Welcome to the Game Management System (GMS)
As the new season approaches rapidly, we are contacting you to update you on progress and outline the key next steps for your club and committee as part of the new Game Management System (GMS). The GMS will form the heart of much of the administration in the sport between club and competition administrators for years to come. If you have missed or would like a refresh on our previous communications, you can view the latest here: https://www.englandhockey.co.uk/deliver/gms .
This letter sets out what you will need to do as a club over coming weeks. If you have any questions, please don’t hesitate to contact England Hockey via [email protected] and we will help your club administrators familiarise themselves with the system.
The GMS works with a number of different levels of permissions that ensure that key club information is only made available to people with the right user levels. The three main roles for clubs to consider are as follows:
- Club Admin – Responsible for managing the main club admin (eg approving players and officials joining and leaving the club, updating fixture details.)
- Team Admin – The key contact for a team(s) and responsible for managing the admin around match sheets and game results. Likely to be the team captain, team manager or whoever in the team does the administration!
- Player – All participants who will be engaging in hockey activity listed upon the Game Management System.
Please note that when interacting with the system, you may be sent communications from, or see reference to, whostheumpire.com – that is not a problem, as the GMS system is built on the whostheumpire.com platform.
In terms of action the following steps need to be taken:
Actions for the Club Management
- Identify your Club Admins – As a club you need to decide who has Club Admin rights in GMS. Once you have done this those people should sign up to be a Club Admin (process beneath).
If the proposed Club Admin holds a role on the England Hockey Club Portal (the one clubs use for Club Affiliation/Membership) or was listed on the Fixtures Entry form you completed a few months ago then they will be approved once we receive the Club Admin request from the individual registering on the system. If they are not on either of these two sources as official contacts, England Hockey will seek approval from the Club Chair/Secretary for that role. This is to ensure no one is given Club Admin rights that should not have them.
- Identify your Team Admins – these should be easy as they will be the captains/managers or people who do the administration work in your Teams (adult and junior). You can have 2 Team Admins per team at any one time. Club Admins can change Team Admins at any time.
- Share Training – We recommend you share the links to the appropriate training and resources to your Club and Team Admins
- Player sign up – We need clubs to ensure that players sign up to GMS so they can be added to electronic match sheets. Instructions on how to do that are included beneath. This is also the method for team officials for matches, eg coach, manager, sports therapist, to sign up.
The following sections are instructions that you can pass on to the relevant roles within your club.
The ‘Club Admin’ role
As a Club Admin for the club we will need you to hold significant permissions managing player and match details in GMS. You will be one of a small number of Club Admins and therefore it will be important that you understand GMS and can help us with any changes required by Team Admins.
Here’s what we need you to do initially.
- Sign up as a Club Admin
- Go to https://gms.englandhockey.co.uk and click ‘Register’
- Select ‘Club Admin’ role, add your details and select your club.
- Wait for EH to give you appropriate Club Admin permissions (From Friday 3rd)
- Familiarise yourself with GMS and the training materials; you can find those here: https://www.englandhockey.co.uk/deliver/gms with specific information for Club Admin role holders in the training materials.
- Once in GMS start to complete the following essential tasks
- Complete fixture details:
You’ll need to add the venue and time for any fixtures in the system – all the club’s adult league fixtures are already in GMS and junior fixtures will follow in coming weeks. If you spot any issues with any fixtures, contact your Area league or email[email protected]. Please note that in some Divisions where teams have withdrawn, there are still a small number of fixtures to amend, this will be done in the next few days. Also, the London Masters League divisions are still being loaded, but will be available online in the next week.
- Appoint Team Admins:
Team Admins are approved by Club Admins and can be changed at any time. As your Team Admins join GMS you’ll need to allocate them to the appropriate teams.
- Approve players to join the club:
As players sign up on GMS from Monday 6thSeptember, they need to be approved to join the club and allocated to the appropriate playing group (pool and/or squad). Players can be allocated to more than one team, and do not have to be allocated straight away when you approve their account – but they will need to be allocated before they will appear as an option on a teamsheet.
- Approve Parents of players:
For your Under 18s, or those with legal guardians, you will need to approve the Parents’ requests to join the club. Parents will not need to be allocated to a squad, but then a parent can create Junior players to be linked to their profile which will then need approval and allocation in the same way as other players.
The ‘Team Admin’ role
As a Team Admin for the club, we will need you to hold responsibilities to complete match details in GMS. Each Team will have two Team Admins at any one time, and these can be changed by the Club Admin roles as required.
Here’s what you need to do initially:
1. Sign up as a Player. (From Monday 6th September)
- Go to https://gms.englandhockey.co.uk and click ‘Register’
- Select your club
- Wait for your Club Admin to give you appropriate Team Admin permissions
- Familiarise yourself with GMS and with your Team Admin responsibilities. More training and information is available here if you need it via this link https://www.englandhockey.co.uk/deliver/gms.
- Once in GMS start to complete the following essential tasks:
- Ensure all details are correct – match venue and start time (Club Admins can adjust these if required)
- Ensure the correct players are allocated to your squad list so they can be allocated to match sheets
- Populate your match sheet in advance of the first match when the team is selected in the lead up to the first match.
Player Sign Up
Player Sign Up starts from Monday 6th September.
More information for players will be added to the England Hockey website over the next few days for you to use to help encourage players to sign up.
All club players must sign up to GMS if they are going to play in competitions organised on GMS. This includes all adult league matches and junior competitions that are run via GMS. The system will start to form a player’s hockey history across all the games they play for any team or club in hockey. It’s the start of a much better digital provision in hockey nationally and locally and we need all players to be there from the start. This is also the method for team officials for matches, eg coach, manager, sports therapist, to sign up
The process is slightly different for players over 18 and those under 18. The process for players signing up is as follows.
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Players Over 18
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Players under 18 must be registered by a parent |
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1. Go to https://gms.englandhockey.co.uk and ‘Register’ 2. Select ‘parent’, add your details, select your club (get this right!) 3. You’ll get a code sent so you can proceed 4. Complete your full profile including the details of your players 5. Wait for approval from your club
(Note that when players are 18 full profiles can be created and transferred to player) |
Anyone with multiple or another role
Anyone in the club with multiple roles should sign up as their highest-ranking role (in order Comp Admin, Club Admin, Player) and then add on any additional roles to their full profile.
Support roles who may appear on a match sheet such as coach, manager, or physio etc should sign up using the player information above.
Training & Support
On Demand Training Sessions (bottom of the page) https://www.englandhockey.co.uk/deliver/gms
FAQs are here.
Support email: [email protected]
We recognise that all new IT systems will require time to become familiar with and England Hockey will provide as much support and help to clubs as possible to do this. The investment in the new GMS is the start of a plan to improve the use of technology in hockey administration with the aim of allowing everyone to spend more time enjoying the game. We intend to develop and improve the use of GMS based on your feedback so please do share suggested improvements with us, we are listening. This would ideally be done using the Change Request form on the GMS Page on the England Hockey website: GMS Support Webpage
We wish all clubs the best for the forthcoming season, one that we sincerely hope will be less challenging than last season for us all to negotiate.
Best wishes,
The GMS Team at England Hockey