Make or upload a team

You set a team up once. Get the roster, formations, plays and colors in, and everyone you invite works off that same setup. After that, the only thing that changes week to week is the schedule.

Two ways onto a team

Starting a team and joining one are different, and which one you do decides what you can do afterward.

• Create a team and you're its owner. You control everything: settings, colors, staff, and who gets access.
• Join with an invite code and you come in as a fan. Fans get the score, the play-by-play and the stats, but not the playbook. Once you're in, the owner can move you up to coach.

If your head coach or a coordinator already made the team, don't make a second one. Ask them for the code. Two teams means two rosters, two playbooks and two sets of stats that will won't add up. Joining is covered in Coaches, fans and settings.

Create your team

1. Sign in, then tap Create a team. If you're already on a team, it's on the Team tab, near the bottom: Create another team.

2. Identity. Three boxes.

   • Team name: the school or program, the way you'd write it in a report.
   • Acronym: up to six characters, always in capitals. This is what fits on the score bug during a game, so shorter is better. RBT, not R. Bend Tech.
   • Mascot: optional. The line under the boxes shows how the full name will read.

3. Look. Pick your primary color, and add a logo if you have one. The crest preview updates as you choose. Without a logo the app draws your acronym in your color, which looks fine. Don't get stuck on this step.

4. Season. The year, and your quarter length. Quarter length is used for clock entry during a game. Massachusetts high school is 12 minutes; set yours to whatever your association plays.

5. Playbook. Either Start blank and enter your own, or load one of three starter sets:

   Starter set	What it is	Size
   Pro / I-Formation	Downhill run game from under center with play-action off it.	8 formations · 15 plays
   Gun Spread	Shotgun sets, zone run game, quick passing and RPOs.	8 formations · 14 plays
   Wing-T	Series-based misdirection: buck sweep, trap, waggle off the same look.	8 formations · 12 plays

   These are generic on purpose and use nobody's real terminology. They're there so a coach who downloads the app on Tuesday has something to tap on Friday. Rename, reorder and delete whatever you like afterward.

6. Tap Create. You land on the home screen, and the team is live.

The roster, by hand or from a spreadsheet

Go to Team → Roster. Both routes are behind the + in the top right.

By hand

Tap Add player and fill in the number, the name, the positions and the grade. Fine for a handful of additions or a transfer in October. For a full varsity roster, import instead.

From a spreadsheet

Tap Import from CSV, then Choose file. The app reads Excel (.xlsx) and CSV. You probably already have this file. It's whatever your program gave the athletic department.

The app looks for these columns, in any order, with any capitalization:

A file this simple imports cleanly:

Name,#,POS,Grade
Casey Halvorsen,10,QB/DB,10

1. Read the summary before you tap Import. The app tells you which columns it understood and which it ignored. If your file has no header row, it also tells you it's reading the first three columns as name, number and positions. Believe that warning and check a few rows under it.

2. Know if you're adding or replacing. If you already have players, the app tells you if the existing roster will be deleted first or the new players added alongside. Read that line before you tap.

3. Check anything marked (guessed). An orange guessed tag means the app guessed at that value. It won't make up a jersey number. A player whose number couldn't be read comes in without one, and you fill it in.

4. Tap Import. The button shows the count, so you know how many players you're bringing in.

Key players

Swipe a player and tap Key player to star them. Four to six is about right: your ball carriers and the players you actually feed. Starring does two things:

• On the Add Play screen, the player grid opens on Key players instead of the full roster. That's the difference between one tap and hunting through ninety numbers with the play clock running.
• Stars are staff-only. Fans never see them. Who a staff considers its top handful is a read on your own team, and a parent seeing their kid unstarred is a conversation nobody needs.

Formations and plays

They're two separate lists, in Team → Formations and Team → Plays. They work the same way, and you can fill either one three ways, all behind the +:

• Add formation / Add play: one at a time.
• Import from CSV: a whole list at once.
• Load a starter set: one of the three templates above, even if you started blank.

Importing a playbook

The playbook importer looks for columns called Formation and Play Name, in any order. Each column is read as its own list, so they don't have to be the same length. That's the shape of the "Lists" tab most coaches already keep:

Formation,Play Name
Gun Right,Power
Gun Left,Sweep
Stack Right,Quick Pass

If you have a Play Type column, the app uses it. If you don't, it guesses the type from the play's name and tells you how many it guessed, so you can fix them on the next screen.

Direction isn't a column. If your spreadsheet has one, the app tells you it ignored it. Direction is Left / Middle / Right, and you pick it on the Add Play screen when you log the play. It isn't part of the play's name.

Play type and play family

These two fields are what let the app tell you something about your plays. You set both once, in the playbook, and never on a Friday night.

Play type

Run, pass, or special teams. This determines how the play is counted in run/pass splits and in player stats. Get it right and every number downstream is right.

Play family

The kind of play, pooled across every call of that kind. Power and Counter are two calls and one read.

Turning something off, versus deleting it

This is the one place in the app where the wrong choice can't be undone, so give it thirty seconds now.

If you've just stopped running something and want it off a crowded Add Play screen, use Turn off. It's gone from the Friday night screen and every finished game still reads right. The delete confirmation offers Turn off instead. Take that button.

Delete is for mistakes: a typo, a duplicate, something you added last week and never called.

More than one team

You can be on several: a varsity and a JV, or your own program and one you help out with. Each keeps its own roster, playbook, games and stats, and nothing bleeds between them. Switch with the Switch team control at the top of the home screen. One subscription covers up to five teams.

Your display name is the exception. It's under Team → Your name, and changing it changes how you show up on all of your teams at once.