How to Create / Display A 'Master' Practice or Game Schedule

[Kyle K]

As with most youth sports leagues, we have coaches, parents, and volunteers that would like to see a 'master' schedule of all the facilities and what times are available if a game or practice needed to be rescheduled.  Is there something already available that does this?  Is there anyone who has come up with code that works to display locations, times, dates, scheduled events, blackout times for certain days, and open time slots too?

Thanks!

[Rob Bedeaux]

Hey Kyle,

Unfortunately, TODAY, there isn't something quite like what you are looking for. However, we are close to releasing our scheduling assistant tool. This tool will show venues and games in a calendar view. A fast follow will add practices and other types of events. Keep an eye out over the next several weeks! 

[James Fairweather]

This can be done, with some effort on the administrator's part.  Refer to our website, https://www.vancouvercommunitybaseball.com/page/show/3816229-calendar, to see an example.

We made a sub-page from the Calendar page for each field & batting cage that our organization manager.  Those pages have the "Enable Events" option enabled.  Then, every game & practice has a tag applied which represents the resource it's using (which field or cage).  This allows anyone to view the site calendar or subscribe to an iCal feed for each field/cage, and makes it super-easy to see open spaces on any field.

The downside to this approach is that only site admins can create events (practices and games).  If a team creates its own event, it won't have the field tag applied to it so it won't appear on the field calendar.  So if a team does create their own event, they have to ask the administrator (me) to add the field tag.  Existing practices or games can be rescheduled without the assistance of the administrator if they're not changing venues.

Tagging the events isn't too hard.  It's best done when the schedule is first imported.  If your schedule is already on the website, you can export it, add the necessary tags to each using your favorite .csv file editor, then re-import it.  As long as the eventIDs are there, the importer will just update the existing event rather than creating a new one.

We started using this process this year and I have to say I'm very happy with it.

[Marie Fitzgerald]

Great questions all around and a topic we have been discussing with our Product team - we are currently working through what a solution for this exact use case would be within the product.

Right now @James Fairweather provided a great solution. You can also utilize the new Scheduling Assistant to manage facilities and schedules. Keep in mind this would be for the admins, not necessarily a public view.

Check out the new functionality here > https://www.sportsengine.com/club-admin/hq/recap-automate-your-season-webinar

[freezinKT]

Another vote for this - and also for checking for conflicts across "seasons." We schedule our house, house+, and travel in different seasons (typically) and right now the scheduling tools don't account for this.