Design Help 4 GL Admins

As a member of the GreatLeague community, we ask that you conduct yourself in a professional and friendly manner, even in those instances where you might run into resistance from other gaming platforms. A firm, friendly and courteous manner will allow others who may be watching to make a decision as to which league they would prefer to join.

With that said, let's get started!

GREATLEAGUE STRUCTURE:

The following positions are available for your use in the structure of a GreatLeague. They are:

• Head Admin -- You may have one or a few Head Admins. Head Admins are responsible for running the league and making all staff decisions. Head Admin(s) are the presidents and CEOs of the league. HAs can appoint TDs and promote them to all level of staff including additional Head Admins, and demote all except the original Head Admin.

• Senior Admin -- Your most trusted and skilled admins should be senior admins. Senior admins will have many functions in the league, including the ability to kick members and promote staff to Head Tourney Director or Admin. They can promote TDs to HTD or Admin and can demote regular admins and HTDs to HTD or TD.

• Admin -- Admins will be the more important staff in your member services operations. Admins will help new members and older members with all their needs as members. Admins will also help enforce rules, having ability to place members in the penalty box when needed. They can promote TDs to HTD and demote HTDs to TD.

• Head Tourney Directors -- The more senior of your TDs, HTDs can also run tourneys created by other TDs to fill in for absent TDs.

• Tourney Directors -- TDs are your entry level staff position, it's where all new staff starts by learning the important skills needed to succeed in creating and hosting tournaments for your members.

GREATLEAGUE SUPPORT STAFF

• There are several people available to help you on the GreatLeague Support Staff. You will find the list on your admin page. Please do not hesitate to IM or e-mail any of them at any time if you need them. You do not have to send in an e-mail and wait for days for a response. We do ask you to remember that these Support Staff members have volunteered their time to help in any way possible, even though the majority have leagues of their own to run, and to treat them with courtesy and respect.

GREATLEAGUE ADMIN MENU - (Plus League)

• All Staff log into the same link. Td's will have access to only those links that pertain to what they do, and on up the line, with HA and admin having access to all links.

HEAD TD MENU

• Administer Tourneys - This is where you can view all tourneys currently on your League's calendar and run or edit them. The remove tourney feature is under the HTD menu.

• Create Tourneys - This page allows you to select the type of tourney you wish to run and then brings up the creation page.

• Add Tourney Rules is a function you may limit to a few members of the admin team if you wish. This allows each league to load all tourney rules applicable to their league and edits are performed only by select members of the admin staff. These staff members will have the ability to add new rules, edit and remove rules from staff access. Each set of rules will require a unique name applicable to only that set of rules. At least one set of rules must be loaded prior to creating a tourney.

• Add Tourney Pages will work exactly the same as the prior stated rules catagory and be available to all staff when creating their tourneys. This loads exactly the same as in the old gl menu but will be retained for future use and require only a selection to load to a newly created tourney. It is very important to remember this pages should have a distinctive name that will make it easy for staff to recognize. At least one tourney page must be loaded prior to creating a tourney.

• Remove Tourney - This allows you to remove tourneys that have been set and not held or for some reason other reason need to be removed from the calendar.

• GL Plus Training - This link will take you to the training site provided to teach how to set up, host and close out tourneys.

COMMUNICATIONS

• Admin and Staff Forums - This will take you to our forums for help from Support Staff and other leagues' Staff and HA's.

• Admin Updates - This is where you can access all ?official? Updates from GreatLeague.com. When a new update is posted it will be sent to your e-mail. If you don?t get a chance to read it immediately or would like to refer back to it later, simply click the Updates link and you will see the most current update at the top, followed by a list of links to read all past updates at your leisure.

• Plus Updates - As above, this is where you can access all "official" Updates from GreatLeague.com pertaining to Plus league issues.

• Admin Support - Send your questions regarding tourneys and support issues here. Most issues should be sent to support via our support@greatleague.com e-mail address or the support links in admin. Otherewise, staff can view the support staff list near the botton of the admin menu for a listing of which admin topics each of the support staff members are available to assist with. Only the most pressing emergencies should be reported first to senior support staff, otherwise, all issues should start with submission to support@greatleague.com and possible messenger contact with a member of support staff if needed.

• League Newsletter - You can use this option to send a newsletter to all registered members of your League. The newsletter is sent in HTML format, and you may use HTML codes to change the text colors and add images. You may use this function once daily, although we caution against excessive use as this may cause it to lose effectiveness. This fuction and all other e-mail functions on the admin menu, require that all the members who will receive such e-mails have what the server considers VALID e-mail addresses. The validity in question here is the FORMAT of the e-mail address. All e-mail addresses must consist of a name of some kind made up of letters, periods, dashes and or numbers, followed by the @ symbol and just one of them, followed by the address of the user's e-mail server, such as a yahoo.com or msn.net or something like that. There shall be NO SPACES anywhere in, before, or after an e-mail address. The most common cause for rejection as invalid e-mail addresses are spaces typed by the user when entering their e-mail address, or having two @ symbols, or not having one at all. joesmith @spadez.com, johnjohn@yahoo@yahoo.com or sandismithcomcast.net are all examples of common invalid e-mail addresses.

• New Members Welcome Letter - You can use this option to send out a welcome letter to all new members automatically to let them know schedules, rules of your league or any other information you feel necessary. New Members Welcome Letter is a button that only send a communication to new members that have joined in the last (number of days) specified for the email. This is not an auto function. Edit League Welcome Letter is an auto send when a new member joins and letter only needs to be edited for changes.

• Head Admins Group - This link will take you to the Yahoo Group GreatLeague has set up for all Head Admins, where you can discuss problems, ask questions or post any information you think might help other members of the GreatLeague Community.

• E-Mail All League TDs - You may use this option to send e-mails to only the td's and htd's on staff.

• E-Mail All League Staff - This option will send your e-mails to ALL league staff

• E-Mail ONE Staff Member - Use this option if you need to address just one member of your staff.

LEAGUE MANAGEMENT

• Edit Admins and establish checks for the specific functions for each staff member. You are no longer limited to all with the same title staffers having duplicate buttons. Also, be sure to additionally edit the New Member email link to enable that your admin staff receives email notification of new members.

• Swiss, DE, TOC Settings - This function allows you to choose which staff can host these special tournaments.

• Mark/Edit Rooms - This function is mainly for multi-gaming Pogo Leagues and allows you to mark and edit your game rooms for each game you play.

• Edit Listed Games - Edit list of Games and list each game your league plays. This will insure that your league is listed in all catagories for games on the League List.

• Appoint Staff - Here is where you appoint tds, htds, and admin, and promote or demote as necessary.

• Remove Staff - Use this function to remove a staff member from your league. This does not remove them from the league, just as staff.

• Change TD Status - This function allows you to put a td on vacation status, inactive, active or active/exempt status

• Admin Log - Here you can see whenever you or one of your admin staff logs into their admin page and lets you view what actions they have taken.

• New Member E-Mails - Whenever a new member joins your league you will be notifed by an e-mail sent to your current e-mail address on file. For admins to receive these, their accounts need to be edited in admin and they shall be checked for receiving new member e-mails. Those who receive these also receive TD applications and a few other automated e-mails regarding league management. When it doubt, check an admin to receive these.

• League Welcome Letter - Use this function to edit your welcome letter to new members to reflect any changes in the league or staff that you want the members to be aware of. This function edits the automated welcome letter sent by the server to new members after joining.

• Plus Staff Training -

• Public/Private - Use this function to decide whether you want your league to be public to everyone or whether you want to control who joins your league.

• Create Your League Store - If you wish to have a league store for your members to exchange bux for gifts, you can use this function to go to Cafe Express to customize your store. The store does not cost you anything to run and you can send in artwork to customize t-shirts, mouse-pads, hats, coffee mugs, etc., with pictures of your league's logo or anything else you wish.

• View Marked Rooms - This is a handy place to check to see what league is currently in what room in the event you wish to change rooms or even just to know where other GreatLeagues are playing. All greatleague.com leagues will also have their room markings registered with www.RoomsRegistry.com.

LEAGUE LOG:

• View League Log - All events, league games, tourneys, members joining, withdrawing, etc., are reflected in your League Log, with the newest entries listed first.

• Search League Log - You can use this function to research a certain tourney, or to find out how many tourneys a specific td has run, etc.

MEMBER SERVICES:

• View All Members - Members can be viewed in three ways: all members, members in order of bux, or in alphabetical order.

• Edit Member Accounts - This is a powerful tool which lets you edit a member's win/loss record, post a win or remove one from their stats and or move them up or down in rank. You may not edit a member's bux.

• Reset Member Password - Sometimes a member's password doesn't work or they have forgotten what it is and they will ask you to "fix" it for them. This function will allow you to issue them a new password.

• Issue Sub Credits - This tool only grants wins for subs. If you wish to grant ratings points, adjust other stats, or gift GreatLeague Bux for subs, please use the appropriate tools for those actions. This tool grants one win for each match in 1 vs 1 tournaments and double that for each match in 2 vs 2 tournaments.

• Trace IP Addresses - If, for some reason, it becomes necessary to find out where an ip address is originating from, you can use this tool to discover the information.

• Reset Idle Members - If you are preparing to do a purge on inactive members, and you know someone is on vacation, in the hospital, or for some other reason is unable to play at this time, and you know they wish to remain in the league, you would use this tool to reset the date of their last activity so that they will not be included in the purged member list.

• E-Mail Inactive Members - This is a useful tool to use to invite inactive members to a special tourney or just to let them know you would love to have them come and try out the league or that you miss them.

• Purge Inactive Members - GreatLeague does not have an automatic purge at this time. You must go into the purge inactive members function and choose which members to purge based on whatever criteria you have established for your league, i.e., 60 days idle, 90 days, or whatever. Be sure you reset any idle members as described above.

• Penalty Box - Should you find yourself with a member who just won't listen, disrupts the league or breaks any of your league's rules, you can put them in the penalty box for however many days you have decided upon for an infraction of your rules. It is recommended that this function not be used excessively or that great amounts of time be given to a member. It is also not recommended to box a member to keep them from withdrawing from your league. Boxing a premium member for an excessively long period of time can and will be reviewed by Support Staff at the member's request and may be removed from the box by Support. Upon request, support can unbox and remove premium members at league request at any time. The premium member will be afforded an opportunity to move their premium membership to another GreatLeague.com league.

• Kick/Ban Members - This tool is used to remove a player from your League. Doing so will cause the player to lose all of their statistics, LadderBux, their TD account (if applicable), and any premium membership they have purchased, so be extremely careful when making the decision to kick. If the user is a premium account holder we prefer that you warn them before removing them so that they can move any LadderBux and their premium membership to another League.

• View Banned Members - Here is where you can view all members who have been banned from both your league and GreatLeague, itself.

• Unban Member - If you have banned a member from your league and since decide to let them have another chance, you may use this tool to unban them. The unban function is not available for members that have a GreatLeague Ban. Any consideration for removal of these bans should be addressed to Head of Support Staff.

• Duplicate Accounts - This tool is used to search for possible multiple accounts. The key to remember when using this tool is that the accounts listed are only possible duplicate accounts, and that their showing up on here does not necessarily mean that they are guilty of illegal activity. There are many reasons that an account may end up on the list of possible duplicates:

• Two players who share a computer will show as a duplicate account, but they may be husband and wife, or roommates, and not cheating.
• If a player visits another player?s house and plays a game or two from that computer while they?re visiting, they may show as a duplicate account.

• Largely used Internet Providers, such as AOL, assign IP addresses by proxy and therefore, a member who uses that ISP could show as a duplicate IP address with any other member who uses that ISP.

• A player may create an account, make a mistake, and create a second account that they activate and begin using. Both accounts will most likely show on duplicate accounts, even though one has never been used.

• We highly recommend that you use extreme caution when utilizing this tool. It is by no means failsafe. You should always take your time and evaluate the situation very carefully when researching duplicate accounts. More often than not there is a reasonable explanation for the ?red flag? you discover if you just take the time to contact the player and listen to their explanation.

• If after a thorough investigation you feel confidant that you have a duplicate account, use the Kick User tool to remove the accounts from your League. This way you will be sure that no mistakes are inadvertently made. Remember, once an account is kicked, the player?s entire history, LadderBux, and player statistics are gone permanently. We cannot stress enough how important it is to be careful when using these tools, as a result.

• Send League Invites - This tool is primarily used by private Leagues but can be used on public Leagues as well. Enter an ?Alias? (username), email address and temporary password for the player, then click Invite. The player will receive an invitation. Please be sure to have admin in the lobby when you send out invitations so that when the prospective member comes to your lobby there will be someone who can help them get started.

• Use this tool responsibly. It is against GreatLeague policy to leave an existing League and then use this tool to invite the members of your former League to join a new one that you have created. This tool should also not be used to invite the players of a competing League. Your new league should consist of new members.

• Yahoo Recruiting Tutorial - This gives you a very detailed explanation of how to recruit new members through a Yahoo Group you may set up for your league. Remember not to recruit from existing GreatLeagues. This is a very useful tool in gaining new members and helping your league to grow if used properly.

LEAGUE WEB SITE

• Refresh League Site - After you have changed colors, fonts, and/or added custom html to your page, you need to update and refresh the league so that these changes will take effect. After you click the refresh button, BE SURE to click on the link on the following page or your changes will NOT take effect.

• Update Calendar - This function allows you to update your tourney calendar. However, this should only be done late at night to reduce load on the server.

• Update Hall of Fame - From time to time you may wish to update your Hall of Fame. Please be sure to do this late at night, after the load on the server eases up as this takes quite a bit of server resources.

• Set Re-Direct URL - Input your re-direct URL in the box provided (URL ADDRESS ONLY, redirect code is built in) maximum of 225 characters.
  
  Note: To Turn or no longer use re-direct, refresh page from templates using the refresh league site button on the admin.