How can I limit the number of players coming to a game?
What does 'rostering off' mean?
Glad you asked - it's the idea that the team admins ( coach or manager ) have determined that a certain player is not playing in that game. So for example, I might manage a tennis team with 5 players ; but it turns out that only 4 are ever needed for a match. So each game, you would have one player not coming ; one player each week would be 'rostered off'.
And if you are rostered off ( or your child ) - most importantly - you have no ability to change your attendance status to anything else. You are not playing - because the team admins have made that call.
There are two ways to roster players off. Manually and automatically.
Manual Roster Off
This is pretty simple - it's up to the team admin to choose which player in which game they want to roster off. It's super easy to set a player to be rostered off.
In the example below; I have 5 players indicating they can all play in the game, but I only want 4. On the web, I simply navigate to the game details, and then I choose the icon that looks a bit like a clipboard. Edit is the pencil on the left.
Now we just choose which player is not playing. I'm choosing Daniel in the example below.
And once I've saved it, the attendance section has a new 'greyed out' display for those players rostered off. So all the team can see that Daniel is rostered off.
Automatic Roster Off - First In
We have a second way to limit the playing numbers for a game. It's an automatic roster off feature, and it works on the principle that the first to say they will play are the ones you want playing. So let's say I wanted my tennis team to work that way - with the first 4 people to say they can play being the ones that I want in the team.
Here's what I'd do to achieve that.There's one setting that you'll find in the games setting area. So, navigate to your team on the teamstuff.com website. Find your team, and show the game settings ( under games ). Turn the feature 'on', and update the limit to your number. It might look like this;
So I've turned the feature on, and I'm setting it to 4 players allowed per game. Note that to be useful, the Default Attendance for a game needs to be 'unknown' to be useful, so we'll automatically change this setting as you turn the feature on.
How Does it Work?
It's pretty simple. When a player indicates they are coming, Teamstuff works out if you've hit the limit ; and if so, we'll automatically roster off every other player still in the Unknown status. So the the tennis example, we have a limit of 4 players needed. The first player to say they're playing - nothing happens. The second player to come - nothing. And the third - nothing happens. But the 4th player - as soon as they indicate they're coming, we'll immediately roster off the 5th - the last player - the one that hasn't told you they can play.
Think of it as "first in first served". Cough, small tennis pun there. ;-)
The Team Administration can override this at any time. So if you want the 5th player to play, you can manually set their attendance status - that's no problems at all. Think of it as a convenience feature - the last player to reach the limit sets off everyone else to be rostered off, just as if you had done this yourself.
One exception to note : If all the following are true, then we won't trigger the auto rostering off feature;
1. You are the last-in player to say that you're coming ( e.g. the 4th in my example above ),
2. AND you are the coach / manager ( or setting it for your child player ).
We put this one into the 'super admin' category - that you know what you're doing and are overriding the automatic rostering off.