Jul 26, 2022 • 5 min read
An admin entering registration season is like a college athlete preparing for pre-season. There’s so much to prepare for, so many unknowns, and the constant feeling of stress takes over. We at TeamSnap understand that registration can be one of the most stressful times of the year for a sports organization; from preseason communications, collecting information and fees from hundreds of athletes, to then setting up your registration up online. In an effort to help you approach registration season with a little more confidence and excitement, we are here to breakdown the key components of registration building to help you open your registration in 7 days or even less.
Uh, oh, who’s building the registration form? You don’t want to be in that situation ever, so connect with the key stakeholders in your organization to decide first-off who will be responsible for building your registration form in TeamSnap. This may happen in minutes if your point person has built a registration form online before or has previous TeamSnap registration experience. A pro tip: If your organization has used TeamSnap’s registration tool before, a quick win is duplicating your previous season’s registration form. You can then make your updates in your duplicated form and breeze through your registration for this season.
We have an entire dedicated staff to help you strategize how you will build your form online. Don’t feel like you should know this already or go about it alone, we have plenty of online resources from self-paced registration webinars, guided tutorials, plus an entire section of our help center dedicated to online registration at your fingertips. Pro tip: Reach out to your organization’s customer success manager and schedule some time to figure out the best way to build your form online.
Before diving into anything, a good plan of attack is to map things out. In order to best build out your registration form online, you need to identify what information you need to collect from your members.
It may be emergency contact information, uniform sizing and number requests, or perhaps specific health documents/ waivers. Find out what you need in advance so you can proactively set up your custom fields faster in your online registration form.
This is also a good time to start thinking about fees. Decide and discuss with your team about seasonal fees. Consider what concessions you’ll be offering for this registration period if any, and make sure your fee structure makes sense in practice.
The registration process has been mapped out which means today’s the day to get to building!
Some other questions you are going to want to ask yourself once you begin building:
Do you want to have everyone register with one form and choose the fee that applies to them? Or would you rather break your registration forms up by programs, for example registering by team or level of play?
One way to best answer these questions is to ask yourself what will be the easiest to manage when it comes to player assignments. This is a good time to consult with your customer success manager and tap into their industry expertise. Don’t forget to utilize your registration resources as you go for guidance along the way.
It’s testing day! Once your form is completed, it’s about that time to make sure it works. You can use TeamSnap’s “Preview Mode” to go through the form and make sure it’s just the way you want it before it goes actually live. This “Preview Mode” will display the form as if it is actually live online.
Once the registration form is live or has a set date for when it will go live, it’s about that time to begin promoting and sharing your registration dates. This part is just as important as the form itself, because this is the only way people are actually going to get themselves registered or know how-to. A best practice here is to begin the communication through social media, blog posts, emails, newsletters and word-of-mouth. You can promote the opening dates or something that teases registration like “registration dates to be announced soon.” It’s important to remind current and prospective members that it’s almost time to register so they can secure their spot in your program.
Today’s the final day. All of your hard work in a short amount of time has come to this. The registration form has been built, tested, reviewed and scheduled, which means it’s go-time! Activate and share your online form by opening your registration dates and times. In TeamSnap, can do this in advance by scheduling or the day of, depending on what feels right. Pro tip: Hyperlink the registration URL on everything and get everyone registered!
Registration 7-day Checklist: Use this handy checklist to get your registration started with ease.
We hope this 7-day registration run-down can help you take the stress out of this time of year. When it’s broken down like this, one step per day, anyone can tackle it! We hope this registration roadmap can help your organization stay on track and meet your registration deadlines with fewer headaches along the way. Do you or someone you know need a new registration system? Sign-up today for TeamSnap’s registration solution.