Getting Started with Tournaments

The PRO version for leagues is very similar, so this video and article applies as well.

Too much to take in / too little time? Check out our full service offer.
​

To set up your first league, it's usually easiest to start setting it up in LITE by simply clicking on Schedule a League on the home page and then upgrading to PRO (click PRO features once you get to your LITE schedule). You can skip to step 3 or 4 if you've done this.

To set up a PRO league directly (e.g. in order to use the bulk team entry), click here.
​

First, you'll enter the name of your club or organization – you'll be able to change this name and to upload a logo and pick a color scheme for your public-facing pages later.

Next, you'll be asked to enter a name for your tournament series – generally without a year number or anything like that (the next screen will ask for a name for this particular instance, which will combine with the series name to be shown as the title of the event; don't worry, this will make sense shortly).

Next, you'll enter the name for this instance of the event (e.g. 2023).

Again, you can change all of this later so don't stress about anything.

Round robin games will be used as the default number of pool (or group stage) games so enter the most common scenario here. You can set a different number for each pool or division later.

Once your tournament is set up, you have the option of setting up online registration and wait for your teams to register before generating your schedule. Learn more here.

If you're not setting up online registration, or you want to get a jump start on building out your schedule, you'll input your teams next.

If you have a lot of teams and divisions, you'll want to use the Bulk Team Entry to copy/paste team names and division names from a spreadsheet. 

You'll see instructions on the bulk team entry page itself – essentially you'll want to set up a spreadsheet with two columns: team name and division name. Simply those two columns, copy and paste it into the paste field and hit submit.

This will take you back to the previous page where you'll now see your teams and divisions:

Any teams added manually will carry a not paid badge and a include in schedule checkbox:

If you uncheck include in schedule the team will not show up on the schedule maker page and will not be included when you generate your schedule (if you uncheck it after generating the schedule it will have no effect until you re-generate your schedule).

If you'd like to keep track of payments received outside of our system, you can also remove the not paid badge by clicking the menu (three dots) icon, selecting modify registration and checking the paid checkbox.

In addition to the Bulk Team Entry, you can also add teams one by one.

Simply enter the team name and select the division, then hit enter or click Add.

If you haven't added any divisions yet, you'll first need to do so via the manage divisions button

If you need to move a team to a different division, you can simply click the team's division in the team list and select the new division:

Once you've added your teams, head over to the schedule maker page (note we just on the registrations page):

On the schedule maker, expand the Divisions panel and set up your tournament structure or mode of play for each division.

This may entail any or all of the following:

You can subdivide divisions into pools using the Create Pools button at the top.
​

You can move teams between pools via drag and drop.

You'll then want to enter a number of games (before playoffs) for each division (if it's different from the default defined in settings) and add playoff brackets (if desired). 

If you only play bracket games, you'll want to enter 0 for Round Robin Games/Pool Games.

For detailed instructions on brackets, see this article.

For standard, single elimination brackets, you only need to enter the number of teams and save.

Once you've added the bracket, fill in your seeds – most likely, you can just autofill:

This adds the standard seeding to your bracket.

This will create a bracket like this:

For detailed instructions on brackets, see this article.

You can also select from predefined presets if there are any for your division size. If there isn't a preset you like, you can also save your own presets, so that you can easily copy a division setup to other divisions with the same number of teams. Very handy for large events!

First, add your venues (fields, courts, boards, lanes, tables whatever you like to call it). Each field or court or other playing surface is a venue.

Click Manage Venues:

Enter your venue names and save:

Next, click Add Time Slot.

Enter your field availabilities:

You can enter team requests and division constraints etc. under the Schedule Constraints section. See this article.
​ 

Click Generate Schedule and wait for the generator to finish.

Depending on how complex your tournament is, this can be very quick or take 10-20 minutes.

You can also Generate Games, which does just that without running the allocation yet. This allows you to tweak matchups (e.g. to avoid certain teams playing each other) or double-check how many games are generated before running the potentially lengthy allocation process. Whenever you're ready, you'd just click allocate games to trigger that process.

You might see a red notification indicating that you have unscheduled games. Please see this article for how to proceed.

Also check out our articles on making manual changes and/or using the calendar view to do so.

Once you're happy with your schedule, you'll want to publish it and share it with your teams.
​
Click the Publish Schedule button at the bottom of your screen to enter your payment method.

Click the SHARE button at the top for all the ways to get your schedule in front of your players.