Groups
Follow the steps below to change groups or create a personal group in the Athlete Management System.
Grouping allows for users to be classed together for data entry, viewing data, reporting and planning purposes. Users can be grouped, for example, by sporting discipline, class, year, age, gender, or team. The names, members and properties of the groups that are used on AMS are determined by a site administrator or, to a limited extent, a group administrator (with the exception of personal groups) according to organisational requirements.
The group environment that you are currently part of determines how you can use AMS. This is because you can only view or edit data relating to yourself (if you are a member of the current group) or members of the current group (if you are a professional user), although it is possible to be both a member and have professional user access to the same group. You cannot view or edit information about anything outside of the group environment you are currently operating within. To do so, you must navigate to a different group.
If you are a professional user, you will have access to groups of athletes without necessarily being a member of these groups. This means that you can edit and view information about users within that group. It is also possible to enter data for a group of users at the same time. For example, if all users in a group need to have the same data about them updated, you can do this in group data entry mode. Any subgroups will also be accessible if you have access to their parent group.
UNDERSTANDING AMS ACCESS
As a professional user, your access to data is determined by:
-
GROUPS - these provide you access to accounts. Users are considered as either:
- COACH - users added as a "coach" of a group will have access to the accounts of "athletes' in that group.
- ATHLETE - users added as an "athlete" will only be able to enter and view their own data.
- ROLES - these provide access to forms and datasets.
The combination of groups (accounts) and roles (datasets) is how access is granted and limited on the AMS.
UNDERSTANDING GROUP HEIRARCHIES
Groups on the AMS follow a hierarchical structure, allowing for groups to be organised in a logical manner. A hierarchical structure allows for a flexible, convenient way of assigning access to coaches and staff - being a coach of a group higher up the hierarchy provides access to the immediate group and all sub-groups below. Conversely, being a coach of a sub-group further down the line may provide access to just the athletes in that sub-group. Understandably, due to resource limitations and practicality, groups are generally not created on a per coach basis so a suitable level of granularity is required.
There are various means of organising these hierarchies that is mostly decided by the sport's preference; each one with their own pros and cons.
For example, hierarchies may be arranged by sport discipline and then further categorised into HP and Pathway bins:
Alternatively, it may make sense to categorise groups by the states in which DTEs are located enabling state coaches to access and load all programs in that state at once:
However, it may make more sense to categorise via discipline first and then split into states:
Each method has its own pros and cons and should be discussed with your AMS consultant.
HOW TO: CHANGE GROUPS
1. There are three different ways to change groups from the AMS home screen
Current Group List Link
Groups Button
Groups Tab
2. Select the name of the group you want to use
3. Click the Preview or Load button
Personal Groups
As a professional user, you are likely to have access to groups of users which are structured and populated by a site administrator (or a group administrator). If you are not an administrator, you do not have any ability to create groups, because this grouping applies across the entire site and to all users and allowing many people to do this would quickly create an unnecessarily complex group structure. However, with the personal groups tool a professional user can construct their own groups. Personal groups only act as groups for your personal purposes, such as data entry, reporting, messaging and planning, and are not visible to anyone except yourself.
Personal groups are most suitable for dynamic situations where a group’s members change often. Temporary groupings are not particularly useful from an administrative perspective but can be appropriate for those with coach access. For example, a coach may build a personal group for athletes he is working with on a short-term basis. The coach would want to enter group data and run saved reports about the group despite its changing members, so he needs to be able to manage the members without deleting the group and creating a new one every time an athlete joins or leaves his care. The personal groups tool allows the coach to do this.
A professional user’s personal groups are only accessible by that user. If the creator of a personal group wants to send a report, for example, about the group, then the creator would have to have permission to send the report and the recipient would have to (1) have permission to access the users in the group and (2) have permission to view the event form that the report relates to. The recipient could then choose to create their own personal group made up of the users in the report.
HOW TO: CREATE A PERSONAL GROUP
PERSONAL GROUPS LINK
1. If a site administrator has enabled this functionality, in the top right-hand corner of the page there will be a link called Personal Groups
2. Click the Personal Groups link
4. Enter a name for this personal group, remembering that personal groups are only visible to yourself
5. Use the search tool or the tick boxes to pick which members of the group you are accessing will become part of this personal group
7. This personal group can now be used when entering data, reporting, messaging or planning in this group environment
REPORTS TOOL OPTION
1. Navigate to the reports tool via its home page button or its tab, if visible
2. In the Select Data To View box, click the link displaying the number of users selected (this defaults to entire current group)
3. Use the search tool or the tick boxes to pick which members of the group you are accessing will become part of this personal group
4. Select Save selection as a new group?
5. Enter a name for this personal group, remembering that personal groups are only visible to yourself
6. Click the button showing the number of users selected, which will return to you the reports tool page with your new personal group selected
7. This personal group can now be used when entering data, reporting, messaging or planning in this group environment
MESSAGING OPTION
1. Navigate to your AMS inbox
2. Select the option to create a New Message
4. Use the search tool or the tick boxes to pick which members of the group you are messaging will become part of this personal group
5. Select Save selection as a new group?
6. Enter a name for this personal group, remembering that personal groups are only visible to yourself
7. Click the button showing the number of users selected, which will return to you the new message page with your new personal group selected
8. This personal group can now be used when entering data, reporting, messaging or planning in this group environment