FAQ/Help

Frequently Asked Questions

1. GENERAL QUESTIONS
2. CREATING TEAM WEBSITE
3. GUIDE TO SETUP TEAM WEBSITE
4. EDITING/DELETING INFORMATION
- 4.1 Editing/Deleting Information
5. NAVIGATING TEAM WEBSITE
- 5.1 User/Subscriber View v/s Site Manager View
- 5.2 Navigating Team Website

1. GENERAL QUESTIONS

In this section, you will find general questions about OnlineSportsTeams.com

1.1 What is OnlineSportsTeams.com?

OnlineSportsTeam.com is a website that allows users to create their own sports team websites. It provides users an easy to remember URL. eg: if your site name is "tigers", your website will be http://www.onlineSportsTeams.com/tigers

1.2 Who can create a Team Website?

Any user who needs such feature can create. Typical it is best suited if you have a sports team. But you can also create indivual website for yourself only.

1.3 Is this Service FREE?

Yes. Every feature and function you currently see on the site as part of free package is FREE. In future we may introduce Premium packages, but all the features you have been currently enjoying in free package will remain FREE!

1.4 Do I need to register first to use OnlineSportsTeams Services?

You can browse most content of public sites without registration. For everything else, yes, we require registration before using our services. Registration and all other services are FREE and only takes few seconds to setup.

1.5 Registration & My Account

To register, click on register link in the navigation.
To edit your account, upload your photo, change your email contact options etc, click on "My Account" link.

1.6 MyInbox

Using My Inbox, you can send private messages to other members registerd with OnlineSportsTeams.com

1.7 My Bookmarks

Using My Bookmarks, you can easily store and manage website URL bookmarks.

1.8 My Blog

You can use this section for blogging. All blogs by default are publicly visible.

1.9 Logout

Please Note: When you close your browser, you will not be logged out automatically and next time you visit onlinesportsteams.com, you will be automatically logged in. This is to conveniently allow you to access your websites without forcing login everytime. If you don't want this behaviour and would like to logout, Click Logout.

2. CREATING TEAM WEBSITE

2.1 Who can create a Sports Team Website?

Anyone who would like to utilizeour website services.

2.2 How do I join a Team website?

Click on Find a Site, search your site name using exact name or keyword. If you know the name, you can also type in the URL as http://www.onlineSportsTeams.com/sitename.

2.3 How do I create a team website?

You need to register first to create or browse a team website. Registration is FREE and only takes few seconds.

When you click on Create Site, if you are not logged in, you will be redirected to Registration Form.
After you have registered/logged in, you will redirected to "Create Team Website" Form.
Complete one-page short setup form to setup your team website. You can click on "Create Team Website" link anytime to create websites.

2.4 What are the different Site Options (Access Control & Subscriber options)?

Public	Contents of your site is accessible on Public space. Users do not have to register first to see your site contents. Anonymous users will see leftside site navigation block for the site using which they get full view access to your site. Authenticated users will see a subscribe link in addition to other navigation links, when they click subscribe, subscription request is automatically accepted. Subscribers can post comments/forum topics to the site.
Open	If your team website is of type OPEN, your site contents are accessible on public space by any authenticated user who subscribes. Anonymous users will see a login box in the leftside navigation on your site home page Once the user is registered and logged in, they will see a "Subscribe" link on leftside site navigation. Users can then click Subscribe and their subscription request is immediately accepted. Users will get full view access to the site. One can look at who has subscribed to the site by clicking Subscribers link leftside site navigation
Moderated	If your team website is of type MODERATED, your site contents are fully protected and only subscribers whom you approve get access. Anonymous users will see a login box in the leftside navigation on your site home page Once the user is registered and logged in, they will see a "Request Subscription" link on leftside site navigation. Users can then click Request Subscription link. Subscription request is mailed to Site Managers Site Managers can login, click on Subscribe link and approve/deny the requests Once the subscription request is accepted, Users will get full view access to your site. They will see left side navigation block. You can look at who has subscribed to your site by clicking Subscriber link leftside site navigation. You can also assign site manager roles to subscribers if you wish.
Invite Only	User cannot request for subscription. Site managers have to create subscription
Closed Site	All the subscriptions are fully administered by Site Admins.

Our Recommendation Following are the most popular options users choose --

If you want a site for your team members only, use Moderated Site.
If you want your site contents available for public, create your site using Public option.

2.5 What are themes?

Themes are look and feel of your site (colors etc). You can safely switch and try different themes anytime.
Flollowing are the screenshots of themes available

2.6 What is the URL to access my website?

If your website name is tigers, then your URL is http://www.onlinesportsteams.com/tigers

2.7 What features are available in Online Sports Teams?

There are tons of features. We can pretty much guarantee, you will like it. Features include managing seasons, games, scorecards, players, events, teams, polls, message boards, photos etc. And much more coming soon.

2.8 How to edit/change website configuration? How to customize homepage?

Except your site URL, you can change your site configuration such as description, address, themes, home page customization etc any time. To change Site configuration/home page options, login as Site Manager, goto your site home page. Click on "EDIT" button at the top of center column.
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You can enable OR disable home page blocks (latest events, polls, roster block, message ticker etc)

3. GUIDE TO SETUP TEAM WEBSITE

3.1 Where to begin?

Site Managers will see a "Manager your Site" block on the leftside. Use this block to setup site. Read the following description about each of the section and follow the instructions to setup your site.

3.2 Create Season

Setup Seasons by clicking "Create Season". To Add or Schedule games, you must have atleast one Season setup. Eg: 2006, Fall 2006, 2006-2007 etc.

3.3 Create Category

This is an Optional setup for your website. You can use it only if you need it. If you do not need to further categorize games/standings within season, leave the category field blank while adding games/standings.

Categories are a way to arrange your game within Season. All categories are available across all your seasons. Within a Season you may play many type of games.

For eg: For a Major League Baseball team, the type of games could be Spring Training, Pre-Season, Regular Season, Play Offs.
Another example of your categories can be championships you play each season. Lets say you play 3 championships every season(eg: State Cup, Regional Cup, Stanley Cup).
Bad eg: Stanley Cup 2007 - In this example 2007 is actually the season. Since your categories are available to all seasons, aviod putting Season/year name in category

You can leave this field blank also when you add games.
Categories gives the ability to sort games within a Season. Categories also gives the ability to arrange multiple Standing Tables within season.
Following table describes this in an example-

Seasons: 2006 2007 2008	Categories Spring Training Stanley Cup World Cup
Games: When you add games to Season 2006 OR 2007 OR 2008, you may wish to further categorize them as whether it is a Spring Traning game or Regular Season game or some championship game
Standings Table: When you add standing table, you may wish to add one for 2006 Season (leave category blank). But you may want to have multiple standing tables within season, you may want to add one for Spring Traning games, one for some championship you play.

3.4 Add Team

Setup all Home and Away teams in this section. These are teams you usually play games with.

3.5 Add Player/Coach/Manager

Setup your roster by adding players,coaches,managers and staff.

You can organize roster profiles as Player or Coach/Manager/Staff type using "Type" field.
In the roster section, click "Yes" to list the profiles in Active Roster section. If you choose "No", the profiles will be listed when you click "All" in Roster page.

3.6 Add/Schedule Game

Use this section to Add or Schedule games. You must select a Season and Teams to add a game. All other fields are optional. Indicate Team as TBA for To Be Announced. Contact us if need customization to box score. You can use Add New Comment link to discuss a game.

For certain games such as Baseball, you can also add detailed scores. To add detailed scores, simply add the game first. Go to the game page. There will be a link "Add Detailed Score" visible to Site Managers. (for Baseball only). Click the link to add detailed scores.

All games are added to your Calendar by default.

3.7 Create Standings

You can add Standing Tables for each season/category. You must have the teams setup first to add them in Standings Table (Points Table). Simple leave the Team field blank if you don't a team added in the Standings Table.

3.8 Create Event

You can create events using Create Event. It will show up in the Calendar. (eg: Practice meetup, Strategy planning, Season Kick off, Celeberations etc)

3.9 Create Poll

Create Polls.

3.10 Post Forum Topic (Message Board)

Each team website comes with its own message board. Click on Post Forum Topic to post a topic to the message board. All team members who have access to the site can post topics/discuss.

3.11 Add Files/Photos

You can add files/photos to your site using Add Files/Photos link.

Click on Add Files/Photos
In the Resource field, provide Folder/Album name
Use attachments section to add multiple files to this folder/album
Be sure to click Add button after selecting each file/photo

If you are uploading large, high quality photos (eg: from Digital Camera), please resize them first to webpage size. A high quality image of 2MB size can be reduced to 800x600 size web page viewing photo of 100KB!. That is, you can store 20 photos of 100KB each that looks pretty much the same by resizing as oppose to uploading one 2MB photo.

Here is how you can find free tools to resize photos (we are not affiliated to these sites, so please do your research):
Go to http://www.download.com, search for "Photo Resize", Download tool of your choice (eg: Photo Resize Magic), Follow the tool instructions to resize photos. If your photo size is greater than 800x600, resize them to 800x600 as that is the typical browser window size. If you need more help, contact us, we can help you find a free tool to resize your photos.

4. EDITING/DELETING INFORMATION

4.1 Editing Deleting content.

You can edit OR Delete your Website/Seasons/Games/Files and all other content using EDIT button visible to site managers while browsing content. EDIT buttons are visible to Site Managers only through out the sites

5. NAVIGATING WEBSITE

5.1 Subscriber View v/s Site Manager View?

Subscriber/Regular Member View - Regulal member view consists of left navigation menu similar to Site Manage view. However, in subscriber view there is no block for managing the site. There are no edit/delete button to modify OR delete any site content.
Site Manager View If your used id is given Site Manager role, you will see Site Manager view. If you create a website, you are automatically the Site Manager. Site Manager View consists of Left navigation for site navigation. It also consists of Manage your Site block which you can use to setup your site. On the content pages, you will see edit/delete buttons to manage existing content.

5.2 Navigating the site

All users who has access to the website can navigate through site contents using the Navigation block