Recently Added Features - Summer 2011
To start your Summer off with a bang we’ve added more features than you can shake a stick at! One of the best things about having over 300 schools using IMLeagues is that we're able to leverage our massive user base to get so many unique perspectives, and even 1 person's great idea can help benefit the rest of the IMLeagues family!
And don't worry, there are many more amazing features on the way this summer so stay tuned for more great updates (completely cross platform mobile app being one of them!!). As always we strongly encourage your continued feedback and suggestions, so please keep them coming - we're always adding to and improving the site based directly off of your suggestions!
Option for Teams to Select Playoff Positions in Brackets
Great new feature where you can seed teams and let them choose their own position in playoff brackets - very similar to a Yahoo Fantasy Football Draft! This way you can set all of your times etc. and let the teams decide where they want to be in the bracket. To use this feature just check the box for “Allow teams to select playoff positions” and select the date and time that the #1 seed will be able to select their position, and the time interval that each successive team will be able to choose (ex: every 5 mins, or 10 mins, etc.). Teams will see a countdown on their team page until the time that they can select their position, and if they arrive late it’s no problem, they can still select from the remaining playoff spots.
Ladder Scheduling
We’ve now added a feature for ladder scheduling! This is great for tennis or racquetball leagues – you can decide how many positions up or down in the standings a person can challenge someone else, and then let your students challenge each other through IMLeagues, agree on playing times, and input their own scores (after a score is input the other player is notified and has 2 days to confirm or dispute it or else it is auto-confirmed). Standings will automatically adjust as results are confirmed, if the higher seed wins then nothing changes, and if the lower seed wins then the lower seed takes the higher seed’s spot and the higher seed moves down 1 position.
Major Overhaul of Add Players Area
We’ve made it easier than ever for admins to add players directly to teams! The search is much more robust and will show you relevant teams that the person is on to help you decide if they should be allowed to be added to the team or not. It will also warn you if you try to add someone who shouldn’t be allowed to join the team based on your joining restrictions or if their student ID is invalid. And now you can add players by simply inputting their student ID!!
***Nerd Alert*** Here is some of the logic that we used:
Enter Student ID -> the system checks for any accounts with a matching ID -> if it finds an account with a matching ID it shows the person to be added
If no accounts have a matching ID -> it checks the uploaded student ID sheet and if it matches an ID on that sheet then it also grabs the associated email for that ID on the sheet and checks to see if that email matches any accounts in our system (using everything up to the @ for both to not run into issues with @students.schools.edu vs @school.edu vs @email.school.edu, etc.)
If the email matches one on an account in our system then it will show the account and populate the ID for the account to be added
But if the email still didn’t match any accounts in our system then it will pull all of the info that it can from the ID sheet and fill it in so you can easily create the account and add them to the team with a single click.
No need to fill in any of the student’s information by hand as long as it’s on the ID sheet!!
Overhaul of Schedule Area on Team Pages
We’ve redesigned the Schedule area on Team Pages to look much nicer, and we’ve also included a cool effect when you click on the location of a game, which will expand an inline google map to show the exact location on a map. We know students love interacting as a team on the site and wanted to give them additional cool/fun features for them to enjoy!
Great Looking Calendar Added to User Home Page
We’ve added a great looking calendar and added it to the user home page. All games, playoff games, events, games you’re assigned to ref, and playoff games you’re assigned to ref will show up here, and all have a distinct color to make it extremely easy to visualize your upcoming schedule.
Google Image Search On Team Creation
When you enter a team name on the create team page, our system now automatically does a google image search based on the team name and displays the results so teams can easily use those images for their team. They can still also upload their own images or opt for no image at all.
Ability To Edit Suspensions
You’ll now notice an Edit link listed next to suspensions which you can use to edit them. This is great if you suspend players indefinitely until you have a meeting with them, at which point you can determine the length of their suspension and edit it on our site to show 1 record of suspension for the correct duration.
New Approve “Teams” Area for Admins
In the Member Management area we’ve added a new tab called “Teams” which can be used to easily manage teams within your leagues. This includes a search, and you have the ability to approve/unapproved teams or mark teams as paid/unpaid directly from the results, so you can easily search for all unapproved teams in a sport or league, and then approve them all if you’d like - no need to go league by league anymore!
Option for Double Win
On the score sheets you’ll see an extra option for Double Win which can be used to give both teams a win for the game. These are often used for softball rainouts or other times that teams shouldn’t be penalized for a loss.
Export and Printable View Buttons Added To Sport Page
On the Sport Page you’ll notice Export and Printable View buttons that can be used to get all of the team and captain info for all teams in active leagues and divisions at once. So this is your 1 click solution if you want to print out a list of all teams, captains, and contact info for your captain’s meetings! …although it does raise the question of why you aren’t running your captains meetings online through IMLeagues!!
Randomize Schedule Option For Scheduler
You’ll notice an extra checkbox on the schedule settings page for “Randomize Schedule.” What this will do is randomly select the order that rounds within a round robin are played each time the scheduler is run. This is a feature that has always defaulted to be enabled, but we’ve found that it is often better to not randomize the order of the rounds within a round robin to make it easier if you need to re-run your scheduler and keep the matchups that you had previously scheduled.
Admins Now Have The Ability To Edit Member Names and Genders
Ask and ye shall receive! As an admin you can now change member names and genders – just click Edit from Member Management for any members that you’d like to modify.
Inviting Members Now Links To Your School Specific Registration Page
Now if a captain invites someone to their team who isn’t yet a member of IMLeagues, the email that is sent inviting them to join will link them directly to your school specific registration page instead of the general IMLeagues one. This makes it easier for those members to create accounts and warn them if they try to use an email address that will need to be manually approved to join your school.
Playoff Bracket Major Speed Improvements
We changed a lot of underlying code for playoff brackets to make them MUCH MUCH faster. We will always be looking for ways to improve performance of the site, but this one can make a big difference, especially for large brackets.
Team History Added To Team Pages
On the Team Page we added a link for Team History. This link will track every time something happens with the team, and display the exact day/time that it happened. This makes it very easy if you ever need to go back and verify the exact second that a member requested to join a team or when the captain approved that request and the member was actually placed on the team.
Option To Include Playoff Games in Standings
This option can be found in the League Details tab of League Settings, and when enabled it will take playoff games into account for team standings. This is very useful if you track all-campus points based off of total wins including playoffs.
Assign a Frat/Sorority Chair
In Member Management you can now change someone’s permission to be “Chair.” This is meant for fraternity or sorority chairs who should have the ability to create and manage multiple teams. Anyone who you assign as a chair will prompted if they are creating the team as a player or chair and if they choose Chair they will be marked as “Chair” on the team roster and score sheets. Anyone assigned as a Chair will be subject to the same joining restrictions as all other players when creating or joining teams as a player, but will be able to create as many teams as they’d like as a chair (but they will be clearly marked as a chair on those teams).
Option to Delete All Games Within Multiple Divisions At Once
This is a great option if you are using our 1-Click scheduler to schedule tons of divisions/leagues all at once – but then you decide you want to remove the schedule and re-run it. The option can be found at the bottom right of the Run Schedule pages from the Sport and League Pages, and you can select as many divisions as you’d like (nice easy select all link at the top of the page) and then click Delete Schedule to obliterate the schedule from those divisions.
Improved Incorrect Email/Password Page
This was mainly a visual change, but we also re-worked the process for resetting passwords in the process to be easier on your students. We will implementing a TON of visual and usability improvements this summer as well!
Reformatted Settings Pages For Smaller Screens
We’ve gone through the major settings pages of Sport, League, and Division and reformatted them to include better tabs and also to work without a scrollbar on screens with small resolutions. This should help everyone who is adjusting settings on the go from their phone!
Option To Collect Additional Info When Players Create or Join Teams
In school settings you’ll see a new area for “Additional Info To Collect” where you can enter in any additional information you’d like to collect about your participants (i.e. emergency contact info, etc.). There is an option to display this information on the team rosters and it will be stored in the Schools tab of their Edit Profile page, so they can edit it later if something changes.
Improved Photo Upload Area
We’ve added a great new photo uploader to the photos area on our Sport Pages. This now allows you to upload multiple images at once, showing the upload progress of each image as it goes! This is just the tip of the iceberg though as we revamp all of our image areas.
Improvement To Accepting Invitations with Quizzes
We’ve made the process of accepting an invitation to a team that has a required quiz much simpler by removing the need to pass the quiz and then accept the invitation; it has been rolled up into 1 process!
Enhanced Functionality When Students Request To Add Their Student ID To The Sheet
We’ve now made the process of requesting to have your student ID added to the list easier for students, and it will also display in an improved manor for you as administrators.
Option To Allow Teams To Switch To Unlocked Divisions
Now you have the option to allow teams to switch from a locked to an unlocked division during the registration period. In the past once a division locks all teams were locked into it (this is still the default, but you can change it in League Settings). This is perfect for when students can’t make up their mind for which time they want to play!
Added An Alert To The User Home Page When You Can Submit Your Score
If you use the option to “Allow Teams To Report Scores” for sports such as tennis and racquetball, we’ve now added an alert to the member’s home page to remind them to report their scores – in the past this alert was only on the team pages.
And don't worry, there are many more amazing features on the way this summer so stay tuned for more great updates (completely cross platform mobile app being one of them!!). As always we strongly encourage your continued feedback and suggestions, so please keep them coming - we're always adding to and improving the site based directly off of your suggestions!
Option for Teams to Select Playoff Positions in Brackets
Great new feature where you can seed teams and let them choose their own position in playoff brackets - very similar to a Yahoo Fantasy Football Draft! This way you can set all of your times etc. and let the teams decide where they want to be in the bracket. To use this feature just check the box for “Allow teams to select playoff positions” and select the date and time that the #1 seed will be able to select their position, and the time interval that each successive team will be able to choose (ex: every 5 mins, or 10 mins, etc.). Teams will see a countdown on their team page until the time that they can select their position, and if they arrive late it’s no problem, they can still select from the remaining playoff spots.
Ladder Scheduling
We’ve now added a feature for ladder scheduling! This is great for tennis or racquetball leagues – you can decide how many positions up or down in the standings a person can challenge someone else, and then let your students challenge each other through IMLeagues, agree on playing times, and input their own scores (after a score is input the other player is notified and has 2 days to confirm or dispute it or else it is auto-confirmed). Standings will automatically adjust as results are confirmed, if the higher seed wins then nothing changes, and if the lower seed wins then the lower seed takes the higher seed’s spot and the higher seed moves down 1 position.
Major Overhaul of Add Players Area
We’ve made it easier than ever for admins to add players directly to teams! The search is much more robust and will show you relevant teams that the person is on to help you decide if they should be allowed to be added to the team or not. It will also warn you if you try to add someone who shouldn’t be allowed to join the team based on your joining restrictions or if their student ID is invalid. And now you can add players by simply inputting their student ID!!
***Nerd Alert*** Here is some of the logic that we used:
Enter Student ID -> the system checks for any accounts with a matching ID -> if it finds an account with a matching ID it shows the person to be added
If no accounts have a matching ID -> it checks the uploaded student ID sheet and if it matches an ID on that sheet then it also grabs the associated email for that ID on the sheet and checks to see if that email matches any accounts in our system (using everything up to the @ for both to not run into issues with @students.schools.edu vs @school.edu vs @email.school.edu, etc.)
If the email matches one on an account in our system then it will show the account and populate the ID for the account to be added
But if the email still didn’t match any accounts in our system then it will pull all of the info that it can from the ID sheet and fill it in so you can easily create the account and add them to the team with a single click.
No need to fill in any of the student’s information by hand as long as it’s on the ID sheet!!
Overhaul of Schedule Area on Team Pages
We’ve redesigned the Schedule area on Team Pages to look much nicer, and we’ve also included a cool effect when you click on the location of a game, which will expand an inline google map to show the exact location on a map. We know students love interacting as a team on the site and wanted to give them additional cool/fun features for them to enjoy!
Great Looking Calendar Added to User Home Page
We’ve added a great looking calendar and added it to the user home page. All games, playoff games, events, games you’re assigned to ref, and playoff games you’re assigned to ref will show up here, and all have a distinct color to make it extremely easy to visualize your upcoming schedule.
Google Image Search On Team Creation
When you enter a team name on the create team page, our system now automatically does a google image search based on the team name and displays the results so teams can easily use those images for their team. They can still also upload their own images or opt for no image at all.
Ability To Edit Suspensions
You’ll now notice an Edit link listed next to suspensions which you can use to edit them. This is great if you suspend players indefinitely until you have a meeting with them, at which point you can determine the length of their suspension and edit it on our site to show 1 record of suspension for the correct duration.
New Approve “Teams” Area for Admins
In the Member Management area we’ve added a new tab called “Teams” which can be used to easily manage teams within your leagues. This includes a search, and you have the ability to approve/unapproved teams or mark teams as paid/unpaid directly from the results, so you can easily search for all unapproved teams in a sport or league, and then approve them all if you’d like - no need to go league by league anymore!
Option for Double Win
On the score sheets you’ll see an extra option for Double Win which can be used to give both teams a win for the game. These are often used for softball rainouts or other times that teams shouldn’t be penalized for a loss.
Export and Printable View Buttons Added To Sport Page
On the Sport Page you’ll notice Export and Printable View buttons that can be used to get all of the team and captain info for all teams in active leagues and divisions at once. So this is your 1 click solution if you want to print out a list of all teams, captains, and contact info for your captain’s meetings! …although it does raise the question of why you aren’t running your captains meetings online through IMLeagues!!
Randomize Schedule Option For Scheduler
You’ll notice an extra checkbox on the schedule settings page for “Randomize Schedule.” What this will do is randomly select the order that rounds within a round robin are played each time the scheduler is run. This is a feature that has always defaulted to be enabled, but we’ve found that it is often better to not randomize the order of the rounds within a round robin to make it easier if you need to re-run your scheduler and keep the matchups that you had previously scheduled.
Admins Now Have The Ability To Edit Member Names and Genders
Ask and ye shall receive! As an admin you can now change member names and genders – just click Edit from Member Management for any members that you’d like to modify.
Inviting Members Now Links To Your School Specific Registration Page
Now if a captain invites someone to their team who isn’t yet a member of IMLeagues, the email that is sent inviting them to join will link them directly to your school specific registration page instead of the general IMLeagues one. This makes it easier for those members to create accounts and warn them if they try to use an email address that will need to be manually approved to join your school.
Playoff Bracket Major Speed Improvements
We changed a lot of underlying code for playoff brackets to make them MUCH MUCH faster. We will always be looking for ways to improve performance of the site, but this one can make a big difference, especially for large brackets.
Team History Added To Team Pages
On the Team Page we added a link for Team History. This link will track every time something happens with the team, and display the exact day/time that it happened. This makes it very easy if you ever need to go back and verify the exact second that a member requested to join a team or when the captain approved that request and the member was actually placed on the team.
Option To Include Playoff Games in Standings
This option can be found in the League Details tab of League Settings, and when enabled it will take playoff games into account for team standings. This is very useful if you track all-campus points based off of total wins including playoffs.
Assign a Frat/Sorority Chair
In Member Management you can now change someone’s permission to be “Chair.” This is meant for fraternity or sorority chairs who should have the ability to create and manage multiple teams. Anyone who you assign as a chair will prompted if they are creating the team as a player or chair and if they choose Chair they will be marked as “Chair” on the team roster and score sheets. Anyone assigned as a Chair will be subject to the same joining restrictions as all other players when creating or joining teams as a player, but will be able to create as many teams as they’d like as a chair (but they will be clearly marked as a chair on those teams).
Option to Delete All Games Within Multiple Divisions At Once
This is a great option if you are using our 1-Click scheduler to schedule tons of divisions/leagues all at once – but then you decide you want to remove the schedule and re-run it. The option can be found at the bottom right of the Run Schedule pages from the Sport and League Pages, and you can select as many divisions as you’d like (nice easy select all link at the top of the page) and then click Delete Schedule to obliterate the schedule from those divisions.
Improved Incorrect Email/Password Page
This was mainly a visual change, but we also re-worked the process for resetting passwords in the process to be easier on your students. We will implementing a TON of visual and usability improvements this summer as well!
Reformatted Settings Pages For Smaller Screens
We’ve gone through the major settings pages of Sport, League, and Division and reformatted them to include better tabs and also to work without a scrollbar on screens with small resolutions. This should help everyone who is adjusting settings on the go from their phone!
Option To Collect Additional Info When Players Create or Join Teams
In school settings you’ll see a new area for “Additional Info To Collect” where you can enter in any additional information you’d like to collect about your participants (i.e. emergency contact info, etc.). There is an option to display this information on the team rosters and it will be stored in the Schools tab of their Edit Profile page, so they can edit it later if something changes.
Improved Photo Upload Area
We’ve added a great new photo uploader to the photos area on our Sport Pages. This now allows you to upload multiple images at once, showing the upload progress of each image as it goes! This is just the tip of the iceberg though as we revamp all of our image areas.
Improvement To Accepting Invitations with Quizzes
We’ve made the process of accepting an invitation to a team that has a required quiz much simpler by removing the need to pass the quiz and then accept the invitation; it has been rolled up into 1 process!
Enhanced Functionality When Students Request To Add Their Student ID To The Sheet
We’ve now made the process of requesting to have your student ID added to the list easier for students, and it will also display in an improved manor for you as administrators.
Option To Allow Teams To Switch To Unlocked Divisions
Now you have the option to allow teams to switch from a locked to an unlocked division during the registration period. In the past once a division locks all teams were locked into it (this is still the default, but you can change it in League Settings). This is perfect for when students can’t make up their mind for which time they want to play!
Added An Alert To The User Home Page When You Can Submit Your Score
If you use the option to “Allow Teams To Report Scores” for sports such as tennis and racquetball, we’ve now added an alert to the member’s home page to remind them to report their scores – in the past this alert was only on the team pages.