At Sports Connect, we aim to make running a youth sports organization as seamless as possible. By actively listening to feedback from our partners, we deliver enhancements, fixes, and new features every two weeks to continually improve your experience.

In this update, we’re excited to share our 2024 enhancements for Sports Connect Club. These updates focus on improving registration, program management, communication, and overall user experience. Let’s dive in!

Programs
  • The new customizable Waitlist Activation template allows organizations to create default notification content at the program level (enter in Step 6). The message can be updated at any time, ensuring specific and timely information for players who are activated off the waitlist.
  • A new configurable help text area in the volunteer registration workflow was introduced so that organizations can provide clear, program-specific guidance on position requirements, making the registration process smoother and more efficient.
  • The display order of available programs is now easily reorganized with new, easy-to-use drag-and-drop functionality in the Program Forms page.
  • The BCC functionality for various program notifications was made more noticeable in the program setup process. Use this feature to blindcopy specific contacts/email addresses by program, by notification.
Registrations
  • A new Registration Setting allows organizations to appoint any user with a Club Admin role as their Registration Confirmation Contact and be the specific recipient of various registration related notifications. The contact can be updated at any time. Additional notification controls will be added in the near future! 
  • The mobile registration experience received an enhanced program & division presentation with a more intuitive, informed selection experience.
  • With a fresh look & feel, the registration checkout flow was improved to quickly advance the user through the steps, minimizing the need for scrolling while ensuring proper collection of necessary data.
  • After an additional Waitlist Activation email improvement, with a click on the new order number, the user is taken directly to their payment page in My Account.
  • The Tryout Accept/Decline feature received a refresh and users will now respond to Tryout Offers directly from their My Account page in a quick, sensible process.
  • The new coupon list pagination with sortable display orders makes it easy for organizations to manage, track and monitor portal coupons.
Fan Wear & Gear
  • Multiple new custom Fan Wear items, including hats, bags, and tank tops were introduced, creating a lot of excitement!
  • The curated, in-registration Stack Gear shopping experience expanded to include football, basketball, and volleyball programs! Users are presented with gear relevant to their activity type and have the opportunity to shop for top-quality items from premium brands.
  • New portal-level commerce with gearUP allows our partner organizations to offer custom premium brand apparel.
Bulk Email & SMS
  • Draft + auto-save now in Bulk Email. With auto-save triggered every 30 seconds, users will find drafts organized in a separate section of the page. Drafts remain until scheduled, sent, or intentionally deleted.
  • Account holders can manage their Bulk Email subscriptions in My Account after recent work. This new feature allows users to easily resubscribe/unsubscribe from the organization’s emails without the need for admin support.
  • New, supplemental logic allows Administrators to quickly and systematically convert data collected in the new Interest List feature into a Bulk Email audience.
  • To subscribe to group text messages, users must opt-in by texting a specific group keyword that is emailed to them. To simplify the invitation process, a group keyword copy feature was added to the Manage Groups page.
  • The Emails Statistics table has been realigned for a cleaner look & feel.

Reports

  • The new Program Daily Deposit report enables users to reconcile deposits on a program-by-program basis.
  • For a more complete financial oversight, manually added payment plan installments are now included in the Payment Plan Line Item Report. 
  • A comprehensive Insurance Report provides all the relevant details of your member’s purchased policies, including participant, insurance type, premium, and provider.
  • Fixes and enhancements were implemented in ‘Saved Reports. This feature allows organizations to share one-off reports with users via email invites without the need to grant them general access to the reports module. 

Calendar

  • Calendar view enhancements included improved sort order logic for Events. Multiple events at the same date and time are sorted alphanumerically by Location Name; events at the same date, time, and location are further sorted alphanumerically by Field Name. 
  • For a better user experience, various color adjustments were made for improved legibility.
  • New mobile functionality presents Team Calendar details in a pop-up that opens on intentional click.

Admin Dashboard

  • Tooltips have been added to the Admin Dashboard to help users more easily understand what the included values represent, how they are calculated, and how to use the data in their daily operations.

Website

  • A new Interest List signup tool was made available in all portals. Added to the homepage with a customized message, this new feature enables portal administrators to collect email addresses without the need for visitors to create accounts, log in, or register for a [dummy] program. Added bonus: gathered email addresses can automatically be converted to an email group.
  • Making the homepage Rotator Headlines optional is proof that small changes can be hugely impactful!
  • New functionality allows for News articles to be deleted in bulk by selecting one, many or all.
  • Using RGB values, the new Custom Color Picker tool offers users of our most commonly used website themes (designs)  the ability to quickly and easily create custom color combinations to perfectly match their brand.
  • The list of (sometimes very) small user experience enhancements completed is long, but some of our favorites include increasing the number of supported characters in program and field names (to 100), moving the ‘required’ asterisk into the profile area instead of sitting below, and clearly indicating the backlinking for navigation in a generated report.
Teams
  • New functionality allows administrators to access Player and Volunteer profiles directly from the ‘Manage Teams’ page. A quick click on the team member’s name from the expanded ‘View Team Detail’ view opens the account view in a new tab, allowing for efficient roster management.
  • During the Team Building process, administrators can now also access Player and Volunteer profiles with a click on the name.
  • For improved team building efficiency, the Unallocated & Allocated Player & Volunteer Count features were enhanced to display a detailed category list on click.
  • The Auto-Assign Teams’ logic was updated to consistently form the indicated number of teams.
Sports Connect | State Association Affiliates
  • Parents and Volunteers in select organizations can access USYS University directly from their Sports Connect portals. With the click of a button in My Account and no additional login, users gain immediate access to everything the etrainu-hosted USYS University has to offer.
  • Birth Certificate verifications retrieved from the Sports Connect Association (SCA) and displayed in Sports Connect Club now display the same verification data on both ends of the solution. The verification stays with the participant throughout their entire sports journey, eliminating the need for any future parent re-uploads.
  • After logic changes, status updates for postponed and cancelled games in Sports Connect Association are correctly reflected in Sports Connect Club, which also results in schedule updates in Stack Team App for organizations using the fully connected club/league mobile app and communication tool.
  • Multi-player waitlist registrations are being passed to SCA with transaction IDs available for reporting.
  • Additional order data is now sent to Sports Connect Association for enhanced split fee reporting and reconciliation.
Schedules
  • With a UI similar to Manage Locations and Fields, a new portal-level  Sitewide Blackout Dates feature was introduced for an efficient way to close fields across all locations.
  • Team Admins now have functionality that allows them to add a description when creating a game from the Team Page/Team Calendar so that important game-specific information can be easily shared with players and parents.
  • Display order logic was added to the column headers on the Scores page.
  • After additional enhancements, teams with no Posted Scores are now included on the Standings page, providing a more complete view of current standings.
  • Games Remaining statistics were added to the Standings table to further enhance the view.
  • There is a new toggle control to allocate a club location to a site-wide event when building a custom event from the Calendar page. The admin can select a Custom Location, which includes open text fields, or a Club Location that pulls availability from locations added in Schedule > Manage Locations & Fields
Payments
  • When viewing My Orders on mobile, new enhancements made it easier for families to navigate to the payment page to settle their open orders.
  • Merchant Account setup and management transitioned from Sports Connect into Stack Pay, providing partners supplemental payment tools, reports, and services in a fully connected experience. Stay tuned as additional features are just around the corner!
Account Holder Data
  • Gender X: a new non-binary gender option for all personas can be enabled by Admins with the portal-level Registration Settings. Supplemental registration controls are configurable by program and division.
  • Sent and Accepted date + time added to Additional Account Holder invites, providing Admins a better understanding of current vs abandoned account holder invitations so that follow-up actions can be tailored accordingly.
Insurance
  • Parallel to our existing registration protection insurance, we introduced Medical Gap Insurance in an integrated, enhanced checkout flow. Available directly in the registration experience, parents/guardians may obtain coverage for medical out-of-pocket expenses for participants of most activity types and programs.