SportsEngine - Team management

As stated by others, the new Schedule user experience view is less useful with less information and more clicks than its predecessor. If you have multiple players, or a player and parent coach, or lots of events per week, it would be useful to see who has what next, when, and where. The event title/type clues users as to actions they need to take. Now, users have to search to find days with dots, then click into each to discover what they used to see with one click on the Schedule. A subscribed smartphone calendar app has as much value now, where the SportsEngine had more value previously with lots of details at a glance. The list view was more useful. Also, each event now asks, “Are you attending?” to which I am frustratedly muttering, “I don’t know, to whom is this referring?” If you have multiple players on a team or a player and a coach, and they might require separate, different answers, it would be easier to know who you are answering for before clicking to discover. Since most players don’t use the app, perhaps it should ask if <name> is attending and name the player/coach associated to the team event, as most parent users aren’t attending all of those practices. The UI looks a little cleaner but it appears to come at the cost of adding lots more clicking with less details. Last season the chat was not working well even after the update, so I hope that once teams start using the chat, it too doesn’t suffer from changes like Schedule.

I have only had sports engine since November. I noticed this week that there was an update available and needed as the version I had ws not supported. So, after doing the update I have missed messages and schedule updates. Not sure how they didn’t show up timely, but something happened. My mom said my phone had a notification about a parent meeting. When she brought me the phone I could find no info or notice anywhere about a parent meeting. A couple days later I noticed that there was a parent meeting on the schedule that night, but it wasn’t there when I had looked prior. The update completely wiped out all prior chat messages as well. Now the chat menu at the bottom of the screen doesn’t connect with the team. I can only access the chat when I go into the team and from that menu, select chat. No more shortcut for me. I didn’t have an issue with the previous version, but this one has some glitches for sure! With about 5 or 6 weeks left of the season, wish I could undo the update.

For several years there has been an ebb and flow of bugs and glitches in the app. Feedback has been consistent from several parents of teams I have coached over the years along with my own experience. Team logos switching, disappearing and reappearing. Calendar events simply disappear from iOS calendar despite still being subscribed. Then they reappear randomly. Chat notifications (banner, Lock Screen, bubbles, etc) work intermittently at best. Right now I cannot get 2 of my teams to show up under the chat section. But when I go to the team directly and then to chat from within the team page, I can see the chats. Lately more and more users complain that they get logged out several times a day and have to log in again. Yet if a notification happens to work it still has them logged in. It seems to be getting worse over time as I get more and more negative feedback and even request to use other apps. It’s a shame as the design and integration are actually really nice when it works. It has gotten so bad this year that our manager is trying to contact support to see what we can do. Our travel team often has last minute updates to schedules and locations and they are often missed. This creates stress for families and players and takes away from the overall experience they are meant to have in these sports programs. This app is supposed to support that positive experience and not take away from it.