Definitions
- A user account consists of a login and password associated with an email address. Every account must have a unique primary email address. Each user account belongs to at least one family profile, and in rare cases may belong to more than one. User accounts are created in one of two ways:
- via the new user function on the registration/login pages, or
- added as a family member by an existing user
- A player record or child record consists of the player's name, gender, date of birth, and ID number. Player records do not contain any data that changes from year to year and so 'persist' across seasons -- once created, they never have to be re-entered and can only be modified by an a player administrator. Each player belongs to one and only one family profile.
- A registration record consists of all player-related information that may be expected to change from one season to the next: division, emergency contact information, comments and requests, and team assignments. A registration record is created and attached to the existing player record at the end of the registration payment process.
- A family profile consists of one or more user accounts and (optionally) one or more player records. All user accounts in a family profile have full access to all player records that belong to the same family.
- A volunteer is a user who has expressed interest in one or more volunteer roles. Several of the administrative functions -- particularly the email manager -- distinguish between volunteers in the volunteer pool and the actual volunteer roles (coaches, team administrators, division director, et cetera): for example, Fall 2012 Coaches refers to users assigned as coaches for the Fall 2012 season, but Fall 2012 Coach Volunteers refers to users who volunteered (expressed an interest) in coaching regardless of whether or not they were ultimately assigned. Referees are the exception (as detailed below).
- A division consists of all players of a certain age or age range. Every player belongs to one and only one division each season. A player's division is automatically determined during registration but may be overridden by a registrar. Divisions are usually named according to their age group, e.g. 'Boys Under 10' would be B10 or BU10.
- A competition (or 'program') consists of teams from one or more divisions. A registered player may belong to one team in a competition each season. Some leagues may have only one competition -- their 'regular season' -- while others have tournaments or special programs with separate teams. Most competitions are hosted, or take place 'locally,' while inter-league competitions will have one host and several guest leagues; the latter have access only to their own players and volunteers.
Introduction
inLeague uses a 'role-based' permissions system to grant privileges for player, user, and league administration. Roles are assigned by webmaster-level users and a user may have any combination of roles.
Using 'Administrative' Logins vs. Administrative privileges on regular accounts
In some cases, leagues may prefer to maintain 'administrative' logins for board-level roles and then hand off access to these accounts when these higher-level positions turn over, rather than assigning various levels of administrative access to personal accounts and then having the burden of removing privileges each year. There is no 'right way' to approach this problem: inLeague provides tools to monitor the distirbution of access (the Authorization Center under the Administrators tab), and in most cases it is marginally easier to add and remove privileges to personal accounts on an as-needed basis rather than requiring division heads and administrators to maintain multiple accounts.
Access Roles
Assigning and Removing Account Permissions
Most account permissions are assigned from the user editor under the administrators tab. Only webmaster-level users may access permissions in the user editor. Some roles, such as coaches, chief referees, and division heads, are assigned elsewhere and do not require webmaster privileges; see the summary for each access level for further details.
Parent. All users are automatically granted parent access, which allows them to add player records to their family, register players, make tournament or event payments, and view team rosters and medical releases for their players.
Volunteer Roles and Seasonal Account Reviews
A user is considered active for a season if their account was created during that season, or if they log in and review their account information while the season is active. For example, if Mr. Karlin creates his account during the Fall 2010 season and volunteers as a head coach, he will be considered part of the Fall 2010 volunteer pool -- but when registration opens for Fall 2011, he will not appear on any volunteer reports unless and until he logs in and reviews his account profile. This is a required step of the registration process.
All users in a family profile must review their account information before a player can be registered, and any user in a family profile may review any other user's account information (with the exception of their password). Most every volunteer that returns for a new season is 'activated' for that new season during the registration process; in this manner, volunteer reports and email recipient groups will almost always consist only of volunteers who have 'opted in' for a particular season.
Every league has at least three volunteer roles available for users to self-select when creating or reviewing their user account: head coach, assistant coach, and referee. Each of these 'self-selected' volunteer roles will persist only for the season in which they are selected.
Coaches
The coach access role consists of Head/Co-coach, Assistant Coach, and Team Administrator. Coaches are assigned to active teams by Division Directors or Volunteer Administrators from the Coach Assignments function under the Coaches tab. A coach assignment is active only for the season in which it is made, i.e. the coach of team B10-A for Fall 2012 will only have access to coach functions for B10-A while the Fall 2012 season is active.
Head/Co-Coach. A head coach has access to the Team Rosters and Admin function for his or her team(s), which includes rosters, uniform numbers, and line-up cards. A head coach may also enter player ratings and has access to team parents and staff (other coaches and team administrators) for his or her team(s). Leagues may, at their discreiton, allow head coaches to assign assistant coaches and team administrators to their own teams.
Assistant Coach. An assistant coach is functionally identical to a Head or Co-coach, except that an assistant coach may not assign other coaches to the same team.
Team Administrator. A team administrator is functionally identical to an assistant coach.
Referees
The referee role is distinct from every other role within inLeague because it does not require any kind of administrative approval or assignment to become active. Anyone may volunteer to be a referee, and unlike coaches, there is no distinction between the referee volunteer pool and referees -- once a user checks the referee box in their user profile, they can immediately use the referee self-scheduler for any competition that does not restrict referee signup.
Leagues may enable divisional referees, which allows referees to specify up to three divisions in which they anticipate refereeing games (though they are not prevented from signing up for games in other divisions). This option compartmentalizes referees explicitly by division; without divisional referees enabled, referees only 'belong' to a division if they have a player registered in that division.
Users may self-select the referee access role in their own user profile, or registrar- or webmaster-level users may add the referee role to a user from the user editor.
Like all self-selectable volunteer roles, the referee role only lasts for the season in which it is selected; a user must log in and review their user profile for a new season before they can be considered an active referee for that season. inLeague will detect if a user was previously a referee and check the 'referee' box by default when a user performs his or her seasonal account update.
Division Directors and Chief Referees
Division Directors (also known as Division Heads or Division Coordinators) have vertical access to all players and volunteers in their division; that is, they can see registration and volunteer reports, team assignments, and player ratings for all players in their division, regardless of competition. They can assign players to teams, add regional ratings to any player in their division, assign coaches, and email parents, volunteers, and staff within their division.
Division Directors have read-only access to player and volunteer records within their division.
Leagues may grant division directors access to the game scheduler for their division. The game scheduler may be configured to allow division directors full access to scheduling game slots and match-ups, or it may be configured to only allow team match-ups, or only to swap exsiting team match-ups.
Divisional Chief Referees are referee officials given access to referee volunteer reports and the referee scheduler for one or more divisions. They can email referees and approve self-scheduler requests within their division. This is a divisional form of the Referee Scheduler access level that must be enabled in the league control panel.
Both division directors and chief referees may be assigned by volunteer administrators or registrars using the Coach Assignment function under the Coaches tab. They will have their own assignment function in the near future. Division directors may also assign chief referees to their own division.
Unlike coach or self-selected volunteer assignments, division director and chief referee assignments persist across seasons and last until they are removed.
Competition Managers
Competition Managers have horizontal access to player and volunteer information across all divisions but only with respect to the competition(s) to which they are assigned. This role is primarily used by leagues that host multi-league competitions in which limited access is given to player and volunteer information from several leagues: no other volunteer role allows access to 'guest' region records.
Competition Managers are sub-divided into the following roles:
- Player Admiinstrators may view player records, manage team assignments, game scores, and player ratings.
- Volunteer Administrators may view volunteer records, manage coach and team-level assignments, and email volunteers on a per-competition basis.
- Payment Administrators may access tournament accounting functions.
- Ref Schedulers may approve referee self-scheduler requests or manually assign referees to games.
- Game Schedulers may schedule games and assign teams to games.
While division directors can access many of these functions only within their division, competition managers may access all divisions. For example, if division directors are permitted to schedule games in the control panel, they may schedule games within any competition but only within their division; a competition manager may schedule games in any division, but only within their competition.
Player and Volunteer Administrators
Player Administrators may be thought of as division directors for all divisions with respect to player functions: they can view (but not edit) player records, assign players to teams, enter regional player ratings, view rosters, and access medical releases for all players. They can email parents by division or team from the email manager. AYSO player administrators may perform eAYSO synchronization to upload registered players using eAYSO offline and then re-import newly-assigned AYSO ID numbers.
Volunteer Administrators have a similar role with respect to volunteer data. They can assign coaches, division directors, and chief referees. They can search for and update user records. They can view volunteer reports for all volunteer types across all divisions. AYSO volunteer administrators may perform volunteer eAYSO synchronization to sync up volunteer certifications and safe haven records.
Player and volutneer administrator access persists until it is removed.
Game Schedulers and Referee Schedulers
Game Schedulers have full access to the game scheduling utilities for all competitions and all divisions. They can create game slots in any division, assign team match-ups or run the matchmaker for any hosted competition, and send email confirmation for game times to parents, coaches, and referees,
Referee Schedulers have full access to referee scheduling utiltiies for all competitions and all divisions. They can manually assign any referee to any game, approve self-scheduler requests, view referee volunteer reports for all divisions, and email all referee volunteers as well as referees assigned to specific dates within specific competitions from the email manager.
Game and referee schedule access persists until it is removed.
Registrars and Webmasters
The Registrar role allows full access to all user and volunteer records, all team assignments and player ratings, all volunteer reports and all rosters. Only the registrar and webmaster roles may issue registration refunds, drop players, and email 'all parents' recipient groups (e.g. 'All parents from Fall 2011').
Registrars also have access to region-wide financial and registration reports under the Registrar Reports function.
The Webmaster role is treated as 'having all roles' and is the only role that can access the inLeague control panel.
Both registrars and webmasters may impersonate any other account in the system from the user editor. Impersonation allows a registrar or webmaster-level user to temporarily switch their login to another user's perspective so that they can access inLeague in the same manner that another user does. The impersonation feature enables this 'login-switching' without having to be aware of or to reset another user's password.
Other Roles: Board Member & Treasurer
Treasurer grants access to tournament accounting and tournament refunds (though not standard registration refunds) as well as the region-wide financial report.
Removing Access Roles
All access roles can be removed from the same utility used to grant them. Most roles (excluding coach, division director, and chief referee) can also be removed from the Authorizations Center, which will show all users with a specified access level.