Playwiser Team Manager Guide

Home Team Setup Steps Nickname Usage Player Status (Player, Non-Player, Manager) Event Scheduling Cancelling an Event Rescheduling an Event Indicating Attendance Team Forum Team Mailing List Team Roster/Phone List Team Profile Legal Waivers Handling Money Collection Polls Availability and Performance Spam Controls Team Setup Steps: Register as a Playwiser user. Think carefully about a team name. Team names must be unique across all Playwiser registered teams and may only contain a combination of letters, numbers and dashes. There may be for instance many teams named Panthers, if that is taken, try something else meaningful like OttawaPanthers, U15Panthers or PanthersHockey etc. Mixing case improves readability. Try to keep the name short and easy to type as email to the team mailing list will be addressed to, for example, OttawaPanthers@playwiser.com. It is not possible for you to change the name of your team after it has been created. OttawaPanthers and ottawapanthers are considered identical for registration purposes so subsequent registrations will be rejected. Teams can have Open or Restricted registration. With an Open team, any Playwiser user can sign themselves up to your team. With Restricted teams, all players are added by invitation from the team manager(s) only. (note: player email addresses are needed to invite players). Invitations are placed into existing users accounts. If an invitee does not have a playwiser account, they will be notified of the invitation when they register with Playwiser. As creator of a team you are automatically a team manager and you can appoint other team managers. Most teams will want restricted registration to control who signs up to their team and to prevent any abuse by spammers that might sign up to the team to send spam to the team mailing list. If an unwanted player signs up to a team, any appointed Team Manager can remove them from the team as a first step, repeated abuse can be reported to Playwiser and the users account will be suspended. There is zero tolerance for use of Playwiser to send spam. In certain circumstances it may make sense to create an Open team, ask players to sign themselves up, then change the registration to Restricted using Update Team Profile to prevent abuse. Generally inviting users to join using the Add Player to Team function makes it much easier for users that are unfamiliar with the service to sign up. Click Register a New Team and provide the requested information. Click Add Player to Team, provide either an individual player’s email address or click the Time Saver link to bulk add up to 20 players at once. Players will be sent an invitation email message one time only. You can keep track of who has signed up by clicking the Team Roster link. Players signed up to the team will be listed followed by a list of players that have been invited and have not signed up yet. It may be necessary to follow up directly with some players if they don't sign up after a reasonable period of time. Players have the option of declining invitations and stale or declined invitations can be deleted from the Team Roster by the Team Manager/s. Email addresses of invitees listed in the invitation section are only visible to the Team Manager/s of this team and just until the player has accepted or declined the invitation. Other than being able to see your own email address when logged in, this is the only location where an email address will ever be displayed on Playwiser, never in a public place. You now have a Playwiser team! Nickname Usage Playwiser nickname presentation is necessarily different than what you encounter in typical web based forums. Examples of Playwiser nickname usage: Real name: John Smith Chosen nickname: BigJohn Identity in forms: BigJohn Identity within the team: John S (BigJohn) In order to function smoothly Playwiser needs to strike a balance between identification of known players in the roster, separation of duplicate common names and the anonymity required to protect the real identity of youth players in particular. In no place is a full real name or email address of the player displayed on the web site. Players should be cautioned that their real name may appear in email sent to the team mail list and resulting private team archives. In many cases it will be configured into the user’s own email programs. In most cases these are closed communities (i.e. The team) where all of the players are known to each other. The exception would be an Open team. Playwiser recommends that all youth teams have Restricted registration. The system will also function well if players elect to sign up with a single initial in place of their last name. Player Status (Player, Non-Player, Manager) Player All normal rights to post to team mailing lists and forums. View upcoming events. Can update their own event attendance information. Receives and can respond to event notifications. Non-Player All normal rights to post to team mailing lists and forums. View upcoming events. Receives event notifications, responses are ignored. No attendance tracking, not displayed on Event Details page. Identified in roster with (NP). Intended Use: This is for parents, coaches, fans, friends of the team and others that you want to have as part of your group for communications reasons. By designating these people as Non-Players they will not be mixed into the player attendance information displays. Non-Players can identify themselves when accepting invitation to the team or the Team Manager can change their status later by following the Change Player Status link. Team Manager Schedule and update scheduled events (Event Calendar). Update the attendance information of another player. View phone numbers in the Team Roster if provided by players. Modify the Team Notice displayed on the Event Details page. All normal rights to post to team mailing lists and forums. Moderator for Team Forum, can Edit/Delete Topics and can Edit/Delete Posts. Invite new players to the team (Add Player to Team). Cancel invitations (Team Roster). Remove players (Remove Player from Team). Appoint other Team Managers (Change Player Status). Change player status to Player or Non-Player (Change Player Status). Update the team profile (Update Team Profile). Can participate as a Player or Non-Player. Event Scheduling: Click the Event Calendar link, then click on the date of your event (click on the actual day number). You can advance the month by clicking the arrows at the top of the calendar. Only Team Managers can schedule events, you can assign other players as Team Managers by selecting Change Team Managers. Enter the event title and start time, the remaining fields may be entered or left at default values. By default, event notices will be sent to all players two (2) days before the event (you can specify that event notices are sent out anywhere from 1 to 12 days in advance of the event date). You also have the option of sending out immediate notification (this is in addition to the scheduled event notification). Notices are sent between midnight and 5:00 AM (EST GMT-5 or EDT GMT-4) the specified number of days before the event. Players can reply to these messages indicating if they will attend and the Event Status page will automatically be updated. There is no recurring event capability. It typically takes a just few minutes to enter an entire seasons worth of events. Your browser will usually offer to fill repeated fields for you. Events may also be updated by Team Managers, simply view the event and select the Update Event button. This feature can be used to send out new scheduled or immediate event notices (even without changing the event fields). Cancelling an Event: Events are never deleted or removed as players may have received notice and this would be confusing. Typically you would cancel an event by sending an email message to the team mailing list. You probably also want to update the Team Notice which is displayed on the Event Details page (click on Change Notice). Only Team Managers can change the notice. It is possible that a player may check the Event Details page and not their email before leaving for the event. Remember to remove the Team Notice when appropriate, it will be displayed across all events until it is changed or removed. Players will find it particularly useful to check the Event Details page just prior to events that are significantly affected by weather or low player counts etc. Note: you can also update the Description field of the Event to indicate that the event has been cancelled. Rescheduling an Event: You can move a scheduled event to a different time and/or day by editing the event and changing the time and/or date fields. You then have the usual event notification options (immediate and scheduled notices). Indicating Attendance: Players can indicate attendance by replying to event notification email messages they receive or by visiting the Playwiser web site. Upon connecting to the Playwiser site the Event Details page of the next scheduled event is always displayed first. This is considered one of the most useful features of the service as it is most important to players and Team Managers. As a Team Manager you can update the attendance information for other players by clicking on their names in cases where someone may have phoned in. Only Team Managers have this capability. Players are given the option of ”maybe” attending, bringing extra players or guests, arriving late or leaving early. These are important factors in determining attendance variability where low player counts might mean defaulting of games, necessity to bring in spares or other consequences. Playwiser is designed to be flexible and support the broadest range of recreational sports and activities possible. You may however, run a very structured team where selecting these options is considered unacceptable. In those cases it is recommended that you publish team rules indicating these conditions in the team forum (see below for team forum usage instructions). Team Forum: The Team Forum is only visible to your team. You can post rules, maps, documents, photos, links or conduct discussions etc. As a Team Manager you have moderation rights to the Team Forum and can add, edit and delete topics, and edit or delete posts (regular players can only add topics and posts and cannot edit or delete them). When adding links to posts you simply cut and paste them in along with a description. Examples might be map links, weather links or links to venues and such. As a team manager you have the option to edit a link post and perform additional formatting by selecting ”Edit HTML Post”. This is only for Team Managers that understand HTML and wish to spend the time to create nicely formatted link lists and posts for their players. This is by no means a requirement. It is only intended to provide additional functionality for those who understand this technology and wish to use it. Team Mailing List: All players are automatically added to the team mailing list. Messages sent via the Send Message to Team link or messages sent from your own email program to YourTeamName@playwiser.com will be delivered to all team players. Replies to those messages automatically go back to the list (ie. replies are automatically sent to all team players). Messages may contain attachments. They are scanned for viruses and the maximum message size is intentionally limited to 40K bytes. Larger messages could be a burden for users of mobile devices. All messages are archived and searchable by following the View Team Messages link. Attachments are not archived. Larger attachments should be posted to the team forum and if desirable a link to the post could be included in a message sent to the team mailing list. Players must be members of the team to send messages to the mailing list and they must do this from the email address they use to log into Playwiser. Messages from unregistered addresses are rejected, this keeps spammers from sending to the list. The team mailing list is preferred over posting to the team forum when communicating time sensitive information among team members. Team Roster/Phone List: The team roster will be populated with phone numbers. This replaces a traditional phone list used by many teams. The phone numbers are only visible to Team Managers and only if players provide them. Players can also choose to have their phone numbers visible in their public profile. For privacy reasons the choice is always up to the player in terms of how available this information should be. Team Profile: How much or how little information you place in the Team Profile is completely up to your discretion as a Team Manager. Players looking for teams can click on your team name in the ”Search Teams” pages and will then see your team profile information. If you are looking for new players you may wish to indicate that here along with a thorough description of your team. Posting to the public forums is another useful recruiting method. Legal Waivers: Many teams require signed legal liability waivers in order to participate. Sometimes these are signed documents and these can easily be posted to the team forum where they can be downloaded, printed, physically signed and returned. Simply send email to the team mailing list telling players about the waiver and include a link to the forum post. In some cases ”electronic” signatures are used where a player replies to an email message indicating something like ”I ACCEPT” and their name. These sort of ”electronic” signatures should NOT be posted to Playwiser Forums as there are problems of traceability over time, potential for forgery and issues of non-repudiation. Playwiser will not attempt to verify the authenticity of any such communication for any user of the system or any third party. Teams wishing to gather ”electronic” waiver signatures should have the players directly email those to a team member and not use Playwiser as a delivery mechanism. Email headers are somewhat more traceable than web forum posts but Playwiser’s view is that there are still significant issues of non-repudiation because email is easily forged. As such, Playwiser recommends seeking proper legal advice before using any such scheme. Handling Money Collection: Team Managers have the option of clicking on player names in the event details pages and selecting Paid (regular players do not have this option). The comments field next to that player will then indicate Paid, this will be visible to the entire team. This can be done for any event. For seasonal fees, simply schedule an event for the due date and indicate the payment details. Polls: You can easily poll your team members using the Playwiser Event feature. Create a new event that will become the poll. Use the description field to ask your 'polling' question and provide any instructions. Team members can respond as they usually would: Will attend/Will not attend are equivalent to Agree/Don't agree. Sample Multiple Choice Question: 1 - Black 2 - Red 3 - Green Sample Answers: (for clarity we recommend providing a sample to players) 1 = Attending(yes) + 0 Extra Players 2 = Attending(yes) + 1 Extra Players 3 = Attending(yes) + 2 Extra Players When you are satisfied with the question and instructions, use the ”Immediate Notification” option to send out notices that the team members can respond to. Availability and Performance: Playwiser has been designed and implemented using state of the art, highly efficient and modular technologies. The architecture can easily be scaled to support vast numbers of teams and players. The application has also been designed to be extremely light weight in terms of data sent to users so it will be very responsive on low speed dial-up connections etc. The system provides near instantaneous response to all requests and it is Playwiser’s desire to maintain that level of responsiveness. Additional infrastructure will be added to keep pace with demand. Playwiser is hosted on our own hardware in a secure commercial Class A data centre with full power backup, redundant cooling and very high speed fully redundant Internet connectivity to several large carrier networks. High levels of availability are expected and are the norm. The system maintenance window runs from 0600 to 1000 Sundays (Canada Eastern Time: GMT -0500 winter, GMT -0400 summer). This being said, Playwiser is a free service and there are no availability guarantees. The service should not be used for any commercial purpose and users assume all risks related to any sort of system failure or unavailability. Playwiser shall not be liable for any third party loss related to any errors, data loss or inability to access this free service. Spam Controls: Playwiser has been designed from the ground up with extensive abuse prevention measures built into every feature. Based on the site design and the structure of the service, the scale of any potential abuse should be extremely limited, particularly for teams with Restricted sign up. Playwiser staff have many years of experience in delivering production Internet email and web services for high profile organizations so the issues are well understood. Playwiser has a zero tolerance policy against using any part of the service for the posting or sending of spam. In order to protect its good reputation, Playwiser is relentless in resolving abuse related issues. Team Managers that are extremely concerned about spam related issues may wish to continue reading about the extensive abuse prevention measures contained in the Email Handling Details section below . The text is structured to addresses many best practice issues related to the provision of mail services. It is a bit technical and may not be of interest to some. If you wish to report an abuse situation please contact us by following the Contact Playwiser link. Email Handling Details: Team mailing lists only accept messages from team member’s email addresses. There are restrictions on the number of messages any single player can send per hour (100) and a maximum message size (40K bytes). Mailing lists do not support email based subscription or member listing functions. The unsubscribe function is handled from the web interface by selecting Quit Team. This is done in order to maintain synchronization with other team features. A player must have an account and be on a team, then they are included in the mailing list. No user of the system can add another person’s email address to a mailing list. Players can only be invited to join a team. All Playwiser accounts are Double Opt-In on creation. Nobody can create an account for somebody else. Before an account is activated a confirmation code is sent via email to the player. They must enter this code at first login. Accounts that have not been fully activated will receive no further communication from Playwiser. No player is added to a team and related mailing list without them explicitly accepting an invitation to join a team. Invitations can also be declined and they will disappear from the user interface. Other than an initial invitation, no email will ever be sent to a team invitee that has never signed up to the Playwiser service. Players can quit any team (Quit Team). They will be removed from the related mailing list and Contact Player functions. Players can cancel their account using the Cancel Account feature and they will be removed from all teams/mailing lists and will receive no further communication from Playwiser. Every message sent by the Playwiser service includes a footer detailing how to unsubscribe via the web interface. Addressees in all form based email are predefined internally by Playwiser. No arbitrary addresses may be entered. No email addresses are displayed in public areas where they could be harvested by spambots. Captcha challenges are used in contact forms for Private Messages (PM) and Team Manager contact forms so submission cannot be scripted. In addition to this, senders must have valid accounts and be logged in to access these features. Playwiser does not sell any services to players or teams. The only communications sent directly by Playwiser are related to player account administration or management of the service. Player email addresses are only used for participation in the Playwiser team management service, they will never be used for any other purpose and will never be disclosed to any other party. Message bounces for mailing lists, team and account related emails are logged and some cases messages are captured for analysis. All lists and automated notifications have deliverable bounce handler addresses. Cleansing of email lists is manual at this point and Playwiser may contact a team that has bouncing email. This process may be automated in the future. Some messages may appear to come from members of a team but message headers properly identify Playwiser as the originator of all messages. Open teams WILL eventually have spammers sign up, it is inevitable and it cannot be controlled. The Team Manager should just remove them from the team, if they resubscribe, contact Playwiser and the users account will be suspended. If the abuse becomes significant you might consider switching the team to Restricted sign up so that only invited players may join. Playwiser uses a very sophisticated mail platform utilizing the following features: Sender Policy Framework (SPF), Real-time Blackhole Lists (RBL), manual blacklists, grey listing, Spam URI Real-time Block Lists(SURBL), spam traps, content filtering with spam tagging, blocking of malicious attachment types and virus scanning etc. The platform will continue to evolve to keep pace with changing spamming tactics.

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