Introduction & Definitions
inLeague's two most important administrative concepts are competitions and seasons.
A competition is just another word for a sports program: a series of teams that compete with one another all must belong to the same competition. Games and schedules are all posted and arranged by competition. Most leagues begin with a default competition called 'Regular Season' or 'Core Program' that refers to the league's primary program. Leagues with travel teams or post-season tournaments in which players receive new team assignments will add additional competitions to support secondary programs.
A season is a fixed period of time in which a group of players register to participate in one or more competitions. All leagues have at least one season per year, and some may have more than one (e.g. Spring 2015 and Fall 2015). Some competitions may only use one season, such as a travel program that runs from September through August while the core program starts fresh in September and again in March.
A division is a set of players, teams, and games, almost always defined according to age and gender, e.g. BU10 for Boys Under 10.
Players may be assigned to one team per competition per season. For example, a league that has a Regular Season competition and a Post-season Travel Team competition for Fall 2012 may assign each player to one team in either or both of these competitions. No player may be assigned to multiple teams per competition.
Competitions and Active Seasons
inLeague supports two concurrent seasons of play: the current (or 'regular') season and the tournament season. Competitions are assigned to one or the other in the Competition Manager by indicating whether a competition is a tournament competition or whether it is part of the regular season. Note that the season to which a competition belongs has nothing to do with whether or not the competition is actually a tournament -- the two names came about to model a league that has (for example) a primary program every Fall between September and December and a secondary or post-season program from December to June. In May, league officials for the primary program will want to look at reports and administrative functions for the upcoming season, but officials for the post-season program need to maintain access to players and teams from the previous Fall because they play well into the Summer.
The current season and tournamnet season are both configured by webmaster-level users in the inLeague Control Panel.
A third season option, the registration season, dictates which season is currently open for registration.
Players and Seasons - Division Assignments
When a player is registered, they are automatically assigned to a division based on their age, gender, and any other criteria specified by the league. A registered player is one whose on-line registration form and payment have been processed by inLeague. Registered players are available to be assigned to teams, but until they have a team assignment, they do not yet belong to a specific competition.
Volunteers and Seasons
Before a user may register a player, they are required to review their user record and to confirm their contact information. This confirmation process occurs every season and is the first step in determining which volunteers are considered to 'belong' to a particular season. For instance, if a coach creates a user account during the Fall 2011 season and is assigned to coach a team, he will not appear on any volunteer lists for Fall 2012 until he logs in during the Fall 2012 registration period and confirms his account details. The coach volunteer box will be automatically checked based on the previous season's activity, but only after the user account review page is submitted will the coach appear on volunteer reports or email manager recipient lists for Fall 2012.
Volunteers do not belong to a division in the same sense that players do. Leagues may rely upon different criteria to determine the division(s), if any, to which a given volutneer should belong:
- Volunteers with children registered in a division may be considered to be part of that division;
- Volunteers may specify a division or divisions on their account page for leagues that enable divisional referee volutneers;
- Volunteers may be associated with a division once they are assigned to a team in that division
Related Functions
Competition-specific options are configured in the Competitions menu, either in the Competition Setup of Referee Setup utilities. League-wide settings such as the currently active seasons are configured in the Control Panel under the Administrators menu.