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Creating a Competition – Checklist

To use BowlsLink’s simple and easy to use Competition module, we have provided a checklist of items to tick-off before setup, during and after to ensure a trouble free and minimal work for Club and Competition Administrators.

Before setting up your Competition #

Getting off on the right path is vital when setting up Competitions in BowlsLink as many of the steps involved can be ‘set and forget’, leaving more time for bowls.

Key parts of this include being granted Administration access and establishing the financial gateway established, administrators can simply Copy and Paste previous competitions for members to register.

1. Getting Administration Access #

To set up a Club Competition you will need to be a Club Administrator or Club Competition Administrator. If you do not have this access your club should request it via your State or Territory Association BowlsLink contacts.

Alternatively, your current Administrators can request access on your behalf by completing the BowlsLink Administration Request Form.

2. Connecting the Payment Gateway (OPTIONAL but highly recommended) #

The potentially most daunting task of the checklist but often most rewarding and streamline and time-saving process in the long term is connecting to BowlsLink’s payment gateway. A once-off process that when established, saves time for administrators and members alike, creating a central point where members can pay and Clubs can be paid their income. Connecting the gateway also benefits Membership as payment can be processed online as well.

For an indepth and comprehensive guide on Connecting the Payment Gateway, please see our support article – Payment Gateway Sign Up (Pin Payments)

Benefits of using the BowlsLink Gateway include:

  1. Clubs or association can receive payments to their nominated bank account within days or at a desired time frame i.e. weekly or monthly
  2. BowlsLink transactions incur a relatively low 1.5% fee plus 12 cents per transaction incorporated into payments. i.e. for a $100 payment a club or association would receive $100 less the payment gateway fee of $1.50 + 12 cents = $98.38. This is the full Payment Gateway fee with no additional surcharge provided to Bowls Australia or the BowlsLink service provider. More details under Fees and charges.
  3. The club or association will have a dedicated Pin Payments account which they can manage independently to add or remove additional account managers and/or view payments, fees etc..
    Note: BowlsLink will still provide a ledger of payments and invoices with available reports.
  4. The payment gateway provider Pin Payments is an Australian based company which provides an extra level of support and system maintenance aligned to our time zone as opposed to any international providers.

NOTE – If you do not wish to use the Payment Gateway and are using another method leave the ‘Fees’ section of the setup as blank.

Setting up the Competition in BowlsLink #

After Administration access has been granted and the Payment Gateway is established, the Competition can be created.

3. Creating the Competition #

We recommend reviewing our detailed support article on How to Create a Competition for further information or queries administrators may have but below are the key fields to set for each Competition created – note, once a Competition is create, it can be copied, including the Key Fields, without having to manually set each time.

Prior to adding the Competition to BowlsLink it is a good idea to have the prepared Conditions of Play, Sponsors or Club Logos available to upload into BowlsLink, dates and times, Competition and results formats so they can be easily added to the setup.

In addition to the mandatory fields, the below settings are HIGHLY recommended as they will streamline the process for Administrators and Members alike:

  • Self–Registration – include dates when members can register themselves via BowlsLink
    • DO NOT allow guests to register. This can often lead to non-members trying to and registering for your Competition.
  • Competition Mailing List – Tick YES. This will allow administrators a method of contacting the register players with any key Competition information.
  • Restrict entry to one or more participation types? – YES – Restrict participation type to Competition BOWLERS. This will ensure only Competition type participants are eligible.
  • Restrict entry to Financial Members? – Tick YES – this will ensure only financial members can participate.
  • Require players to be Members – Tick YES – This will require players to Link their National ID Number with their entry or teammates’ entry.
  • Fees – Add Fees as necessary. With the payment gateway connected, members will be able to pay and register all in one transaction.
  • Assign Times, Greens & Rinks – Include Greens and Rinks as this can help with fixturing. If Greens and Rinks are not showing, please contact BowlsLink or your STA with the details that need to be added.

Members Register #

4. Entering the Competition #

Next, the members register themselves for the Competition!

Available to members is the BowlsLink Support article – Entering Competitions which bowlers can efficiently register for events, manage teammate entries, and fulfill all necessary requirements without confusion.

If any issues arise and administrators are needed for assistance, they too can enter members to competitions on their behalf – Adding Entries as an Administrator

5. Fixturing the Competition #

BowlsLink offers various fixturing to Clubs, all of which can be easily imported into or automated by BowlsLink.

BowlsLink Templates #

BowlsLink has templates available for 8 to 42 team competitions by 3 to 8 rounds – Fixture Templates

Fixtures will need to be download and uploaded as a CSV file to the relevant Competition.

If these are used, all that remains is to map the team according to their draw – this is a great option for Blind Draw competitions as the fixture is already set.

Manually created templates #

If an external or manual template is being used, please see Importing Fixture Templates support article for details on how to Create and Import your own template. This can accommodate more complex fixtures that might not be available from the BowlsLink options.

Run the Competition #

Time to relax and enjoy some Bowls!

With the majority of the administration done and dusted, players and administrators can focus on their bowls before the last step of the process – Entering Results

6. Enter the Results #

Results can be entered Live by enabling the Live Scoring App in the Competition setup. This will give players, spectators and administrators live, up-to-date information about matches and can quicken the time taken to post results. Check out our Live Scoring articles for more information –

If Live Scoring is not utilised, scores can be added via the desktop version of BowlsLink, most often after the Competition is finalised and matches are completed.

For information on entering results, check out our BowlsLink Support article – Entering scores for Competitions

For future Competitions #

Now that a Competition has been created with online registrations and fees (optional), fixtured and results entered, it can be copied for use in future, simplifying the need to create a new Competition each time.

Note, copying a Competition will ONLY replicate the initial settings – Fixtures will not be copied. Updates to dates and times will also need to be managed for the new periods.

For more support please contact bowlslink@bowls.com.au