11
Team Management- Captain’s Perspective
Accessing the Tool
The Team Management tool is listed under the “My Quick Links” area on TennisLink Leagues. Captains must be logged into their USTA account to access Team Management.
Clicking on “Team Management” will take a captain to their personalized Team Management page. All teams this user captains or co-captains are displayed.
Setting Team Preferences
Captains can click on “Set Team Preferences” on the top right to adjust settings and add messages.
Users can add a message for their team or a message to the public, or both. A “Captain’s Message” will show on the team page in the Team Management tool (this is the red font “This is the Captain’s NEW message 123” above). This message will also be included when captains email match lineups to players. A “Message to the Public” will display on the “Match Summary” tab in Stats and Standings. It will be visible to all users.
Under the messaging boxes, there are three customizable publishing options. Captains can choose to email published lineups to Scheduled Players, Alternates, and Unassigned players. Emails will be automatically issued from the system in accordance with the selections made when a match line up is published. If all boxes are checked, all players on the roster will receive match lineup emails. If only one or two of the options are selected, only those players will receive the emails. Captains can also choose to Display detailed lineup in the Team Management tool for all players to see, or for Scheduled players, Alternates, or Unassigned payers. Please note that the settings for “Email published detail lineups” and “Display detail lineups” should match. For example, in the screen shot below all players will receive an automatic email when the match lineup is published, but only Scheduled players can see the detail lineup in the Team Management tool. This means that when Alternates and Unassigned players receive an email notifying them that a match line up has been published, they will receive an access denied error message when trying to access the link, even if logged in.
All players must be logged in to access the link in the notification email.
The system also offers the ability to automatically send “reminder” emails to the team. Captains can choose to have this email sent between 1 and 7 days in advance. They can also select “0” if they wish the send a reminder email the day of the match.
Captains must always click “Save Preferences” to save their changes.
Captains can use the “breadcrumbs” to go back to the team page.
Setting Match Lineups
Captains can click on the match date to the left of a match to set or edit a lineup.
The top portion of the lineup page enables captains to enter “Announcements”. These will appear in the email notifications that are sent to players when a lineup is published. There is also a field for “Rescheduled Message” so that if a captain needs to reschedule a match for any reason, they can include a brief explanation to players. This will also be included in the automatically generated email that goes out to players when the schedule is re-published.
Other fields are listed below.
Match Date: Populated from schedule in League Tree – NOT EDITABLE
Start Time: Populated from schedule in League Tree – NOT EDITABLE
Duration: Populated from schedule in League Tree – NOT EDITABLE
# Matches 1st time: This is where the captain can select how many matches will start at the first match time, if the match time is split in the schedule in the League Tree.
2nd Start time: The captain can choose the second start time if the match time is split in the schedule in the League Tree.
Indoor/Outdoor: Captain can set whether or not the match will be indoor or outdoor.
Court surface: Captain can select court surface.
Location: Populated from schedule in League Tree – NOT EDITABLE
Opposing Team: Populated from schedule in League Tree – NOT EDITABLE
Home/away: Populated from schedule in League Tree – NOT EDITABLE
Importance: Set at the discretion of the captain, using whatever criteria they choose.
Below Match Details are the match positions where players can be selected for the lineup.
Hover over the “Choose” link and a pop up box will appear with all players on the team, categorized by the availability they have set using the Team Management tool. Their preferences will display beneath their name, if set. The number of matches in which they are currently scheduled will show in parenthesis after their name.
Click the radio button to the left of the player name and then “Choose” to commit the player to the line of the match. The entire lineup does not need to be complete to save the changes. Captains must click the “Save” button at the bottom to save their work.
Once saved, a match will have the options listed below.
Edit: Make changes to or complete the lineup.
Delete: Remove the lineup
Copy: Make another copy of the match so that the captain can create multiple versions of the lineup.
Publish: Publishes the detail lineup in the Team Management tool and auto generates an email with a link to the lineup for selected players.
Print: Print a copy of the lineup.
Excel: Export the lineup to excel.
Create Practice Lineups
Captains can create practice lineups by clicking “Add Practice Lineups”.
The process is the same as setting a match line up with the exception of the Match Details. Since those populate from the League Tree and there are no practice lineups in the League Tree, all Match Detail fields are editable. Captains can complete them as necessary.
Emailing Players
There are two options for emailing players found in the bottom left corner of the team page.
The “Email all team players” link will pull up the user’s default email client and populate the “To:” field of a blank email with the email addresses of each player on the team. Any email addresses can be added, any unwanted can be removed. To email only one specific player, the Captain can click on the players name in the Players box.
Captains can click “Email Registration Notices” to email players from previous teams to encourage them to register for a current team. This link will present the captain with a pop up box with a list of their previous teams. The captain can select the team or teams for which they would like a list of players. Once the teams are selected, “Update Player List” will bring up a list of players on each of the teams selected. The Captain can then manually select players individually or click the check box to the left of “Player Name” to email all players in the list. The system will send a system-generated email to each selected player, notifying them that a new team is open for registration. The email includes the team number as well as a link to registration.
Player Availability
Captains can view and set player availability in the Team Management tool. To view player preference and availability details for only one player, captain can hover over their name in the “Players” list.
To view availability in a grid format, for multiple players, or to set player availability, Captains can click “View Team Player Availability”.
The Captain will first select for which players they would like to view availability, then for which matches, and then if they want to see availability or assignments, or both. “Show Results” will display the details that the Captain has selected to see for each of the selected players.
The Captain can simply review the results, referring to the key below the grid for reference, if needed.
Captains can set a player’s availability by clicking on the player’s name in the grid and then clicking “Edit Availability”.
From the next screen they can set the selected player’s availability.
As always, once complete, it is important to click “Update Availability” to save changes.
For any additional Team Management questions, please email the USTA TennisLink Team at .