As per the forum I've made it so that you can send out an attachment with your gala emails.

Also, previously, if you set an instructor as "read only", they didn't have access to run reports (best swim times etc). Now they can.

A couple of people have mentioned to me that they would like to change their SwimClub forums username. Up until now I have had to do this for you but you can now do this yourself.

Goto "My Account > My Account Details" and edit the forum username field and click the Update button.

Also, for those of you who aren't interested in receiving these SCM update emails, you can opt-out by selecting "Opt-out of non urgent emails" = Yes and clicking update.

You will then only receive important emails regarding the SCM service such as scheduled down time etc.

It is now possible to send emails to male/female swimmers separately, and to swimmers in different ASA Categories. Simply choose the relevant option from the dropdown list on the "Send Email To Group" page.

I have also updated certain elements of the user interface so you will notice some slight improvements across the board.

I have extended the gala functionality as per the forum request.

When you add galas from now on, you have 2 extra fields:

• Coach provided
• Total seats

You select swimmers for the galas in the same way, but when you send gala emails, here's what happens now:

1. The swimmer receives the email as before
2. There is a link in the email that the swimmer can click on
3. When clicked, they are taken to a page to say whether or not they want/can attend the gala
4. If you have said there is a coach/bus for the gala, the swimmer can enter how many seats they require, if any, on it
5. They then click one of 3 buttons saying I can attend, I can not attend, I'm not sure yet.

I was asked in the forums if it is possible to use the special ##NAME## tag in the subject of emails as well as the body.

This has now been done. Anywhere you enter the above tag in an email subject or body, the system will replace that with the recipient’s first name.

Over the last week or so there were some intermittant problems sending emails out from the system.

Users were experiencing some bounce backs from AOL and Tiscali domains.

These issues have now been resolved.

I have another update on the back of the email all invoices feature yesterday.

It was brought to my attention that swimmers/parents might not want to receive multiple emails containing one invoice in each email. This could be a little annoying if a swimmer has a lot of invoices outstanding, receiving one email per invoice!

So, now there is an option to consolidate the invoices into one email per swimmer. This way, swimmers/parents only receive one email and inside this email is a list of all their outstanding fees (depending on what criterion you select).

The consolidated emails look like this:

Dear swimmer's name, the following fees are outstanding :

Outstanding Invoice # xxxx
Invoice Period : 20/03/2009 - 20/03/2009
Outstanding : £87.95
Invoice Type : One Off Fee - Swim fee
 - Arrears to end March 09
  --------------------------------
Outstanding Invoice # xxxx
Invoice Period : 15/05/2009 - 15/05/2009
Outstanding : £57.95
Invoice Type : One Off Fee - Swim fee
 - Swim Fees Arrears
  --------------------------------

and so on...

Navigation menu

The "Finance" section has been broken down into sub sections making navigation easier:

• Expenses
• Income
• Invoices
• Accounts

Emailing Invoices

If you go into the Invoices tab under finance you will see an "Email Invoices" link.

On this page you can send any combination of outstanding emails filtering by invoice types and finance groups.

Member Forums

I've added pagination to the members' forums so you can "page" through the forum topics and posts.

I've made a few updates over the last couple of days:

Swimmer's email addresses
Previously all swimmer's email addresses had to be unique. It was brought to my attention that some of you needed to be able to put the same email address in for multiple swimmers.

This has now been done, you can now put the same email address in for multiple swimmers.

Emailing payment reminders
There was a bug when you sent out an email from the swimmer's profile page lieting all their outstanding invoices.

The system wasn't marking the invoice as being "sent" when you were viewing the outstanding invoices page.

This has now been fixed.

I've also been tidying up various pages and form fields so you may notice some subtle changes/improvements.

Swimmer Logins
There was also a bug when swimmers tried to record swim times themselves from within their account. This has also been fixed.

Swimmer's Extra Info Field
When you are viewing the outstanding invoices page, if you hover your mouse over the swimmer's name, anything you entered into their "Notes" field will show in a little popup.

Paid Invoices
On the "All Paid Invoices" page, I have added an extra field "Paid Date" so you can see when an invoice was paid by the swimmer.

Gala Emails
When you are emailing swimmers to tell them that they have been selected for a specific gala, you can now choose to leave out swimmers that you have previously emailed regarding that gala.

Useful if someone drops out and you need to email the new swimmer, that way all swimmers already emailed will not receive the email again.

Emails
From now on, the system now automatically saves your previously sent emails so that you can view all the emails you have sent to swimmers, parents etc.

These can be viewed on the "Members", "Send Emails" page at the bottom under the form.

Bulk Swim Times
When adding bulk swim times ("Members", "Add Swim Times") you can now select a default stroke so that when the swimmers are displayed after you have chosen a group, the stoke is defaulted to what you chose above. This saves you from having to change from "Backstroke" every time.

Newsletters
If you are on option 1 (website + SCM) you can now start collecting visitors names and email addresses that opt in to receive your newsletter on your website.

To switch this feature on (it is off by default), goto "Setup", "Club Details" and you will notice a new form field "Website Newsletters". Set this to "Yes" and click the update button.

Now when you view your website, in the sidebar there is a "Newsletter Signup" form that your visitors can opt-in to receive your newsletter (when you send one out).

Sending a Newsletter
To send a newsletter to these opt-in subscribers, goto "Setup", "Website" and click on "Website Newsletters" on the website menu bar.

If you have any subscribers there will be a form visible. Fill it in anc click "Send" to email them.

Use this feature to send out club news and anything newsworthy that is related to your club. As usual, all emails are recorded and monitored. If we detect any abuse of this system whatsoever such as sending out spam or non club related emails etc we will disable your account immediately.

Trial Requests
You can now record trial requests from visitors to your website. You must activate this in the same way as above (Setup, Club Details, Record Trial Requests) because this is also off by default.

When you receive new trial requests, you will see a notification on your account homepage under the Outstanding Invoices bit. Click on the number to view them.

You can also goto "Members", "Trial Requests" to view them.

You will inevitably get some garbage trial requests so to delete them you can either click on the red cross next to the one in question on the main Trial Requests page, or you can click on the "View" icon and set delete to "Yes" and click on update.

Emailing Outstanding Fee Reminders

When a swimmer has one or more outstanding invoices, you can now send them an email reminder listing all their outstanding fees in one single email.

View the swimmers account page and under their "Outstanding Invoices" you will see a button titled "Email Swimmer Re Outstanding Fees" (if you are either an admin or have access to finance details).

Click on the button and a popup window will open that lists all their fees etc. Edit the email if required and click the "Send Email" button.

Sending Emails
Your coaches can now send emails out to all swimmers/groups instead of just administrators.

Swimmer Details
Swimmers can now edit their own email addresses in case they change them.

Export Data
Administrators can now export swimmer's data to a CSV file. Goto "Groups", "Export Data".

At the moment, you can export the following swimmer's details:

name, dob, gender, address, postcode, emergency contact, phone, email, mobile, notes, doctor, doctor address, doctor phone

When you run the export, the file will be emailed to you automatically.

If there are any other export reports that you want adding, please let us know.

Bug Fix
On the group reports page, there was a bug where by when you clicked on the "Print" icon on the best swim times report. The results were not the same on the print view. This is now fixed.

You can also now sort the print view table on the above page the same way as the results page (click on column heading).

Emailing Instructors and Parents

You can now email a single instructor or parent, like you can with swimmers.

When you are viewing their account details, underneath "Upload Photo" there is an "Email Instructor/Parent" link.

Click on this to open a popup window. Fill in the details and click the send email button at the bottom of the form.

Week Numbers on Outstanding Invoices Page

I've also made a slight change to the outstanding invoices page. Instead of saying "44 to 44" in the week number field, it now just says "44". If the invoice covers more than one week, it will still say "44 to 45" for example.