Skate Canada: manage competitions on Club 1.0

Categories are created via Settings > Categories. Our Categories article offers more insights into the process for creating categories, category levels, and requirements.

To begin your competition creation process you will need to ensure you have the required categories and category levels in place. If they are already in the system you can do a quick review to ensure no changes are required, then move to the next step. Otherwise, you will need to create your categories and category levels.

Your categories will represent your core disciplines: Women's Singles, Men's Singles, Pair, Ice Dance, Synchro, etc.

Within each category you can create category levels. These represent the various tiers of the discipline: Junior, Juvenile, Open, Star 6, etc. When creating your category levels it will be very helpful to ensure that each has its core discipline in its name. For example, Senior Women rather than just Senior. This will help immensely in the Create/Confirm Custom Fields step.

Categories are created via Settings > Categories. Our Categories article offers more insights into the process for creating categories, category levels, and requirements.

In addition to your disciplines you will also want to create a series of PPC categories. Each of these categories would align with one of your disciplines - Singles PPC, Ice Dance PPC, Pair PPC, Synchro PPC, etc.

These categories will then have a series of category levels using the format [Discipline] [Program Type] - Field Count. For example, your Singles PPC category would have the category levels Singles Short - 6, Singles Short - 7, Singles Free - 7, Singles Free - 8, Singles Free - 9, etc. to Singles Free - 13. The "Field Count" will denote how many PPC element fields the system will generate when using this category level.

You might be wondering why you are doing this. Uplifter has specialized fields that allow users to enter in their PPC information by using a series of drop downs instead of having to know their specific PPC codes. When skaters sign up for an event they will also need to register for the appropriate PPC. By selecting a specific PPC the system will then show these specialized PPC fields. The number of fields it shows is based on the category level. Thus, you can make a Singles Short PPC that has either 6 or 7 fields or an Ice Dance Free PPC that has anywhere between 7 and 13 fields, etc.

Merchant Accounts are created via Settings > Uplifter Settings > Merchant Details.

A merchant represents the payment processor that you will use for the competition. Most section offices only use a single merchant account for their purposes. However, some use unique merchants for each competition based off of the club that is hosting. Once you land on the Merchant Details page you can use the top-most drop down to review your currently available merchants. If it is already in the system, or you do not use unique merchant accounts for your competitions, you can do a quick review of the settings to ensure no changes are required and then move to the next step. Otherwise, you will need to create your merchant account.

To create a new merchant account simply click Add Merchant. You will then need to fill in the Merchant Detail, Your Billing Address, and Payment Methods sections.

In the Merchant Details section requires you to name your merchant. If you are using a club's merchant details it would be best to name the merchant after said club. You can also add a Transaction Prefix which will show in the Bambora reports to help you/them identify competition transactions.

In the Your Billing Address section you will want to enter the information for whomever owns the merchant account you are using. For example, if you are creating a merchant using a club's merchant details you will want to enter the club's details in this section.

In the Payment Methods section you can determine what type of payments you are willing to accept. Generally this is only Credit Card. By default the system should only show a single new method (cheque), which you can select and use the drop down to change to Credit Card. From there, you can enter the Bambora details to connect the account to your merchant. Please see our article Bambora for more information on this process.

Seasons are created via Products & Programs > Seasons. Our Seasons article offers more insights into the process for creating seasons.

The first step that will be required each competition is to create a season. A season will represent this year's version of the competition and you will want to create a new one for each competition, each year/instance. The season has a Season Start and Season End date that will represent the beginning and end of the competition. As well, each season you create will have an Age Cutoff Date. This should be set to the date on which age restrictions should be met. This is July 1st for many sections and Sept 1st for others.

Programs are created via Products & Programs > Programs. Our Programs article offers more insights into the process for creating programs.

The next setup step is to ensure you have the required programs in place. A program will represent an event within the competition and you will want to create a new program for each event within the competition.

When creating your programs most of the fields within the form will be self explanatory. However, there are a few that require distinct attention:

SKU: Your event SKUs require a specific structure to ensure they are interpreted by the reporting tools correctly. This format is EventCode:CatEventType:Discipline:Category:AgeCategory. It is imperative that you structure your SKU in this fashion so that your CSS report and music downloads are properly presented and organized.
Category/Category Level: Please be sure to select the correct category and category level for the event you are creating.
Season: Please be sure your program is being generated with the correct season selected. This drop down is only visible if you switch over to Advanced Settings mode (toggle at the top of the form).
First/Last Event Date: These dates can be set to the start and end of the competition.
Day/Time Description: As you likely will not know the day/time of each event at the time of creation you can simply enter "TBD" (to be determined).
Events List: You do not need to generate events within your program.
Fee: Each event will need a price. This should use the Flat Fee structure and have the event's cost noted. For Synchro events you will want to set this to the value of the event itself. Later in this process you will introduce any per-athlete costs.
Merchant: Please be sure the correct merchant is selected.
Age Cutoff Date: You can leave this blank, as the season's settings will apply to all programs.
Min/Max Participants Per Registration: These fields let you set up pairs/team registrations. By setting these values to more than 1 you can specify how large the group must be in order to register. For example, a Pair event would have a setting of 2/2 to ensure that a registration always has both partners. A Synchro event might have a larger variance with a setting of 8/24, or similar.

Programs are created via Products & Programs > Programs. Our Programs article offers more insights into the process for creating programs.

Similar to creating your competition events you will also need to make your PPCs. You will create one PPC for each event in the competition. When creating your PPC programs most of the fields within the form will be self explanatory and parallel the event you have created. However, there are a few that require distinct attention:

SKU: Your event SKUs can be anything you would like. However, we strongly recommend a serialized SKU structure to help you identify the PPC.
Season: Please be sure your program is being generated with the correct season selected. This drop down is only visible if you switch over to Advanced Settings mode (toggle at the top of the form).
First/Last Event Date: These dates can be set to the start and end of the competition.
Day/Time Description: As you likely will not know the day/time of each event at the time of creation you can simply enter "TBD" (to be determined).
Events List: You do not need to generate events within your program.
Fee: The cost of each PPC will be $0.
Merchant: Please be sure the correct merchant is selected.
Age Cutoff Date: You can leave this blank, as the season's settings will apply to all programs.
Min/Max Participants Per Registration: These fields can be left as 1/1 as pairs/team settings will be set on the event.

If you wish to make your PPCs mandatory you can introduce requirements. This would mean you are updating each program (event) in the season (competition) to require the parallel PPC program you have created. Please see our Requirements article for more information on introducing requirements.

Subscriptions are created via Products & Programs > Products & Subscriptions. Our Products, Tickets & Subscriptions article offers more insights into the process for creating subscriptions.

In instances like Synchro competitions or other cases where a per-athlete fee is required you will want to create a mandatory subscription. When creating your subscriptions most of the fields within the form will be self explanatory. However, there are a few that require distinct attention:

SKU: Your subscription SKUs can be anything you would like. However, we strongly recommend a serialized SKU structure to help you identify the subscription.
Applies To: This drop down should be set to Participant to ensure it applies once per skater. Whole-team costs should be accounted for in the program (event) cost.
This product is a subscription : This checkbox should be checked to ensure you are creating a subscription.
Duration Of Subscription: This should be set to None.
Make This Subscription Mandatory: This checkbox should be marked to ensure the fee applies automatically.
Tag Filters: Herein you will want to tag your appropriate items. This will include the season (competition) and the Synchro (or other appropriate category) category tag.
Fee: This should use the Flat Fee structure and have the per-athlete cost noted.

Custom Fields are created via Settings > Global Settings > Custom Fields. Our Custom Fields article offers more insights into the process for creating custom fields.

It's likely that your competition will require information to be provided by your users that Uplifter does not ask for intrinsically. To introduce fields of this nature please create custom fields. Custom fields can ask for any type of data you wish - names, dates, file uploads, image uploads - even music (see below).

When creating custom fields you will want to consider where and when the field should show up. For example, let's say you are creating a "Team Name" field. This field should show up when anyone signs up for a Synchro event. This statement is true regardless of what competition they sign up for, so we can create an Invoice Item Field and add tags to tell the system what items prompt the field. Therein, we can leave out any season (competition) tags as we want to ask this any time Synchro events are registered for. Instead, we can simply tag the Synchro category and this piece of information will be requested upon registering for any Synchro event.

If you are introducing custom fields into your system and are not sure about the best method of setting them up please reach out to support@uplifterinc.com any time.

Create/Confirm Music Custom Fields

Custom Fields are created via Settings > Global Settings > Custom Fields. Our Custom Fields article offers more insights into the process for creating custom fields.

To ensure you are capturing your registrant's planned program you will need to introduce/confirm you have the proper custom fields in place. Your PPC fields are unique custom fields that you will want to request on a per-registration basis. For best results, we recommend creating a PPC field series for each discipline.

When creating a PPC field you will want to use the Invoice Item Field option. Therein, you will name the field based on the discipline and the number of the element in the series, like "Singles Element 1", "Singles Element 2", etc. Within the field form you will need to use the Link To section to accurately associate the field you are creating to the right use case. In the case of PPC elements you will want to tag the appropriate PPC category levels of the discipline you are working with.

For example, I am creating my first competition and it has a series of Singles events. I have finished everything up until this point. I am now ready to add my PPC element fields. I navigate to Settings > Global Settings > Custom Fields and click to create a new Invoice Item Field. Therein I name the first field "Singles Element 1". In the Link To section I tag the Singles Short - 6 and 7, plus the Singles Free - 7 to 13. I repeat this for Singles Element 2 to 6.

On the creation of "Singles Element 7" however, I need to make a small change. I will not tag Singles Short - 6. Similarly, on the creation of "Singles Element 8" I will not tag Singles Short - 7 or Singles Free - 7 because the element count is higher than the category level count. In the above image example I have created Singles Element 10 where I have tagged Singles Free - 10 to 13 as these are the only discipline-based PPC category levels that are of equal or higher value to the element count.

By the end of things you should have a Singles Element series of 1 to 13, an Ice Dance and Pair element series that matches, and a Synchro element series as well.

Policies are created via Settings > Policies. Our Policies article offers more insights into the process for creating policies.

Each competition you offer likely has its own series of policies that must be accepted. Don't forget to add your new policies and use the Link To section to tag the appropriate competition (season) and/or categories and category levels to ensure the policy shows during the correct checkout instances.

Upon the creation of a new competition you may also wish to create a custom registration page for the purposes of presenting this single competition's events and PPCs. Please see our Public Website Management - Registration Pages article to learn more about this process.

The primary purpose of the Competition Event Export - Registered Participants For Skate Canada - CSS Export is to offer clubs a quick and easy way to pull a pre-designed report for their technicians. To do so there are a lot of filters to wade through. Some key elements to verify when pulling a CSS report for your tehcnician are:

Filter By Season: Use this filter to focus on a specific season (competition).
Filter By Category: Use this filter to focus on specific catgories. This can be handy if you only want registration information, or only PPC infomration.
Team Name Invoice Item Field: Use this filter to add any custom field(s) you are using to collect Team Names. This is especially important for reporting on Synchro competitions. Note that the system will find and auto-add any field with the term "Team Name" in it. You can remove or add fields as you wish.
Team Skate Canada Number Invoice Item Field: Similar to the above Team Name filter, this filter should be used when reporting on Sychro teams. The system will find and auto-add any field with the term "Team Skate Canada Number" or "Team Skate Canada #". You can remove or add fields as you wish.
Skate Canada Club Invoice Item Field: Use this filter to find any custom field(s) you are using to collect home clubs. Note that the system will find and auto-add any field with the term "Club" in it. You can remove or add fields as you wish.
Male Partner Skate Canada Club Invoice Item Field: Use this filter to find any custom field you are using to collect your Pair's male partner home club. Note that the system will find and auto-add any field with the term "Club" in it. You can remove or add fields as you wish.
Interpretive Event Name Invoice Item Field: Use this filter to find any custom field you are using to collect unique interpretive event names. Note that the system will find and auto-add any field with the term "Interpretive" in it. You can remove or add fields as you wish.
Registered Event Music Field: Use this filter to find any custom field you are using to collect short, rhythm, or pattern dance 1 music.
Short/Rhythm/Pattern Dance 1 Event Music Duration Field: Use this filter to find any custom field you are using to collect short, rhythm, or pattern dance 1 music duration.
Free Event Music Duration Field: Use this filter to find any custom field you are using to collect free music.
Free Event Music Duration Field: Use this filter to find any custom field you are using to collect free music duration.

After you have filtered your CSS report in the desired manner click Excel to download the information to pass along to your technician.

Music files can be obtained through the CSS report as well. Review the details noted in the above section for more information on the CSS report. After filtering the report as desired, click ZIP to download the audio files that your skaters supplied. These fields will be pre-filtered and renamed to organize them for fast and efficient use.

To purge your music please navigate to Settings > Global Settings > Custom Fields and select to Edit your music field. At the bottom of the form click on the "Delete all values assigned to this custom field" option. Please be sure you have downloaded/saved all the desired content from this field before proceeding.

Archiving your seasons (competitions) can help load times throughout your system. To archive a competition that is no longer in use please navigate to Products & Programs > Seasons. Therein, select the competition in question from the drop down. Click the Edit icon and scroll to the bottom of the form. Click the Archive button to tuck the season and its events away.

Note that you can restore a season if needed by navigating back to Products & Programs > Seasons and clicking the Restore icon, then choosing the desired season(s) to restore. You can also Copy directly from this list without restoring.

Removing subscriptions and fees from past seasons is a manual process that can be completed via Products & Programs > Products & Subscriptions. Here, filter to find your previous season's fees and click Delete next to fee. This will remove the item from the system but you can still report on any sales. Please note that you cannot restore deleted items, so be sure you are completely done with items before deleting them.