the menu.  If you would like to add someone who you have not already added to the draw, select the Somone not in the list... option.  This option should only be used if the partner has signed up and paid or it will remove their ability to sign up through SportyHQ's online registration.

Moving a Player to Another Draw

If you wish to manually change the draws (i.e. for divisions or an incorrect birth date), and move people between draws, click “Action” before the player’s name and select “Move to…”.

Click the drop-down menu in the dialogue, select the draw you wish to move the player to and click confirm.

Remove Player

To remove a player form a draw, select Remove Player from the Action drop-down list, click confirm and they will automatically be removed.

Edit Player Information

In some cases, you may need to edit the information for a player in your draw.  SportyHQ allows you to do it right from the Player Management page. From the Action dropdown list, select Edit Player Fields.

The pop-up window will allow you to edit a players Date of Birth, Nationality and leave comments which will display in the notes section next to a players name in a draw. Edit the fields and click Update.

Update Players' Nationalities

You can edit a single player's nationality with the process above or you can edit all the player's nationalities in a draw by selecting the Set Player Nationalities button.

On the next page, all the players in your draw will be listed.  Select the players nationality from the drop-down menu next to each player and click Save.

Update Player Availability

Should a player be unavailable to play on a day or at a certain time, you can set this in SportyHQ.  From the Action drop-down list select Add Availability Exception.

In the pop-up window, select the date the player will be unavailable.  The pop-up window defaults to having All Day? selected.  Should the players only be unavailable during a certain time, unselect the All Day option and click on the Start and End Time boxes, select the times and click Add.

The player's availability will now display on the draw page.

To delete the availability exception, simply click on the bin icon.

Setting Player Handicap

To set a player's handicap, click on the Empty link under the handicap column, type in the handicap and click the tick box. To remove a handicap, click on the cross box.

In the draw, the handicap will be visible in the highlighted column below.

Is it important to note that these features will only be available if a draw is unlocked.  Once a draw is locked, SportyHQ assumes the draw is final.  When your draw is unlocked, you will see the grey tab below above the draw on the Player Management page, which states the draw is unlocked.

Once your draw is complete, return to your tournament's home page. Scroll down and select the draw you would like to view under the Draws bar.

Select the draw format you would like to use from the Draw Structure drop-down menu.  SportyHQ has 24 different draws to choose from. Should you find that there is a draw type not already provided by SportyHQ, please be sure to contact us, so that we can discuss how we can add this for you. We will discuss each draw type in the next section.