Redzone Leagues -

Redzone Manual

Welcome to the Redzone Leagues Help Documentation. Below you will find detailed information about many of the features inside Redzone Leagues. This document is still under development so if you are stuck on something and require help, please get in contact with us and we'll walk you through it!

If you are just starting out with Redzone, then we recommend looking at the Getting Started Manual before reading the material here.

Users and User Roles

In a smaller league, you may be the only person administrating your website. In a larger league, you might want to have a few people help you out. User Roles allow you to assign permissions to other people without having to give them total access to the site. For example, your league may have many people who are are responsible for entering in game scores. By using the User Roles page, you can assign the statistician role to these users to grant them access to do so.

Available User Roles

League Administrator: Grants full access to all league functions. This is the super user role for the website. A league administrator can perform all the functions that all of the other available user roles can perform.
Statistician: Grants access to features associated with tracking game statistics such as game scores and players statistics.
Scheduler: Grants access to features associated with game scheduling such as creating, editing and removing games and playoff slots.
Forum Moderator: Grants access to features associated with the forums such as creating, editing and removing forum topics and messages.

To assign roles to a user:

From the admin dashboard, select the User Roles section.
In the search textfield, you can type a person's name, login name, or email to begin searching for the user you whish to create a role for. If they do not show up in the list, then they are not signed up with your league; ask them to do so first.
Once you have found the user, select them from the list.
Select one or more roles to assign to the user.
Click Assign Roles.

Menus

Redzone allows you to rename and hide any of the default menus in your league. You can also create your own custom menus which you can contain whatever content you like. You can customize the menus from the Menus section in the admin dashboard.

Default Menus

The default menus in a Redzone site are: Home, Forums, Schedule, Locations, Statistics, Standings, Teams, Sponsors, Forms & Files, and Contacts (each of these will be explained in their own section below). You are able to show and hide any of these menus as well as rename them if you wish. A common menu to rename is the Locations menu, since naming it "Fields", "Courts" or "Rinks" may be more appropriate depending on the sport you play. With Redzone it is up to you; you can call it whatever you like.

Custom Menus

Do you have some information about your league that you would like to make a page for? That's where custom menus come into play. You can create a page of information and Redzone will automatically create a menu item for it.

To create a custom menu/page:

From the admin dashboard, select the Menus section.
Click on Create a New Menu.
You can then give the menu a name and enter in any text you like. You may provide additional formatting (recommended) with HTML and CSS.
After creating the page you can preview it with the preview function from the Functions column.
Once you're satisfied with the page, you will need to make it visible to the public. On the menus page, click the green checkbox to turn the Display Status attribute to Visible.

You can always edit, delete or hide custom menus from the Menus page.

Contacts

Most leagues have a group of people who run the league. It's usually a good idea to have your contact information on the website so that your membership can get a hold of you if they have questions or concerns. Most websites have some sort of "Contact Us" page, and Redzone has facilities to build one for you. You can only create contacts if the users exist in your league database, so first have all your contacts signup on the website if they haven't done so already.

To add a contact for your league:

From the admin dashboard, select the Contacts section.
Click on the Add a new contact function link. You will presented with a form for the contact information.
In the user text field, you can type a person's name, login name, or email to begin searching for the user you wish to create the contact for. If they do not show up in the list, then they are not signed up with your league. Ask them to do so first.
Once you have found the user, select them from the list. Their phone numbers and email address should be filled in for you on the contact form.
Enter in a title if they have one, and any other information about the person you would like to share in the about box.
If you would like to override the user's phone numbers or email address, de-select the checkbox Use Associated Profile Data and then enter in (or remove) the information.
Select the Use Profile Image checkbox if you wish to display the image the user has uploaded for themselves (in their profile) on the contact page.
Click Create Contact
Once you have the contacts created, you can edit, delete and reorder them on the page by using the various icons beside the contact.
You should also make sure that the Contacts menu is visible in the menu list, otherwise your users won't see these league contacts.

Forms & Files

Leagues often have forms that need to be filled out by it's members. For example, waivers, parental permission, and insurance claims are all forms that require signatures and need to be filled out by players. In addition to forms, leagues sometimes have other files that they would like to make available for download on their website. An example could be a PDF version of a rule book. Redzone comes with support for this with it's Forms & Files feature. League administrators can use the Forms & Files page to upload files to their website so that their membership can download them.

Example: You would like to make a file avaiable called waiver.pdf which is the waiver form that your league requires your members to print out, sign, and mail into your league.

From the admin dashboard, select the Forms & Files section.
Click on the link for New File.
Give the file a name and a description that is meaningful to your users.
Click on the Browse... button to select waiver.pdf from your computer.
Most of the time you will want to make the file publicly viewable, so select this checkbox. If for some reason you don't want your users to see this file yet, then do not select it.
Click on Create. Now your browser will upload the file from your computer to your Redzone website which can take a few seconds, or a few minutes depending on the size of the file.
Once the file is sent, it should be available from the Forms & Files menu item, provided that menu is visible and the file is publicly viewable.

Locations

As discussed in the getting started portion of this document, you can create game locations for your league. You can give each location a name, enter in its address and even upload a map of the location.

To create a new game location do the following:

From the admin dashboard, select the Locations section.
Click on Add a new location.
Give the location a descriptive name. This will be the name that will appear in the schedule when you create games.
Enter in the address information.
Enter in any other information that might be relevant.
Upload a map of the location if desired. To do this, click on the Browse... icon to select the map from your computer. This step already assumes that you have an image file of the map. Note: coming soon there will be Google Map integration here so that the map is automatically created for you.
Click on Create.
The location should not be visible on the locations page, provided that the locations menu is visible.

To create a new sponsor on your website:

From the admin dashboard, select the Sponsors section.
Click on the New Sponsor link. You should be presented with the new sponsor form.
Assign a type for the sponsor by selecting one from the dropdown. Currently the sponsor type you select has no affect on what Redzone will do with the sponsor, however it can be used to group sponsors if needed.
Enter the sponsor's name into the name text field.
Enter a description of the sponsor.
If the sponsor has a website, enter the websites address in the url text field.
If the sponsor has a logo, you can add one to the website by clicking on the Browse... button and selecting the logo from your computer.
Click Create to create the sponsor and upload the sponsor's logo if you selected one.
Make the sponsors menu available to your users via the menu page.

Schedules

Once your league is setup (seasons, divisions, teams, locations, etc.) you can begin adding games to your schedule. To do this, click on Schedules from the admin dashboard.

Adding Games: There are two types of games you can create. The first is by clicking the Add a new game link, which is what you would use when both teams that play are known. For example, all regular season games are usually scheduled in advance and the two teams that are involved can be selected. When you create the game you select the location and time it will be played, as well as the teams involved. You can also decide if this is a regular season game or a playoff game. The statistics for the game are tracked separately for regular vs playoff games.
Playoff Slots: For playoff matches, usually the teams who will be playing cannot be determined until all the regular season games have been completed. Although you may not know the teams, you may still want to schedule the time slots in which the playoff games will occur. For example, you may know that the 1st place team will play the 4th place team on a given date, but you are not sure who the 1st and 4th place team is until the season is over. If this is the case, you can add a playoff slot by clicking "Add playoff slot" from the schedules page. Once the teams are known, it's best to add the playoff game as described above in Adding Games and removing the playoff slot.

Event Calendar

Events can be setup using the event calendar. This feature is hidden by default. Simply unhide it in the menu section to make it visible to all users.

The event page is split up into 2 sections:

The main calendar view which you can navigate forward and backwards monthly using the arrows beside the month name.
A preview section which shows the events for the current month being viewed as well as any upcoming events. An upcoming event is one that occurs in the future from the current date, not the actual month being viewed.

Only an admin can manage events, so you must be logged in as one before you can perform any of the following functions...

Create an event

To create an event, simply navigate to the desired month and hover over a given day. An icon will appear in the corner of the day box, which you click on in order to load the new event form.

A title is the only required field. If the day event option is checked, then there is no need to specify a time for the event.

Once you have filled in the event information, press the Create button and the event will be added to the calendar and the preview list along the right hand side of the calendar.

Edit an event

An edit icon appears in the title section of an event in the preview section. Only events for the current month can be edited.

Clicking on the icon will load an event form that will allow you to edit the fields for the event.

Press the Update button to update the event. The event will be updated in both the preview section and the main calendar view.

Delete an event

A delete icon appears beside the edit icon in the title section of the event. Only events for the current month can be deleted.

Clicking on the icon will prompt you for confirmation of the delete. Accepting the confirmation will delete the event and remove it from both the calendar view and the preview section.

Auto Events

Auto events are events that are automatically added to the calendar.

Currently the only auto events are:

Season Registration Start Date
Season Registration End Date
Season Start Date

Auto events cannot be modified. To change the dates of the auto events, change the dates directly for the event they represent. So in order to change the date of the Season Regsitartion Start Date, change the date in the admin dashboard and the associated auto event will be automatically updated to reflect the change.

Messaging

A built-in message feature is included which defines groups of users that can all be messaged in one easy step.

The following functions are available:

Administrators can message all league members. (from the user listings page found in the admin dashboard)
Administrators can message all team captains. (from the websites teams page)
Team members can easily message all of their teammates. (from a specific team page)
Only members of a specific team or an administrator can message an entire team at once.
Users can message each other. (from a users player page)

Logo & Color Schemes

All the cool features of your Redzone website won't matter if your website doesn't look good! Redzone helps you make an attractive website by allowing you to customize the colors as well as upload a custom logo. Lets begin by loading the Logo & Colors page from the dashboard.

Logos

The first thing to decide upon with respect to logos is the position of the logo on your website. Redzone currently supports two logo placement options, Header and Sidebar. A header logo is one that is positioned at the top of the page and should act like a banner across the top of the website. A sidebar logo is one that is generally smaller and will be inserted at the top of the left column of the website.

To upload a logo and set its position:

From the admin dashboard, select the Logo & Colors section.
Select the browse... button and locate the logo on your computer you wish to upload.
Select either the Sidebar or Header radio button.
Click on the Save button.
The file will now be uploaded to your site, and you should see the logo displayed on the screen.

Color Schemes

Redzone comes with a few built in color schemes that you can use, and you can also create and save as many of your own schemes as you like. You can select different schemes to get a preview of what the site will look like with those colors, but the scheme will only be set for all users when you click on Set Active Scheme. This lets you play around with colors without your users viewing changes that might not be complete yet.

To select a different default scheme

From the admin dashboard, select the Logo & Colors section.
Under the color schemes section, make sure the Predefined Color Schemes radio button is selected.
Select a different color scheme from the drop down. When you select a different scheme, the website should change to those colors automatically. Note that only you will see the website with these different colors because you haven't set the new scheme as your active scheme yet.
When you have found a scheme that you like, click on the Set Active Scheme button. Now all users of your website will see the new colors. You may have to refresh your browser in order to see the new scheme.