More information about Team Status
Several coaches have asked about how the team list and status get updated, hope this helps.
I manually download a team list from the FIRST TIMS database for the latest team numbers, team names, school/org info and city about once a week, (less often early in summer, more often as we get close to team registration closing) The last download date with the FIRST TIMS database is in the article title.
As you complete the pre-reqs, this will update your team’s status directly. Then every few days or so, I do a final, manual review before marking everything complete (or adding in comment on what needs to be completed).
Things that could go wrong.
- District UNKNOWN. We have a very simple lookup that uses proper capitalization, spelling and spaces. So for example, “Mountain View” will match but none of these will: “MOUNTAIN VIEW”, “Mt. View”, “Mountain View”, ” Mountain View”, “Mountain View “. [note extra spaces in the last 3 examples]
- Paypal (Payment Received) or jotform (Details Received) doesn’t update status. You know you paid and/or you know you submitted the jotform but the status for either of these still shows No. There are a couple of reasons – including that we are doing maintenance on the database right at that moment or there was a hiccup in the automation link connecting to the database. Just send an email to teaminfo at playingatlearning dot org asking for this to be checked
- “Addnl Forms Needed?” is marked as needed. Likely this means one of 2 things: You have an incomplete roster or you have a team member/coach/mentor that needed to be handwritten on roster. More info/links
- Your team number is not listed – the most likely reason is that you registered the team AFTER the last time that we synced with the FIRST TIMS database. Or you didn’t scroll down in the article and only see the first few teams…
- The page doesn’t load/times out. Most likely reason is that we are working on an upload or similar on the database. Just give us a little bit of time and retry.
Please do not send email immediately after you do your pre-reqs asking if everything is okay. I will review and add comments or send email as I can. There will be ~600 teams before we close team registration and only 1 of me. – jill
