We wanted
to take this opportunity to let you know about some enhancements and fixes that
were released to TennisLink Leagues on
Thursday, February 21, 2008.
1.
LEAGUES – Enhanced Self-Rate Questionnaire
2. LEAGUES – Incomplete Self-Rates during Registration not a problem
anymore
3.
LEAGUES – 2009 League Setup Tree in place
4.
LEAGUES – Renew Membership Duffle Bag
Promotion
1. LEAGUES - Enhanced
Self-Rate Questionnaire – Phase 1
You all recall the
tremendous amount of self rate appeals coming to your Section at the start of
each league season. It currently is extremely burdensome to those of you who
process self rate appeals.
We found it imperative that the right questions are asked initially for the
player to receive their correct rating, and have therefore detailed some of the
existing questions, as well as added some others. For example, we added to
question #1 on self rate form "or have committed to playing" on a college
tennis team. And we have added "Have you participated in State
Championships for Divisions or Conferences of High School Varsity teams?"
Everyone who
handles self-rate appeals will benefit - it will save them a lot of time and
research. As far as the additional questions are concerned, it will for
instance assign elite high school players higher ratings, which is where they
belong. This new Self-Rate Questionnaire is only Phase 1 of the planned
enhancement of the self-rate system. Phase 2 will connect the Questionnaire with the Appeals Form.
For example, if a player answers yes to question #1 on the self rate form,
he or she will not be
able to leave that question blank on the appeals form. All questions have to be
answered. He or she will be blocked from proceeding if a question was not answered.
2. LEAGUES – Incomplete Self-Rates during Registration not a problem
anymore
When a player had
to self-rate during league team registration and canceled out of this process
before it was completed, the system let them do it and still put the self-rate
result as a rating in its database. So some players, although they thought they
didn’t complete the self-rate, were confronted with a situation where they were
trying again to register, the system asked them to self-rate and then told them
they self-rated already. Sounds complicated, but resulted in an endless loop
and the player could not register for that team.
Now, when the player reaches the “Completed” page in the self-rate
process and cancels out, the minimum self-rate level will be written to TIMSS
and he or she doesn’t have to self-rate again. If they cancel out before they
reach the “Completed” page, nothing is written to TIMSS and the player has to
self-rate again the next time they try to register for a team.
3. LEAGUES – 2009 League Setup Tree in place
The new 2009
League Setup Tree was placed in production and should be available to you all.
Please check your Section and let us know if you encounter any problems.
4. LEAGUES – Renew Membership Duffle Bag Promotion
Any time a USTA
League player that has an expired, or about to expire, USTA membership and
tries to register for a team on TennisLink, a message is being displayed. It
reminds players that if they renew now for 5 years, they will get an extra year
for free and a USTA League Duffle Bag. Offer expires 5/31/08.
08srenhance.htm