School Administration

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As a coach or director, you will use Tabroom to do things like manage your school's account, maintain your student roster, register for tournaments, and view school-wide results.

If you just want to know how to register for a tournament, see the section on Registration.

When your Tabroom account is linked as the administrator for a school, you will see a set of tabs when you log-in that correspond to the main school admin functions:

This section of the manual will explain how to use each of these tabs.

School Setup

Before you can access your school's student roster, tournament registrations, etc. you must first either create a new school (also known as a chapter), or link your Tabroom account to the pre-existing school account.

Each school can have multiple Tabroom accounts linked as an administrator for that school, for example if you have multiple coaches. Similarly, any Tabroom account can be given administrator access to multiple different schools, for example if you coach multiple programs but want to maintain separate student rosters.

Linking To A Pre-Existing School

Odds are good that your school has already been created in Tabroom and linked to someone's account. Instead of creating a new school, which results in confusing duplicates, you should instead attempt to get access to the pre-existing school. This will also save you the work of recreating things like student/judge rosters from scratch, and will ensure that your school's tournament results maintain continuity.

If you are a new coach, you should see if the previous coach can give your account access to your school in Tabroom. If that's not possible, you can contact us at [[1]] for help getting access.

IMPORTANT NOTE: If you are a student trying to register for a tournament, you should NOT create a new school just to sign yourself up - you should instead ask your director/coach for access to your school's tabroom account, and register from the main school account.

If you are a previous coach trying to give someone else access to your school, see the section below on Controlling Access To A School

Creating A School

If your school doesn't exist in Tabroom yet, you'll need to create it. After logging in, click the link for "Create a new school/team" in the sidebar:

Then, fill out the required information such as School Name, State, etc. If you have a National Speech & Debate chapter number, or a variety of other school ID numbers, you can put them in here to ensure proper tracking. When done, press Save School Info.

If a school already exists in Tabroom with a similar name, you will see a warning that says "THAT INSTITUTION ALREADY EXISTS!"

If you need help getting access to an existing school, email [[mailto: help@tabroom.com]]. If you're sure you need to create a new school, check the "Confirm duplication" box:

Once your school is created, you should see a welcome message telling you what to do next - each of the suggested steps is covered in this manual in detail:

School Settings

To make changes to your school name, coach access, etc. you will use the Settings tab:

Controlling Access To A School

To edit who has access to your school's account in Tabroom, go to the Settings tab and then use the form at the bottom:

You will see a list of Tabroom accounts with access to your school ("chapter").

If you click the "Full Access" button next to an account, it will toggle between "Full Access" and "Prefs Only." You can use the "Prefs Only" setting for accounts which should only have limited access to your school:

You can click the "Remove" button next to an account to remove their access from the school. Note that you can't remove the last/only account from a school - so you would need to add another account first.

To grant a new account access, enter the email of a Tabroom account in the form and click "Grant."

Allowing Pref Entry

You can grant specific Tabroom accounts access to your school for the purposes of prefs entry, as explained above. Or, you can let entries fill our prefs themselves by checking the option on the Settings tab for "Entries may enter their own prefs." As long as you have linked entries on your Student Roster to a tabroom account, they will be able to access their own prefs, but not the rest of the school's.

Administering Multiple Schools

If your Tabroom account is listed as the administrator for more than one school simultaneously, you will see a list under "Institutions" in the sidebar on your account dashboard:

Before editing your rosters, entering a tournament, etc. make sure you have selected the appropriate school by clicking on it - this will make it your "active" school for the rest of the school administration tabs.

Competitor Roster

Before registering for a tournament, you must add students to your student roster. When you first go to the Competitors tab, your roster will be empty:

You can add students to your roster manually, import them from your NSDA account, or import them from a file.

Adding Students Manually

Click the "Add a new student" link on the sidebar:

This will give you two options - you can search for a student to add by their Tabroom account's email address, or you can manually enter their information and click the "Save Student" button. You can always link your student roster entries to your student's Tabroom account later if you wish.

Make sure to give each of your students a 4-digit graduation date, like "2018," and not just two-digits. You can also fill out additional information, such as diet preferences and gender. When you're done entering all your students, you can return to your student roster by using the link on the sidebar.

Adding Students From A File

To make it easier to add large numbers of students to your roster at once, you can use the "Import From Spreadsheet" option in the sidebar instead.

This will give you a form to choose the file to import:

Your file must be saved as a ".csv" comma-delimited file. You can download a sample file to fill out on the upload page. While it is possible to create an upload file manually, it is much easier to use this template, fill out the names and other information, then save and upload the file - just make sure your spreadsheet program doesn't change the file format.

Managing Your Student Roster

Student Info

Once you have added students to your roster, you will see them in a list on the Students tab:

Each line on your roster has a number of options. Clicking the "Record" button will take you to individual results for that student:

Clicking either their first or last name will let you edit their information, such as name and gender. This will also let you link or unlink them to a Tabroom account:

You can see if an entry on your roster is linked to a Tabroom account on your roster by looking in the "Account" column.

You can toggle a student between "Varsity" and "Novice" by clicking the button next to their entry on your roster.

If a student has graduated, you can remove them from your active roster by clicking the red "Retire" button.

Graduated Students

You can toggle whether to show or hide graduates with the link on the sidebar, and toggle them between active/graduated status by clicking the button:

Remove Duplicates

If you accidentally created duplicates on your student roster, you can easily remove them by using the "De-duplicate students" link on the sidebar. If any duplicates are found, you will be given the choice to merge them:

Dietary Preferences

Your student roster is a convenient place to keep track of your student's dietary preferences, which also makes it easy for tournaments to access that information. You can see all of this information in one place with the "Dietary preferences" link in the sidebar:

Linking Your National Speech & Debate Association Roster

Linking your Tabroom student roster to your account with the National Speech & Debate Association allows you to automatically import your students, and also enables "auto-pointing," where a student's honor points can be posted automatically. To take advantage of this, click the "Students" tab to view your Student Roster. Then, click the link on the right for "Connect to NSDA Auto Pointing:"

First, you'll need to give Tabroom access to your Points Application account with the National Speech & Debate Association. Enter the username and password you use to log in to the Points Application (points.speechanddebate.org), and then type the "confirmation phrase" in the on-screen instructions. This is to prevent accidental linking to the wrong school:

If successful, you will see your list of linked Points App logins (with the option to "Unlink" if you made a mistake). You'll then need to select your NSDA school from the dropdown menu (just in case your Points App login is attached to more than one school), and click "Link to NSDA:"

Tabroom will then show you the list of current students on your Tabroom roster (if any), and ask you to link each student with the correct entry from your roster with the National Speech & Debate Association. This is to ensure that each student is matched with the correct merit number. Using the dropdown menu for each student, choose a name, or "Do not link" if a student is not a member of the National Speech & Debate Association. You must also check the "Confirm" box next to each student:

Once you have linked students, you will see them appear on this screen with their Tabroom and NSDA roster information, current number of honor society points, along with the option to delink them from their Tabroom entry:

Once the initial linking of your Tabroom school to your National Speech & Debate Association account is done, you can import any students on your NSDA roster to Tabroom by choosing the "Import NSDA Roster to Tabroom.com" option on the sidebar:

This will show you a list of students from your NSDA roster that are available to import (with the option to exclude any you don't want):

After you've imported your students, you can verify that they're linked correctly by clicking their name from your student roster. Their "NSDA Merit Number" will be displayed at the bottom:

That's it - once a tournament is complete, you should see the points appear on the NSDA Points Application in the "Autopost" section of your school profile, where you can confirm them and choose a coach to assign coach points.

Note that for points to be autoposted, you'll need to have your rosters correctly linked prior to Tabroom processing that tournament's results. That is, autoposting points isn't retroactive - if you didn't link rosters prior to a tournament, you won't see those points.

Also note that for the time being, Congress points are not autoposted and will need to be input manually.

For auto-pointing to work correctly, the tournament director should opt-in by matching up their tournament events on Tabroom with the appropriate Association events in their tournament settings. If you want to ensure you get credit for points at a tournament you're attending, make sure to tell the tournament director you'd like them to do so.

Judge Roster

The judge roster works very similar to the student roster. You can click the "Add a new judge" link in the sidebar, or if your judge roster is empty, the form will appear automatically:

You can add judges by their Tabroom account email, or manually enter their information and click the "Save Judge" button. You can link judges on your roster to their Tabroom accounts later if you wish.

If you want to add a large number of judges at once, you can also use the "Import from Spreadsheet" option, which is found in the sidebar on your Students tab (not the Judge tab). For more information, see the section on Adding Students From A File above. Make sure you use the "Judge" template, instead of the "Student" template.

Once you have added judges to your roster, they will appear in a list:

Clicking on a judge's first or last name will let you edit their information. You can also toggle a judge between active/inactive to keep your roster easier to manage. You can select whether to see active or inactive judges on the sidebar:

If you accidentally created duplicates on your judge roster, you can easily remove them by using the "Deduplicate judges" link on the sidebar. If any duplicates are found, you will be given the choice to merge them:

To keep track of your judges dietary preferences, you can use the "Dietary Restrictions" link on the right - it will take you to the same page as for your student roster.

Circuits

In order to register for a tournament, you must first join the appropriate "circuit." All tournaments on tabroom must be part of a "circuit" - to find out which circuit the tournament you're interested in is a part of, look on the main Calendar.

Then, use the "Circuits" tab to join the circuit:

First, select the circuit you want to join from the dropdown. Then, choose whether to join for "Tournaments Only" or "Full Membership."

Choose "Tournaments Only" if you want to register for tournaments, but don't want circuit emails or to be a dues paying member. Some circuits are run entirely on a tournament-only basis, such as the US National Circuit (HS).

"Full Membership" means you will be able to register for tournaments, and will receive emails about the circuit. You may also be billed for membership dues. This is best for joining a state or local circuit that uses Tabroom to manage its membership.

Once you have joined a circuit, your Circuits tab will change to show you the list of tournaments your school is a part of, and will give you the option to leave a circuit:

Registration

Pre-Tournament Registration

Once you have linked to or created a school, added students and judges to your roster, and joined a circuit, you can see the section of the manual on Registration.

On-Site Check-In

Some tournaments use online "on-site registration" - where you can mark your school as having arrived at the tournament, instead of going to a physical registration location. Note that you still need to have "registered" for the tournament on tabroom in advance, within the entry deadlines. This is only for letting the tournament know that you're actually at the tournament and your registration is correct. At some tournaments, you can only check-in online if you have already paid your registration fees.

For more information on using On-Site Check-In, see the Registration section.

Prefs

At tournaments which have mutually preferred judging, you (or the competitors) will need to fill out pref sheets before the tournament. For more information, see the section of the manual on Prefs.

School Results

If your account is the admin for your school, you can access results for your entire team.

Accessing Results

From your account dashboard, you can use the Results tab to see a list of tournaments with available results:

Clicking the Results tab will give you a list of of available reports for that tournament. Full Tournament Results takes you to the full public results for the entire tournament instead:

Tournament Stats will give you a general overview of participation at the tournament.

Show Entry Roster will show you your complete entry from the tournament.

Show Team Results will give you the complete results for the entire team, including final places, seeds, and speaker awards:

Print Team Results contains the same information, but in PDF form for easy printing.

Accessing Online Ballots/Comments

The Show Online Ballots link in the sidebar allows you to access and RFD's or Comments (if any) that judges entered online:

Print Ballots contains the same information in PDF form.

Accessing Invoices/Receipts

Show Invoice/Receipt gives you a breakdown of your registration costs, fines, and whether you've paid or owe money - and Print Invoice/Receipt gives you a similar PDF.

Past Pref Sheets

You can also access past pref sheets from the sidebar by selecting a competitor, which will then download a .csv file with the pref sheet for that tournament:

Competitor Schools

On the main Results tab, you can also see a list of all the schools your program has competed against (e.g. for PR reasons):