Waiting List Functionality for Leagues

The waiting list functionality was developed as one of the highest voted feature requests on the ideas site (https://ideas.spawtz.com/communities/1/topics/94-add-waiting-list-functionality-for-leagues). This functionality was released in February 2019. 

The implementation of this feature required changes to various pages, and these changes are detailed below: 

The registration settings for a league

As we started to create this functionality, it quickly became clear that it would not longer be sufficient to have a simple "yes/no" flag for the registration status of a league - we would need a more nuanced status including the ability to indicate that registrations should be accepted, but should go straight to the waiting list.  So the league details screen will be changed to include the following section:

As you can see, the "Team Count" field has now become the "Capacity" field, and it is now possible to specify a capacity for both teams and for individuals.  It is now also possible to specify different capacities for men and women.  This way, if you have a mixed league that you are trying to recruit only men or women for, you can keep registrations open for men, but close them (or send them to the waiting list) for women, or vice versa.  If you enter 0 in the capacity field, the capacity will be considered to be infinite.

You will also notice that the registration status for teams and individuals can now be in one of three states; "Open", "Straight to waiting list", or "Closed".  Teams and users will be able to register for any leagues with a status of "Open" or "Straight to waiting list".  However, if they register for a league whose status is "Straight to waiting list", or if they register for a league whose status is open but whose capacity has been met (i.e. there are more teams or users registered for the league than the value in the "Capacity" field), those teams or users will go onto the waiting list instead of into the league.

When teams or users go onto the waiting list, they do not get a registration fee put onto their statement, so they can't pay for their registration.  This should fix the issue that you may have had in the past where people register for a league that is over subscribed, and then pay, and then you are forced to refund them as there is no capacity.


The waiting list section on the Teams/Divisions page

On the Divisions/Teams page for leagues has a new "Waiting list" section below the divisions within a league:



Expanding this section shows the teams or people who have either registered online for a league with a status of Straight to waiting list or which is over capacity, or who you have manually added to the waiting list:



You can add new teams or users to the waiting list by clicking the "Add waiting list entry" button:



The same sort of section appears in the Individuals screen:



Again, you can add users to the waiting list manually, or they will end up there if they register for an over-capacity league or one with a status of Straight to waiting list.


The registration process

The changes to the registration process are only subtle, but visible if you set a league's status to Straight to waiting list, or if a league goes over capacity.

In these cases, a note will be displayed next to the league on the registration screen, showing the user that the league is currently full:



If they continue to register for that league, they will be placed onto the waiting list (per the screens above), and will be shown a different confirmation screen.  They will also not get a registration fee put onto their statement, as they will not have been assigned a space in the league.


Modifications to autotext items

The waiting list changes have given us the opportunity to tidy up some of the autotext items involved in the registration process.  Specifically, we have removed these autotext items:

Team Registration Message: No space available, but some teams haven't paid deposit
Team Registration Message: No space available, but some teams haven't paid full amount
Team Registration Message: No space available

And added these ones:

Team Registration Message: No space available, team added to waiting list
The message that is displayed to a team organiser when they register for a league that is either full, or that has its registration status as 'Straight to waiting list'
Team Waiting List Email: To Organiser
Text of email that is sent to team organisers when they tried to register a team and the team was added to the waiting list
Individual Registration Message: No space available, user added to waiting list
The message that is displayed to a user when they register as an individual for a league that is either full, or that has its registration status as 'Straight to waiting list'
Individual Registration Email: User Placed on Waiting List
Text of email that is sent to users when they tried to register for a league that was full and they were added to the waiting list


API Modifications 

We have also added API endpoints to allow for additions to be made to the waiting lists via the api, so if you are using the API to drive your registrations, please let us know and we will provide documentation on the new features.

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