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What is Advanced Scheduling and how to set it up (home fields, availability, Auto Assign)

Advanced Scheduling is a TeamSideline module for leagues whose teams come from several clubs, towns or other organizations, each with its own fields. Its Auto Assign builds a division's schedule without time slots: it puts each home game at a field that belongs to the home team's organization, on a day and at a time that field is open. Set up your associated organizations, locations and teams once, then turn on Auto Assign for each division and click Create.

Applies to: Admins and schedulers · Sites with the Advanced Scheduling module (Multi-Org Scheduling on older sites) · League divisions with 1 or 2 games per week, Regular and 2nd Half schedules (not Single Games divisions)

Where: Administration > Associated Organizations; Schedules > Locations > Manage Locations; Schedules > Leagues & Divisions > (division) > 3 Time Slots > Enable Auto Assign

What Auto Assign does

Without Advanced Scheduling, each division has time slots on its 3 Time Slots page: a day, start time and location that repeats every week. With Auto Assign on, the Auto Assign page takes the place of 3 Time Slots. You choose the game days, and Create picks a field and a start time for every game from each location's availability.

When you click Create, TeamSideline pairs the teams and balances each team's home and away games. For each home game it then looks for an open time at a location that:

  • lists the home team's organization under its Associated Organizations,
  • lists the division's Age Group under its Age Groups,
  • has a Game Spacing equal to or greater than the division's Game Spacing, and
  • is available on one of the division's game days, inside its Start Window, at a time nothing else is booked there.

A game with no such time is marked TBD (to be determined) instead. A location's Show Publicly setting doesn't matter to Auto Assign.

Auto Assign is not Smart Auto Assign

This article's Auto Assign, part of Advanced Scheduling, places a division's games at fields and times. Smart Auto Assign is a different, AI feature on a registration program's Assign To Roster page (Programs > Manage Programs > the program > 4 Rosters): it proposes which players go on which team and doesn't schedule games (see How to set up and run Smart Auto Assign). The Auto-Assign button in Officials Management is a third feature: it assigns officials to games already scheduled.

Step 1: Add your associated organizations

  1. Go to Administration > Associated Organizations.
  2. Click Add Organization, enter the Organization Name and a Short Name, and click Add.
  3. Repeat for every club, league, town or other group that owns fields or teams.

What you'll see: "Associated Organization Added."

Step 2: Set up each location

  1. Go to Schedules > Locations > Manage Locations. To add a field, click Add Location, enter its details, choose its Organization and click Add. That organization is also added to the location's Associated Organizations list.
  2. Click the location's Edit icon (pencil).
  3. Choose the Game Spacing ("Used for advanced scheduling only.") and click Save. It must be equal to or greater than the Game Spacing on 1 Configuration > Scheduling of every division that plays there: a division with 60-minute games never uses a location set to 50 minutes. A new location starts at 0, which Auto Assign never uses.
  4. Under Associated Organizations, click Add Associated Organization, choose an organization whose teams play home games here and click Add. Repeat for each organization.
  5. Under Age Groups, click Add Age Group, choose an age group that plays here and click Add. Repeat for each age group.
  6. Drag the rows of both lists into order. A team's home games go first to the locations that list its organization and age group nearest the top.
  7. Click the location's Availability tab, then Set Availability. Under Date(s), choose a Single Day, or Recurring Days with a Start Date, an End Date and the days of the week. Choose the Time the field is open, add an optional Note and click Add. Use Block Times for closures.

Auto Assign uses only the times you set with Set Availability. A location with no availability on a date is closed that day for Auto Assign, even though other scheduling treats it as open all day. Games already at the location (other divisions' games, practices and facility reservations) block those times too, so divisions that share fields can be scheduled one after another.

On the Elite and Enterprise plans, Update Multiple Locations (on Manage Locations) and the Location Availability Import (on Administration > Import Data) change many locations at once. TeamSideline Support can load a long list of new locations from a spreadsheet.

Step 3: Add the teams and their organizations

Add your leagues and divisions on Schedules > Leagues & Divisions first; on the Enhanced plan and up, Copy Season copies last season's. Then add the teams in one of these ways:

  • Import them. On Administration > Import Data, use the Team Import. Its Associated Org Name column sets each team's organization. Fill in League Name and Division Name to load the teams straight into those divisions, or leave them blank and put the teams in divisions later on Schedules > Team Assignments > Pre-Season.
  • Add them by hand. On the division's 2 Teams page, click Add Team, enter the Team Name, choose its Organization and click Add.

A team without an organization has no home field, so its home games come out TBD unless it has a preferred location (see Good to know).

Step 4: Turn on Auto Assign for the division

  1. Go to Schedules > Leagues & Divisions and click the division's Edit Division icon (pencil).
  2. On 1 Configuration > Scheduling, set Games per Week/Team to 1 or 2 (not Custom), then Games Played/Team, the Day of First Game and the Game Spacing, and click Save and Next Step.
  3. On 2 Teams, check that every team shows its organization in front of its name (edit any team that doesn't), then click Next Step.
  4. On 3 Time Slots, click Enable Auto Assign. From now on the division's 3 Time Slots tab opens the Auto Assign page.
  5. Under Game Day(s), choose the 1st choice day and, if you want, more days in order of preference. With 2 games per week, choose days for Game 1 and Game 2.
  6. Choose the Assign Type: Earliest fills the earliest open times first, Latest the latest, and Random mixes them.
  7. Optional: set a Start Window (from and through) to limit start times, check Enforce Preferred ("If Team preferred location and/or time is not available, TBD assigned."), or choose a Template.
  8. Optional: to skip a week, such as a holiday, click Block A Week, choose the Week (Week Of), type a Block Reason and click Add. The reason shows on your public schedule. For a 2nd Half schedule, or when you choose a Template, block the week on 4 Create Schedule after you create the schedule instead (see How to block a week in a schedule).
  9. Click Save and Next Step.

With an odd number of teams and 1 game per week, the Auto Assign page also asks For Schedule, under Odd Team Division Configuration: Schedule Byes gives one team a bye each week, and with All Teams Play Every Week one team plays a double header each week. It saves as soon as you choose.

To turn on Auto Assign for many divisions at once (Enhanced, Elite and Enterprise plans), click Update Multiple Divisions on Schedules > Leagues & Divisions, choose the Update Type Auto Assign, set the options, tick the divisions and click Update. Each division still needs 1 or 2 games per week.

Step 5: Create the schedule

  1. On 4 Create Schedule, click Create.
  2. Review the schedule, fix any TBD games and click Calc & Save.
  3. When families should see the schedule, go to Schedules > Leagues & Divisions and click the division's red eye icon ("Schedule Not Visible - click to make schedule visible on your public page") so it turns green.

What you'll see

  • "Auto Assign enabled." after you click Enable Auto Assign, and "Auto Assign configuration saved." when you save the Auto Assign page.
  • After Create: "Your schedule has been created and saved for you to review." Each game shows its location and time, or TBD, and the tables below the schedule show how games spread across weeks, teams, times, days and locations.

If it doesn't work

  • "No game day selected." (or "No game day selected for Game 1." or "No game day selected for Game 2.") Choose at least one day for each game.
  • "Start time range is incomplete." or "Start time range is invalid." Fill in both Start Window times, with the from time before the through time.
  • "Block A Week 'Week-Week Of' is required." or "Block A Week 'Block Reason' is required." Choose a week and type a reason before you click Add.
  • There's no Organization field on Add Location or Add Team. Your site doesn't have Advanced Scheduling, or your admin role doesn't include it. Contact TeamSideline Support to ask about adding it.
  • TBD games, a missing Enable Auto Assign or Create button, or unexpected start times. See Troubleshooting Advanced Scheduling (TBD games, missing Create button, start times), listed below.

Good to know

  • On a team's edit page (2 Teams, pencil), Preferred Location and Preferred Time are "Auto-Assign only." To list more, in order of preference, use the link under Preferred Time ("Click here to define more preferred locations and times."), which shows once the team is saved. A preferred location doesn't have to belong to the team's organization. Without Auto Assign these settings do nothing.
  • If Multi-Team Coach is on (Schedules > Configurations > General), Auto Assign avoids putting a coach's teams at the same time and locks those games.
  • The Template list shows your site's saved schedule templates; pick one made for the same number of teams. With 1 game per week and none chosen, Auto Assign uses a matching template when one exists. TeamSideline Support can make a template for a schedule you build often.
  • The division's 2nd Half schedule uses the same Auto Assign settings, with its own blocked weeks.
  • Disable Auto Assign, on the Auto Assign page, turns Auto Assign off for the division and clears its settings; 3 Time Slots shows the time slot list again.

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