Page 4 - News & Updates – Support Centre

Planned outage to some Tennis Australia systems on 2nd – 4th December.

From 4pm Friday 2^nd December until 11pm Sunday 4^th December, there will be a scheduled outage to a number of systems utilised by the tennis community. The systems impacted during the outage period are:

Tennis Connect – (Tennis id creation/login)
MyTennis 2
Match Centre / League Manager

Whilst we understand the inconvenience of this necessary outage, it is required to enable Tennis Tech to perform critical works to ensure the security and stability of our systems.

Tournament Planner and the Tournaments website will still be accessible, however please note that players must ensure they have their Tennis ID (number starting 66..) prior to the outage period, as there is no ability to register for a Tennis ID during the outage period.

This scheduled outage will not impact ClubSpark.

If you have any questions regarding the outage prior to 4pm Friday 2nd December, please read on to the FAQ’s below. If your question is not answered by the FAQ’s, please contact the Customer Support team during operating hours: https://support.tennis.com.au/contact-us/

FAQ’s:

When is the outage?	Planned Outage Start time : Friday 2-Dec-2022 // 16:00 Hrs Planned Outage end time : Sunday 4-Dec-2022 // 23:00 Hrs
Why was this timing chosen?	The scheduled outage impacts a wide range of platforms and services provided by Tennis, and after significant planning across our team and 3^rd parties, these dates are the best period to complete the required works.
League Manager/Match Centre, Tennis ID & MyTennis2
Will I be able to login MyTennis 2, League Manager/Match Centre?	No.
Will I be able to create/register for a Tennis ID and complete my competitive player profile?	No. The Tennis ID and account creation portal will not be accessible during the outage period. Players attempting to complete their competitive player profile and activate their UTR Rating via Match Centre will not be able to do so until after the outage period.
Will I be able to administer my league/teams via League Manager?	No. The outage will prevent any access to League Manager. All related administration via League Manager (e.g. entering scores, printing scorecards, adding players to teams, team nominations etc.) will be accessible and continue as normal once the outage period is complete. Please ensure that relevant match results are entered following the outage period.
Will I be able to view my matches via Match Centre?	No. The outage will prevent any access to Match Centre. Please ensure that you note your upcoming match time, location, format and playing order prior to the outage period. Additionally if required, print your match scorecard prior to the outage.
Will I be able to view enter scores via Match Centre?	No. The outage will prevent any access to Match Centre. Match scores will be required to be entered following the outage period.
Will MyTennis2 be accessible for reporting or any other purpose?	No. The outage will prevent any access to MyTennis2.
What is the impact on my UTR?	During the outage period, no match results can be entered in League Manager/Match Centre. Once match results are entered and confirmed following the outage period, eligible results will be reflected on your Universal Tennis profile within 72 hours of the time of confirmation.

Book a Court Update – November 2022

We’re wanting to provide you with the latest update and status on the gate/light issues being experienced by some ‘Book a Court’ venues.

Where can I find the last update about these issues?

Click here to see our previous communication in September.

Latest update & current progress

The delivery of the API integration (ultimately the gate/light fix and improvements to the ‘booking delay’) is on-going though we’ve taken big steps forward in recent weeks. We’re nearing close to commence the implementation process hopefully in the coming week or two.

Right now, we’re undertaking tests of the latest works that were released overnight to validate that everything is working as expected in terms of lights turning on, remaining on and turning off at the correct times. Once we’re confident with the gate and light behaviour, we will commence the roll out to a small group of venues (in various States) to pilot, which we will closely monitor before expanding to a second small group a week later. Following these two phases, we’ll implement the API to the remaining venues which will potentially take a few weeks to complete.

Further communication and updates will be provided when the implementation process is going to begin.

We want to assure you that we’re doing everything possible (within our control) to deliver this solution as early as possible and we apologise for the inconvenience this may be causing you and the players at your venue.

Are you being heavily impacted and need an interim solution?

As per our previous updates, if your venue is being heavily impacted by these lighting issues we have the option to automatically activate lighting for fixed days/times (set by the club) that may alleviate some pressure/inconvenience being experienced by you as a volunteer/admin. For more details about this alternative option, please email [email protected] and we can discuss the possibilities of providing you with this option.

Support or raising queries

A reminder to report any issues for our team to investigate and confirm that it is related to this issue, please ensure you provide the following information to our Customer Support team via email on [email protected] or call 1800 752 983 with all the necessary information, including:

Your club and contact details
Explanation of what happened (e.g. “court 1-4 lights went out at xx, but should have remained on, light switches were correctly set to AUTO”)
Details of the booking impacted (i.e. booking contact, times, dates)
Other details we may need to know (e.g. “no other booking was impacted” or “lights worked perfectly on court 1”, “this occurs only on a Monday”)

Thanks again for your patience and understanding of this matter.

League Manager & Match Centre Update – Thursday 20 October

We have made some key changes to the League Manager and Match Centre experience for administrators and players as the integration of the UTR Rating for Australian tennis continues.

As part of Summer 2022/23 we are promoting the benefits for players to complete their competitive player profile, by registering for their Tennis ID via Match Centre and activating their UTR Rating.

This is an important step in moving towards the new Competitive Play Framework and will support the competition experience for all players and administrators, providing a single player profile across competitive play.

Please note the following key functionality changes to League Manager & Match Centre release Thursday 20 October:

League Manager

The ability to create a new player in League Manager will be removed, with any new player that does not already exist in the database required to register via Match Centre and obtain a Tennis ID (11-digit number starting with 66…)
Pending Persons feature will be decommissioned, as any player that does not already exist in the system will be required to register and obtain a Tennis ID
Any new player will be required to self-register before they can be found in League Manager/Match Centre when adding a person to a team/scorecard.
Administrators will be able to see player UTR Ratings for any player profile that is eligible to receive a UTR Rating (regardless of a player who has/has not activated their UTR Rating)
TA Ratings will be removed from remaining displays and reports, with only the UTR Rating visible on League Manager
The Club Player Details report has been updated to show if a player has/has not completed their UTR Rating activation
Tennis ID references updated in League Manager displays for player information
Minor bug fixes

Match Centre

Any new player will be required to register via Match Centre to obtain their Tennis ID
The ability to create a new player via the scorecard will be removed. The ability to add a player that has registered/exists already in Match Centre will remain.
A player must activate their UTR Rating via Match Centre and link their UT account with their Tennis ID to view their rating on their player profile. An ‘Activate UTR Rating’ button will be visible on the players own dashboard.
- Note if a family has multiple U15 accounts under one parent/guardian email, a unique email for each child account is required when activating their UTR Rating
Any player profile that has not activated their UTR Rating, their rating will not be visible on Match Centre or printed scorecards
TA Ratings will be removed from Match Centre
Minor bug fixes

Tennis ID Registration & Login page

Refreshed landing page and interface

Account registration streamlined for both standard and Under 15 accounts

Support Guides

Updated support guides for both League Manager and Match Centre can be found here:

Direct access to the Tennis ID Registration & UTR Rating Activation user guide is HERE.

Please ensure that you have logged out of League Manager, cleared your browsers cache/history, and then logged back in to ensure you see the latest updates to League Manager. If required, support information on how to clear browser data can be found HERE.

Should you have any queries related to how the above changes may impact Leagues or Events, please contact your relevant State/territory Member Association Competitions & Events team. Alternatively, please don’t hesitate to contact our friendly team on 1800 PLAY TENNIS (1800 752 983) or email [email protected].

FAQ’s related to the latest updates:

The below information is provided to assist in understanding the changes being made, which are an important part of the Competitive Play Blueprint.

Why are we requiring new competitive players to register for a Tennis ID?

Ensuring that players register with Tennis enables the ability to improve the competition experience; providing a player with a unique ID that will be utilised across Leagues and Events, moving towards competitive players having one profile, one ID, one rating.

What are the benefits of requiring registration to competitive play systems?

A better playing experience through level-based play and a range of benefits including:

UTR Rating
Endorsed Event & League entry
AO and Summer of Tennis ticket offers
Discounts & Special offers
Personal injury insurance
Exclusive events & Content

Why do players need a competitive player profile?

All players competing in Australia should have a Competitive Player Profile established to simplify the process of entering endorsed Events and Leagues. Whether playing for fun at a local club or professionally on the global circuit, your Competitive Player Profile will ensure participants receive the best playing experience by enabling level-based play.

How do players complete their competitive player profile and activate their UTR Rating?

Information regarding how players can currently complete their competitive player profile can be found HERE.

The TA Support site for information on Ratings, League Manager and Match Centre is here https://support.tennis.com.au/.

What is Tennis doing to reduce duplicate player profiles?

When a player creates a profile, they are prompted to search Match Centre and request to merge any duplicate profiles, and this prompt is also visible whenever a player opens their profile settings.

In addition to the above, we encourage club administrators to work with their relevant State Member Association Competitions team who can assist in working through and cleaning up player profile data related to a club/organisation in League Manager.

Are you an association or club administrator interested in using League Manager (Tennis Australia’s free online competition management system) for your competitions? Please click HERE for more information.

League Manager Update – Friday 23 September

We are excited to announce new functionality is being added League Manager, with a new League Manager player, team, club and competition search tool for administrators to be released Friday 23 September.

The System Search tool will allow administrators access to competition information across the country to assist in administration and provide increased access to player, team and competition information.

The League Manager System Search includes the ability to search:

Players

Search and view any player in League Manager/Match Centre
- View their current competition and latest team
- View individual player ratings, results and statistics by year and/or competition

Organisations & Teams

Search and view any organisation and teams, in League Manager/Match Centre
- View an organisation, the number of current active teams, and all historical teams
- View any team’s competition, ladder position, fixtures and results, plus team statistics
- View the Teams players, ratings, and order of merit (if applicable to the competition)

Competitions

Search and view any competitions that are administered on League Manager/Match Centre
- View any organisations current active competitions, or historical competition information
- View all associated competition data, such as; fixtures and results, ladders, teams and player statistics

The System Search can be accessed via the League Manager side-menu bar under ‘System Search’.

Note: data cannot be modified using the search tool, as the search tool’s purpose is to provide read only access to information.

Support Guides

For more detailed feature and user guide information on the League Manager System Search tool, please visit the League Manager product knowledge base on support.tennis.com.au. Alternatively, when logged in to League Manager click ‘Support’ on the menu bar to access WalkMe which provides step-by-step instructions and guidance for a range of League Manager tasks.

Direct access to the League Manager System Search user guide is HERE.

Don’t see the LM System Search in your LM side menu on release day? Please ensure that you have logged out of League Manager, cleared your browsers cache/history, and then logged back in. If required, support information on how to clear browser data can be found HERE.

If you do encounter any issues, simply require some assistance, please contact Customer Support via 1800 PLAY TENNIS (1800 752 983) or email [email protected].

MT2 Decommissioning – 30 June 2022

⚠️ IMPORTANT – the consumer-facing club memberships function of MyTennis 2’s is being decommissioned on 30 June 2022:

What will change?

We won’t be decommissioning the affiliation function, only the membership side of My Tennis2 will be impacted (see screenshot below)

All club members statuses and membership packages will become expired in My Tennis 2.
Club admins with access to My Tennis 2 won’t be able to create new packages or members (they will still be able to view and download historic membership packages and members information)
Clubs will no longer be able to use the Communication Tool within My Tennis 2.

What about MyTennis features?

We will MAINTAIN:

Reporting data will remain accessible in MT2.

We will be REMOVING:

Remove the ability to add new memberships
Remove buttons for Copy, Deactivate and Edit Memberships.

Remove the option to purchase the Memberships
Removing the MT2 communication tool

Who this will impact?

Clubs using MyTennis2 to manage people’s memberships to clubs. Clubs using the “Communication Tool” to contact people from the club.

If you already use ClubSpark to fully manage your memberships and communications – this will not impact you.

What to do as an alternative?

Talk to your club representative about moving across to ClubSpark. It is easier to use for you, and your members.

For the best onboarding on ClubSpark:

Where to start with ClubSpark : https://support.tennis.com.au/articles/where-to-start-with-clubspark/

_____________________________________________________________________________________________________

At TA, we want to help clubs provide the best experience, increase their membership revenue, and make sure current & future players in Australia can easily find Tennis online.

For this reason, TA will be decommissioning the use of My Tennis 2 for consumer-facing clubs membership. From June 30, 2022, clubs will no longer be able to offer memberships through My Tennis 2 and should have migrated their club’s membership service to ClubSpark or another membership solution of their choice.

By decommissioning My Tennis 2 for consumer-facing clubs memberships, we have more resources to invest in improving and supporting systems that clubs are using. Additionally, through centralising player information into less systems we can give clubs/MA’s/TA a better understanding of the health of participation across the country.

If you’re not too sure yet, ClubSpark is a venue management system that a number of club administrators are using to create and manage membership packages, as well as bookings, schedules, club events, website content and programs such as ANZ Tennis Hot Shots, Open Court Sessions, Cardio Tennis or your own custom programs.

We will support clubs to adapt and transfer their members from My Tennis 2 to ClubSpark - follow this article to learn how to transfer all your club’s existing memberships to the ClubSpark platform.

We are committing to leave you enough time to change the way you process memberships and we understand that clubs might have some difficulties adapt to the new platform. Therefore a second comms will be send out soon with a how-to-guide to show you clearly the small steps you have to go through and support you in the change.

Meanwhile, if you have any questions or need more information please get in touch with your local tennis representative.

Note:

We will no longer be facilitating bulk uploads into MT2

If you are still unsure, please contact your local State representative or Customer Support on 1800 752 983 / email: [email protected]

Book a Court Update – September 2022

We’re wanting to provide you with the latest update and status on the gate/lighting issues being experienced by some ‘Book a Court’ venues.

Where can I find the last update about these issues?

Click here to see our previous communication in August or click here to see our initial communication in March.

Latest Update:

The delivery of the API integration (ultimately the gate/light fix and improvements to the ‘booking delay’) is still on-going, although hasn’t progressed as much as we hoped since our previous update and development works remain with ClubSpark at this point in time.

Some initial testing has been completed with mixed results, thus requiring further development in order to meet the required booking rules and logic for the gates and lights to behave as they currently do now.

Good news is that with our testing to date, we haven’t been able to replicate the issue of lights turning off prematurely for bookings so we’re confident that this has been rectified. In addition, there is positive signs that the “booking delay” will be further improved, with our aim that this would be at least under 15 minutes, although we won’t be able to provide a definitive answer to what the reduced delay will be until it is deployed into the ‘live’ environment as our testing environment only has 2 “venues” configured and isn’t a true reflection of the systems processing time as there are over 300 venues live with ‘Book a Court’.

To provide further detail on a couple of the key outstanding items being worked on, this includes:

Gate schedules – bookings made under the coaching, competition, event or maintenance category are not keeping the gate unlocked for the duration of the booking
Cancellations or modifications to bookings – booking pins are successful and lights are activating, however when the booking is cancelled or modified during play (e.g. remove one court or cancel booking early), the light schedules are not updating to reflect the changes; therefore lights remain on for original booking time

There are also regression tests that need to be completed for our other integrated access & lighting solutions (Igloohome lock & BCS lighting) to ensure they haven’t inadvertently been affected by the changes being made to ‘Book a Court’ as these other integrated solutions are “linked” under the same feature structure.

In relation to the move to use an API for the process of sending/receiving the booking data (which offers more benefits and opportunities for enhancements), it has been flagged by Complete Security Solutions (evidence from other venues that have integrated the hardware with another software provider via API) that there is possibilities that this move will result in more data downloads per month and therefore the current 500mb data plan may be required to be increased to 1GB for venues that have a high volume of bookings to avoid paying excess fees (as per venue agreement).

Note: Some venues are already exceeding their mobile data plan and in the back-end CSS are upgrading the plan to the next level as the cost to upgrade works out to be cheaper than paying the excess fees. In majority of cases we believe CSS have been absorbing these costs in good faith.

We will continue to work with CSS on these possible requirements for changes to the data plan and will communicate to each venue once we have a better understanding of what is involved with this and how we can possibly support each venue (for example, we don’t want a blanket rule that every venue requires a 1GB plan if they aren’t currently exceeding the existing 500mb on average).

A reminder to report any issues for our team to investigate and confirm that it is related specifically to this, please ensure you provide the following information to our Customer Support team via email on [email protected] or call 1800 752 983 with all the necessary information.

Your club and contact details
Explanation of what happened (e.g. “court 1-4 lights went out at xx, but should have remained on, light switches were correctly set to AUTO”)
Details of the booking impacted (i.e. booking contact, times, dates)
Other details we may need to know (e.g. “no other booking was impacted” or “lights worked perfectly on court 1”, “this occurs only on a Monday”)

Thanks again for your patience and understanding of this matter.

MyTennis2 (MT2) – Update – 11 August 2022

As of 30^th June 2022, clubs can no longer use MyTennis2 to manage people’s memberships to clubs, also, clubs can no longer use the “Communication Tool” to contact people from the club.

NOTE – MyTennis2 (MT2) continues to be used for club affiliation to Member Associations. There is no change to the club affiliation process.

For more detail on what has changed, please navigate to this support article (link to: https://support.tennis.com.au/product-knowledge-base/my-tennis/ )

Book a Court Update – August 2022

We’re wanting to provide you with the latest update and status on the gate/lighting issues being experienced by some ‘Book a Court’ venues.

Where can I find the last update about these issues?

Click here to see our previous communication in July or click here to see our initial communication in March.

Latest Update:

The delivery of the API integration (ultimately the gate/light fix and improvements to the ‘booking delay’) has reasonably progressed in recent weeks, however, there is still a lot of work to be done in this space and we hope to be in a better position in the next week or two to be able to share specific timelines.

Complete Security Solutions (hardware provider) have completed the build of the ‘test’ envrionment for the API integration, which is where we will be testing the changes made by ClubSpark and confirming that the issues have been fixed, before rolling this out in the ‘live’ environment to every venue.

ClubSpark (software provider) have deployed multiple releases to the ‘test’ envrionment and early validation/testing by CSS has begun where the basic integration has been reached (i.e. access levels/courts are being populated), however ClubSpark now need to work towards the more complex requirements such as user-validation and modifying/cancellation of bookings during play.

Another challenging requirement that is being raised is the support for existing bookings within the software (e.g. recurring bookings), as only new bookings are included in the data, ClubSpark will need to also build functionality to push through the existing bookings and their associated access levels (i.e. booking pins) when we’re ready to implement the API integration in the ‘live’ environment. As the solution for this support is being worked through and in addition to some other items and processes, we’re anticipating a staged approach when implementing the API integration to venues in the ‘live’ environment. For example 10-20 venues per day for ‘x’ weeks. As we progress further, we will have a clearer understanding of the processes and approach, which will be made known to each venue closer to date.

As a result of these works, there will be changes to the looks in certain areas of the software platform specific to the hardware integration, which may be of relevance to you as a club admin. These changes are minor, so won’t require any formal training and once these changes are finalised we will provide a simple support documentation explaining the changes and its relevance to the system. As an example of these changes, the Public and Private Site Pins will be located in a slightly different area.

Again, we want to assure you that we’re doing everything possible (within our control) to deliver this solution as early as possible and we apologise for the inconvenience this may be causing you and the players at your venue.

As mentioned in our previous updates, if your venue is being heavily impacted by these lighting issues we have the option to automatically activate lighting for fixed days/times (set by the club) that may alleviate some pressure/inconvenience being experienced by you as a volunteer/admin. For more details about this alternative option, please email [email protected] and we can discuss the possibilities of providing you with this option.

Your club and contact details
Explanation of what happened (e.g. “court 1-4 lights went out at xx, but should have remained on, light switches were correctly set to AUTO”)
Details of the booking impacted (i.e. booking contact, times, dates)
Other details we may need to know (e.g. “no other booking was impacted” or “lights worked perfectly on court 1”, “this occurs only on a Monday”)

Thanks again for your patience and understanding of this matter.

Book a Court Update – July 2022

We’re wanting to provide you with the latest update and status on the gate/lighting issues being experienced by some ‘Book a Court’ venues.

Where can I find the last update about these issues?

Click here to see our previous communication in June or click here to see our initial communication in March.

Latest Update:

We had hoped to provide you with an update expressing further progress to the resolution of the gate/light issues, however we’ve come across some barriers preventing us from doing so. The barriers are related to the complexities of ClubSpark (software) changing the booking data files and meeting the necessary requirements and rules set out by Complete Security Solutions (hardware).

In our previous update we advised that testing of the fix had commenced, however our results of the fix were not satisfactory (i.e. gates/lights would not operate as per current functionality). After several changes and attempts to get it right, we unfortunately were not getting the results we required.

With these results and further discussions with ClubSpark and CSS, our approach and plan to deliver this solution has pivoted. We will now work towards an Application Programming Interface (API) integration between the two parties to send/receive booking data. Our current method for sending/receiving booking data is via File Transfer Protocol (FTP) – which the formatting and process of the files is where the underlying issue is.

Moving from FTP to API integration is quite a big shift and may then take us more time to deliver the permanent resolution, however all parties have agreed that this is the required step to take to not only fix this issue, but also for future improvements and enhancements of the Book a Court system.

Our early discussions with the API integration is quite promising in regards to the opportunities that it will be able to provide when we get this right. With the API integration, we’re likely to significantly reduce the “booking delay” more so than what we could’ve achieved via FTP.

Another helpful part to this pivot to API integration is that ClubSpark have previously worked on an API integration (Tennis NZ) with the same system utilised by the hardware, so provides us with some confidence that we will be able to push pass the barriers and deliver what is required. In saying this, the requirements for the integration used in Tennis NZ is not like-for-like and therefore will still require ClubSpark to design and build to our specifications (to ensure we retain all existing functionality), which is where a lot of time can be spent.

This week, CSS have commenced building the “test” environment for the API integration, which is likely to be completed before the end of next week. This will then allow ClubSpark to start pushing their existing API integration (used for Tennis NZ) to that environment and then be able to understand the work involved (and timelines) to build the integration to our requirements and the framework provided by CSS.

As previously mentioned in our last update, if your venue is being heavily impacted by these lighting issues we have the option to automatically activate lighting for fixed days/times (set by the club) that may alleviate some pressure/inconvenience being experienced by you as a volunteer/admin. For more details about this alternative option, please email [email protected] and we can discuss the possibilities of providing you with this option.

A reminder to report any issues for our team to investigate and confirm that it is related, please ensure you provide the following information to our Customer Support team via email on [email protected] or call 1800 752 983 with all the necessary information.

Your club and contact details
Explanation of what happened (e.g. “court 1-4 lights went out at xx, but should have remained on, light switches were correctly set to AUTO”)
Details of the booking impacted (i.e. booking contact, times, dates)
Other details we may need to know (e.g. “no other booking was impacted” or “lights worked perfectly on court 1”, “this occurs only on a Monday”)

Thanks again for your patience and understanding of this matter.

Book a Court Update – June 2022

We’re wanting to provide you with an update on the ‘Book a Court’ issues we’ve previously identified & initially shared with you in March.

What were the issues?

Lights turning off prematurely or at incorrect times for bookings
Contacts being issued a booking pin of ‘0’

Where can I find more details about these issues?

Click here to see our previous communication in May or click here to see our initial communication in March.

There has been some progression to resolving the issue specific to lights turning off prematurely or incorrectly. These works are still being finalised and tested in our Staging environment, though there are still a number of outstanding items flagged with ClubSpark for them to deliver. In addition, there is also around a week of work to “tidy” the environment before releasing, which includes work related to security, authentication, user-interface and user-experience.

As we’ve previously communicated, the timing of this resolution has far exceeded our expectation of delivery, so we’ve been discussing alternative options or work-arounds with Complete Security Solutions (CSS) that might alleviate some pressure and inconvenience for your club with the hope to provide an improved playing experience with no interruptions and to reduce the admin burden from operating lights manually.

It has been suggested that this alternative option first be utilised at a couple of venues to verify that this actually provides clubs the benefit that we’re looking for during this time, before we offer this as an interim solution to other clubs. The alternative option involves court lights being programmed to automatically come on/off at set times each day and is not dependent on the booking data (where we have these issues) and therefore is not dependent on players entering a booking pin. With that in mind, clubs will need to consider the possibility that lights will be turning on when there is no bookings/play.

If your club has been heavily impacted by these lighting issues and you want to know more details about this alternative option, please email [email protected] and we can discuss the possibilities of providing you with this option.

As we continue to progress with these works, we will continue to provide necessary status updates using the same communication methods via the ClubSpark software – see below examples. (i.e. Home page of admin area & as a once-off pop up for administrators).

Your club and contact details
Explanation of what happened (e.g. “court 1-4 lights went out at xx, but should have remained on, light switches were correctly set to AUTO”)
Details of the booking impacted (i.e. booking contact, times, dates)
Other details we may need to know (e.g. “no other booking was impacted” or “lights worked perfectly on court 1”, “this occurs only on a Monday”)

Thanks again for your patience and understanding of this matter.