Introduction & Definitions
Before a logged-in user can register a player, they are required to review their user account profile in much the same way that a new user must complete their account profile before continuing to player registration. During this step, leagues may capture volunteer contact information as well as enlisting users for specific volunteer roles. Leagues may also restrict player registration to families that have signed up for one or more volunteer role.
The Volunteer Pool refers to users who have expressed an interest in one or more volunteer roles. This is distinct from Team Staff, which refers to users actually assigned by league officials to one or more teams. For example, anyone may volunteer to be a coach, and the coach volunteer pool consists of everyone who has volunteered for that role in a particular season; this is separate from a report of all coaches, since the term 'coach' refers to a user who has been granted coach-level access to a team, while coach volunteer is merely someone who has expressed a willingness to become a coach.
Built-in Volunteer Codes and Flex Volunteer Codes
inLeague has three built-in volunteer codes:
- Head Coach
- Assistant Coach
- Referee*
Note that the Referee volunteer code is the only one that confers any status in the system - there is no distinction between referee volunteer and referee as there is for coaches or other volunteer roles. Anyone who volunteers to be a referee may access the referee self-scheduler, though only if there are competitions configured to be publicly accessible (e.g. by any referee regardless of certification).
Leagues may define additional volunteer codes from the control panel. League-specific volunteer roles do not convey system access in the manner that coach or team administrator roles do.
Flex Volunteer Code Setup
From the Control Panel, select Volunteer Options. The three built-in volunteer codes are always displayed. Additional codes may be added or edited with the following options:
- Sort order dictates the order in which the volunteer checkboxes are displayed (or the order of items in the supplemental drop-down menu)
- Name is the full name of the volunteer code that will be displayed in the user profile page and all reports. Volunteer code names cannot contain commas.
- Mouse-over description contains the text displayed in a pop-up window when a user moves their mouse over the volunteer code.
- Max per season determines the maximum number of volunteers that may select the volunteer code in one season. Once this number has been reached, the volunteer code will be' greyed out' and not selectable. Users who previously selected it may still deselect it.
- Assignable is a yes/no option that determines whether users may be assigned to individual teams in this role. For instance, a league might specify that every team must provide one volunteer to monitor fields; the league would create a flex volunteer code for 'field monitor' and then assign volunteers to teams in the same manner that coaches are assigned to teams.
- Active is a yes/no option that determines whether or not the volunteer code is in use. Inactive volunteer codes do not appear in reports or in user profiles. Deactivate volunteer codes (rather than deleting them) to preserve historical assignments when you no longer wish to use the volunteer code in question.