Practice Scheduling

Gabriola Dragon Boat Club manages practice scheduling using software developed by one of our members. The application runs on our website and is available when logged in on our website.

In the past we used online services including Teamsnap and SportGo Lite. Teamsnap was not free to use and the company that provided SportGo Lite went bankrupt and their service stopped working.

Using our own software will save some money. But, the main benefit is having control of the application. We can make changes we want, when we want them.

Our website uses WordPress, a Content Management System (CMS). The practice scheduling software is built using WordPress.

Website Users

Note: The practice scheduling application does not work properly with Internet Explorer. The website and the app are tested for Microsoft Edge, Firefox, Google Chrome, and Safari.

In order to access our practice scheduling software a person must be enrolled as a user on our WordPress website and must be logged in.

Further, the user must have a WordPress role of Manager and/or Player.

Normally when a person joins Gabriola Dragon Boat Club they will complete a registration form. The club registrar will forward this information to the website administrator who will enroll the user on the WordPress website.

As mentioned, there are two WordPress Roles for users:

  • Player. A player is someone who participates in practices on the boat. This includes: coaches, steer, and paddlers.
  • Manager. Someone who can add, modify, or, delete player and events (practices).

A person can have one or both roles. For instance, a coach will typically be both a player and a manager.

Only the website administrator can change roles.

How to Login

To login visit the club website https://gabrioladragonboatclub.com/. In the main navigation menu click on ‘Login’. This will take you to the login page.

Enter the email address you provided on your registration form and your password.

If you do not have a password or you forgot it click on the link ‘Forgot your password?’ at the bottom of the login screen.

An email will be sent to you with instructions to reset your password.

Once you are logged in you will see your WordPress user profile.

If you want to change your password click on the gear icon the the right of your name. From the drop down menu select “My Account”. From there click on the star to see the password change form.

Enter your current passwords and new password.

Another way to change your password is to use the ‘Forgot your password?’ link in the Login screen.

Members Only Menu

Once you are logged in you will see Members Only appear in the navigation menu. What you see will depend on whether you are logged in as a player or a manager

A player will see a menu with four choices.

The four choices are:

  • Roster – shows a list of all players. For each player it will show their contact information including: phone number, email address, and emergency contact.
  • Schedule – show a list of all events. The list includes event in the past.
  • Availability – display who is attending each event. As a player you can modify your attendance but not others.
  • Edit Player – used to modify details about players. This includes things like age, address, phone number. When logged in as a player you can only see and modify your own data.

In addition to the four menu items seen by players a manager will also see:

  • Edit Event – Make changes to an existing event.
  • Add Player – Add a new player.
  • Add Event – Add new events.

A manager can delete players from the Roster Form. Also they can delete events from the Schedule form.

A manager will be able to modify any user from the Edit Player form.

Forms in General

Users will interact with forms to add or modify events and players. These forms have the following common properties:

  • Some forms have required fields. Data must be provided in these fields. Example: in the Add Event form the event name and date are required. Required fields are indicated by red borders.
  • Almost all fields in forms do validation. Validation is field specific. For instance the postal code field requires that input be ‘L0L 0L0’ where L must be an upper case letter and 0 must be a number.
    BC Health numbers are validated using the official government method. When validation fail for a field it will have a red border.
  • Almost all forms have save or submit button. When pressed with a required field empty or invalid data in a field a hint will be displayed for the field causing the problem.
  • Almost all forms have a reset button. Pressing this button will discard all changes made and return the form to its initial state.

For example here is the add event form. The required fields are clearly indicated by the red borders.

An invalid postal code is displayed as:

Additional detail about forms can be found below.

Portable Devices

The practice scheduling application runs inside a web browser. Generally speaking it works best from a PC or a laptop.

But the application has been designed to be usable on portable devices like smart phones and tablets. These devices have much smaller screens.

Also, cell phone data can be much slower than home internet. The application has been designed to work well even with slower internet.

The application will adapt to a smaller screen by:

  • Using smaller fonts
  • Displaying fewer columns of data
  • The website navigation menu is displayed only when a user select it.

On a smart phone or tablet landscape mode is preferred to portrait.

As an example here is the Availability form in portrait mode on an iPhone SE:

The same form in landscape mode:

In landscape mode three event columns are displayed and fonts are slightly larger.

On a laptop or desktop PC Availability will display five event columns.

On most tablets it will display four event columns in portrait and five columns in landscape.

Note: The iPhone SE has the smallest screen of the devices I could find. Many smart phones have slightly larger screens. Tablets of course have much larger screens.

On smaller screens the navigation menu is displayed as three dots and the word Menu.
Tapping on the dots or the word Menu will display the navigation menu.

‘What to Know’ and ‘Members Only’ are sub-menus.

To access the sub-menu tap the ‘v’ shape on the right.

Form details

Players have limited abilities compared to Managers. A Player can only change data that relates to them. Also, Players have limited access to data about other Players.

For a detailed description of scheduling forms for Players visit Scheduling Forms for Players.

For a detailed description of scheduling forms for Managers visit Scheduling Forms for Managers.

Known Issues

  • Date format is not consistent on portable devices.
    The scheduling application intends to format dates as YYYY-MM-DD (EG: July 1, 2022 would be 2022-07-01).
    Android and apple phones and tablets sometimes display date as MM-DD-YYYY.
    This can be fixed but requires non-trivial coding effort.
    This will be fixed in the future.