Ready, set… go! This chapter is full of tips and tricks on how to get started with Sportlyzer. A lot of people have been in this position and have done the work that you are about to do. We have collected their experiences and asked them, what obstacles they encountered so that you can avoid them.
The first thing to tackle when starting Sportlyzer is getting your athletes on board, right? Many clubs already keep their member lists in Excel files. If you are one of them - great! If you already have your members in an Excel file, you are just 3 minutes away from having them on Sportlyzer as well! Follow short instructions below to import all the athletes at once.
Import members from Excel
Start by going to the “Athletes”-page and clicking “Add athletes”. Under Import from Excel click “Import athletes”.
Next, a 3-step process follows (but you will be amazed, how simple it actually is).
- Locate and select the Excel file (containing the members) from your computer.
- Match the columns of your Excel file with the fields in the athlete’s profile.
- Review your logs and handle duplicates or warnings and you are good to go.
If you need some additional explanations continue on to read the comments and tips on each step.
First step
Please keep in mind, that we only accept .xls and .xlsx file formats. If your current list has a different format, please try to convert it to one listed above.
If you wish to send email, SMS and push notifications, make sure you add phone numbers and email addresses. Phone numbers have to be added with the international country code (e.g. +441234567890). To add a "+" sign in Excel, use an apostrophe (') before it. Otherwise, Excel won't accept the plus sign.
If you need any help, contact support@sportlyzer.com for assistance. You also have an option to download the Sportlyzer example file to see all the fields that you can insert into Sportlyzer.
Second step
We need you to match headers in your file with the fields where you want them to match in Sportlyzer (i.e if you use “Given name” or just “Name” you need to match it with Sportlyzer field named “First name”). Colors will guide you and show you which headers are fine and which could not be matched to any destination. Don’t worry, you don’t need to find a destination for all of your columns in the original file. Choose the information you need, but don’t forget names and contact information.
Third step
The last step will show you the results of your import. Sometimes warnings appear to get your attention that there is already somebody with the same name in your club - we call them duplicates. In these cases, we need you to tell us if these two persons are the same person or do they just share the same name.
If you already have the athlete on Sportlyzer, but the information in your Excel file is more up-to-date than the information on Sportlyzer, you can choose to update the existing athlete profile with data from Excel.
To keep profiles and contact information always up-to-date and how to collect the last missing pieces of information from even the laziest athletes, read this blog post.