Clubforce simplifies the role of volunteers at amateur sports clubs by reducing the administrative burden and saving countless hours in the process. Close to 2,000 clubs have registered on Clubforce and use it to manage membership data, communicate with members and raise funds for their club in various ways but it’s a smaller number of clubs that get the maximum value from the system and make full use of the extensive functionality available to every club administrator.
Here are some of the admin panel features you may not be using (but really should!):
1. Helpdesk and Training Videos
There is a wealth of useful training content on the Clubforce Helpdesk and in the Clubforce admin panel, specifically for different club admin roles. Look out for the “2-Minute Page Demo” symbol on individual admin panel pages to see a short video relating to how to use that page on Clubforce.
To access the helpdesk you can use the chat function at the bottom right hand corner of any web page on the Clubforce website and admin panel – or alternatively visit help.clubforce.com and type in your question. The helpdesk contains over 100 help articles and instructional videos answering the most common questions for club administrators and club members using the Clubforce system.
To access the full collection of training videos sign in to the Clubforce admin panel and go to Noticeboard on the left-hand menu and choose Training Videos from the sub-menu. Here you will find close to 30 training videos covering all of the most commonly used features on Clubforce.
These videos range from 1 to 4 minutes in length and give you specific instructions on how to use various aspects of the Clubforce system from searching for members and reporting on club membership.
2. Single Member View
The Single Member View feature on Clubforce gives you a complete overview of any member of your club. Members have the ability to upload documents through their Clubforce Member Account and club officers than then review these in Single Member View. This is useful for accepting coaching qualifications and police vetting forms from coaches – with additional functionality to set reminders for club officers and coaches when their vetting forms are set to expire. Permission to view this information can also be restricted by the club e.g. only the Secretary and/or Child Protection Officer can see police vetting forms.
In Single Member View, you can also see associated memberships (e.g. children, spouse etc.), view a full history of payments and memberships paid, view communication preferences of the member and see an archive of any documents uploaded by that member.
It’s also simple to get a full overview of all members who have uploaded documents and see expiry dates for those documents in a handy table which can be exported to Excel if needed. This is particularly useful as documentation and governance become more prevalent in amateur sports clubs.
3. Barcode Scanning on Tickets
Did you know you can sell tickets online via Clubforce? Clubs use this functionality for a wide variety of social events, matches, summer camps and fundraisers including underage discos, concerts (e.g. ShedFest 10 concert in Wexford) and regular club events like the annual awards night or Christmas party.
Tickets can easily be purchased by club members (and non-members) on Clubforce and sent to the user via email or the Clubforce mobile app. They then use this barcoded ticket to gain access to your event either by printing off the ticket or using the ticket on their mobile phone to enter.
One of the benefits of barcoded tickets for the club is that attendance at events can be verified – e.g. verifying that a child attended a summer camp giving peace of mind to parents and club volunteers.
Selling tickets on Clubforce also means no more printing tickets and distributing them in-person to shops and businesses and returning to collect funds and unsold tickets. This reduces the dependency on volunteers being available to sell tickets, allows people to buy tickets securely online in their own time, reduces the risks associated with handling cash and eliminates the need for the club to purchase books of tickets.
4. Retention Report
Clubforce has several useful reports for club officers to see how the club is performing in terms of membership growth and revenue generation. One of the most insightful reports from this perspective is the Retention Report:
Is your club’s membership growing or shrinking? The Retention Report let’s you see in detail whether previous members are registered for the current year. The Retention Report can be filtered by age group, registration type (adult/juvenile etc.) and gender with graphs to visualise where membership is growing or dropping off. This enables the club to quickly identify members from previous years who haven’t registered – making it easy to follow-up with and remind them without sending blanket messages to the whole membership base. If you are responsible for managing membership at your club, you really need to be using this report. To get the Retention Report for your club, sign into the admin panel and go to Memberships > Retention Report.
5. Group Management
The new Clubforce app makes it easier to communicate with volunteers, club members and parents in a secure, streamlined way. By creating groups in the admin panel, you can create dedicated communication channels for different teams and user groups within your club. Coaches can easily see who has paid their membership and send reminders to those who have not yet paid.
Groups are easy to set up and once set, communication is simple with the app which is available to download on Android and iOS.
To start creating groups in Clubforce, sign in to the admin panel and visit Communications > Groups to get started.
Didn’t know these features existed? Call Clubforce today on +353-91-506048 to find out more about how your club can be putting Clubforce to better use!
