Prerequisite setup – The Swim Team representatives managing your team’s registration should have the following capabilities toggled on in their Board Member Profile Settings…
- Access the Board Member Dashboard
- Orders and Products
- Create Forms
- Send Mass Communications
- Create / Edit Pages
A Board Member with the Presidential Rights can set these options for your Swim Team reps.
Before going much further, here are some key things to note…
- Our software does not push information directly into your local swim league or other meet-related software.
- Taking in “registrations” through the software, is no different than selling any other product through the website. The product name will be something like “Swim Team Registration 2022”.
- Revenue from sales go directly to the club’s Paypal account.
- All products have their own sales history, which is exportable, and can be used to create your team roster, or communication list for this year’s team.
- Swimmer information forms can be emailed to the parent after their purchase. These exportable forms can also be used to create a team roster and gather information like t-shirt sizes, allergies, etc.
Create the Swim Team Registration product
From the Financial module find Product Creator. Give the registration product a title and set the price initially to the cost of enrolling one child (we will change this later to support more children)….
After hitting Create and Continue, you will be on the Basic Settings tab of your new product. We recommend setting the Category to “Swim Team”, adding a Short Description, and then setting the email addresses of your swim team reps to Copy on Sales Receipts (they will be notified after every purchase).
Next, head over to the Variable Pricing tab…
Toggle on this style of pricing so we can add prices for multiple children. You can see in the screenshot below that the prices can vary based on the number of kids being enrolled. For example, parents might get a price break for more children.
This is optional, but you might as well set an Interest Tag of “Swim Team” for any buyers of this product. Interest Tags are one of many ways your members can be segmented for communication purposes.
If only members are allowed to be on the swim team, select the Limit Sales tab, and set this option…
Something to consider – You could make a separate registration product specifically for non-members with different pricing.
Collecting Swimmer Info
Your product is setup now. You could start taking sales, but obviously we won’t know much about who is on the team other than the parent’s info and how many children they have paid for.
While it is possible to collect some extra information at checkout via the Custom Checkout Fields options, we recommended getting parents to pay first, then collect extra information like swimmer name, birthday, T-shirt size, etc using a followup form.
Our recommended setup gives parents a chance to pay quickly, then take the time to figure out if their kid is a “Youth Small” shirt size or “Regular Small”. Filling in a lot of fields at checkout is generally bad practice as it slows down sales and aggravates buyers if they need to start over for some reason.
What we will be doing next is:
- Creating the Form to gather swimmer info.
- Creating the Post-Purchase Email that has a link to that form.
- Finally going back to the product editor to set the Post-Purchase Email.
Creating a followup Registration Form
From the Board Member Dashboard select the Forms module.
Select the Form Creator option. From this page, title your form then choose “Swim Team Registration” from the Templates section of the selection pulldown.
Once created you should be nearly ready to go! Our template is based on common registration forms for Swim Team.
- Parents will fill in information for each child they are enrolling.
- If the parent is a member, we already have their information on file, so that is added automatically. You can request additional info too (keep in mind, the website likely already has spouse info as well). Non-members will have fields to enter their name, email and phone.
- Child info collected is: Name, Birthday, Age at Start of Swim Team season, Gender, T-Shirt Size, Allergies / other needs.
If this is all you need, consider your form done!
If you need to edit the form, the top left of the page has a button to Edit Form. At the bottom of the next screen, you will see an option to add a New Question. Fill in a title and choose the question type, such as “Write In” if they are typing in an answer or “Select an Answer” if they are selecting from preset answers like “yes” or “no”.
It is beyond the scope of this article to go through all the options in our Form editor, so see our related article for more information.
Viewing / exporting all Registration Submissions
From the form itself, you will see a button at the top of the page that says View Results. You can also get there from the Forms module dashboard….
Once here you can view the results in two ways…
- By Question – shows all the results from a particular question (for example, all the answers for T-Shirt size)
- By Submission – shows all the answers from a particular submission (each parent’s answers in this case)
Choose how you want to view the results. You can also export out the information to a CSV, which looks like this when exporting Results By Submission…
Exporting Results by Question can help you break out totals for specific questions in a spreadsheet friendly way. For example in the screenshot below, your team rep could easily total up all the T-shirt size and Gender columns.
Creating the Post-Purchase Email
Once your form is ready, we can add a link to it in the followup email sent to buyers. This email is sent immediately after their order.
From the Board Member Dashboard go to the Financial module then Product Emails. Once there, add a Subject, Body Message, and in the optional links section, select the options in screenshot below.
Choose “A form to get more info from the buyer”, then select the Swim Team form you created earlier.
At the bottom of the screen, give this email a reference name, then save it.
Set the Post-Purchase Email back in the Product Editor
We’re almost done. Find the Swim Team Registration product you created earlier, by going to Board Member Dashboard > Financial > Product Editor.
Select the Post Purchase Email tab, then set the Product Email you created (choose the reference name from the pulldown).
The basic setup is done!
Selling the Swim Team Registration Product
You can use our Page Creator tools to make a brand new page to sell your Swim Team product. From the Board Member Dashboard go to Pages & Docs, then Create a Page or Event.
Choose the Product template. Then set the Title (1st arrow), Product (2nd arrow) to the product you just made, Content Managed Tags (last arrow) to Swim Team and probably Member Dashboard.
Optionally if only members can join the swim team, be sure to set the Members Only option.
Once the page is created, customize the body text and you will be ready to sell.
Alternatively, you can edit an existing page and add / change a product. Our clients have an “out of the box” Swim Team page, which typically has the registration product in the top right. The page is at yoursite.com/swim-team-news/ but likely already linked up in your top menu…
Tap the light grey Edit Product link above the product page-builder element.
From there, edit the Product that is currently showing.
For more info on creating pages, view the articles in the Page Creation section of our Knowledge Base
Mass Emailing Members about Swim Team Enrollment
From the Board Member Dashboard go to Communications, choose Based On Member Info.
Most likely you will want to email everyone that is currently active (in good standing) in the Member database to publicize Swim Team enrollment. If so, select the option in the screenshot.
Add a Subject and Body message, then for the link below the body, choose Select a page from your website. Then specify the page you want to send them to.
Alternatively, you could send them to the Member Dashboard if the page thumbnail is featured there. You could also send them to a custom link you have pasted in.
Reviewing Sales of the Swim Team Registration Product
From the Board Member Dashboard go to Financial then go to Product Order History. Select a specific product from the pulldown in the top left. From there you can view all the sales, click on an individual order, and Export Sales to CSV file. If you did decide to add some Custom Checkout Fields, those would appear in the exported file and details of a specific order.
Reminding parents to complete their Registration Forms or sending emails specifically to Swim Team parents
From the Communications module, you can send emails to Purchasers of a Product.
So for example, you can email the buyers of your Swim Team Registration product…
If the buyer is a member, the email can be sent to both parents in the household. If the buyer was a non-member, the email would only go to the buyer.
If you are reminding parents to fill in their registration forms, you can target only the parents that haven’t filled them in. Below the Body Message of your email, choose similar options to the screenshot below. Add a button to the Form, then toggle on “Do not mail anyone that has already submitted this form”.
Keep in mind, this is a great way to solicit help from your Swim Team parents. Forms are not limited to registrations. Forms could also be “sign-up sheets” for volunteer jobs or potlucks. Even RSVPs for attending Swim Team events.
