Introducing RackEmApp is likely a big change to your league, particularly if you are coming from a paper based system. Adopting technology can be tough, but the legaues that have adopted RackEmApp have found the experience to be a little less painful than expected, thanks to putting in a little groundwork to help them along the way.
- Communicate early that you are adopting a new technology and that the expectation is that Captains will have to submit they scorecards electronically via a web app now.
- Let them know its not an app they need to download. They just visit a website! They can even bookmark and add the site to their home screen and it will act as if it is an app and is there for easy access.
- Reassure them that this is in place with several leagues with captains of varying degrees of technical capability and the process has worked very well in those leagues
- If you are using the Online Registration page make sure they are clear on the process
- Register your team, players and competition entries online.
- Your entry to the league is only granted when approved by an administrator
- The captain will receive an email when it is granted, with an invitation to create their account. They must follow this process in order to be able to manage their team and submit scorecards.
- Advise them once logged in they can access their dashboard
- Share with them the materials that they will find beneficial to start “training” them where appropriate.
- Captains Guide (article)
- Captain’s Experience (video)
- Matchday Experience (video)
- Strongly recommend (or insist) that the captain at least invites one other player to register an account and grant them captain priviliges. This is essential either when the captain is away, or the captain is not as technically savvy as you’d like.
- Encourage captains to upload a team logo – it adds to the personal experience and makes your league its own.
- Encourage captains to invite all players to claim their player profile. They can upload a profile picture themselves, and track their statistics across all leagues and competitions using RackEmApp.
- Prepare yourself for communications back. You’ll get a lot of questions. Early adopters found a captains WhatsApp group to be useful as it helped share knowledge in the early days. Use the materials in the Knowledgebase and if you get stuck, drop us a line by email, messenger or WhatsApp – email us for the WhatsApp number.
- Continue to reassure. It’s natural for the first season/period using a new technology solution to be a little more challenging. After the first couple of matches things will settle down, and by the start of the next season it becomes second nature.
There are a bunch of questions that league admins/secretaries/committees get asked when implementing RackEmApp. Here are the questions we usually hear and how you can answer them.
- My venue doesn’t have WiFi
The chances are the venue does – it just might not be publicly available. Use the relationship with the venue to politely ask for the WiFi code and if they are not willing/able to do so, then you can use 3/4G - The mobile signal in my venue is poor and I can’t access the internet on it
Its really unusual for all team members to be on the same network, the chances are at least someone has signal, and any venues with no phone signal will almost have WiFi, as they know the signal is so poor. So ensure you have delegated captain rights to a person that does have signal, or simply log in on their phone - I’m terrible with technology and I don’t think I can manage this
Reassure on the similicity of how it works. The opposing captain likely isn’t at the same level of technical confidence so they can guide them. The chances are that someone on the team IS technically confident and they should be delegated captain priviliges. After 2 matches though, it will become second nature. - We really really REALLY have no WiFi or signal
They will have to use a paper scorecard and send the scorecard to the league admin for manual entry into the system. - The home captain has entered an incorrect frame result
At this point the away captain shouldn’t approve the frame – just politely ask the home captain to correct it. - The away captain has approved an incorrect frame result
Local league rules will dictate any sanctions for this as its the equivilent of submitting an invalid paper scorecard. However on a technical level you can reassure them that you can correct the frame (League Management > Fixtures and Results – which you can also do whilst the match is in play). Make sure they get a telling off, its designed to be an automated system reducing the need for administration! - I am not happy with something that happened. On a paper scorecard I could not sign the card, can I do the same in the app?
Yes, there is a final approval stage at which point you can lodgea dispute. This will place the reuslt into Dispute and not update the league tables until an administrator has resolved it. - I am playing a match earlier than scheduled/I am playing a back match, where do I find the scorecard?
Login to the captain’s dashboard, go into Team Details and you will see the fixture list. Just find the relevant fixture list and click Play. - I think I’ve found a bug or a problem that doesn’t make sense
We don’t have the bandwidth to support every captain, we support the league. As league admins we need you to capture as much information about who it is, what they are trying to do and any screenshots you might have and let us know about the details. We’ll fix it up ASAP.