Labels are described in the help.

Feature released 23/12/2021

Presently, each club generates and maintains its own labels for club officers and representatives - it is not clear if Croquet England has any routine process to ensure they are up to date (it should). Thus, every club has its own (e.g.) "Mary Rose Contact" label. It is not possible to make a list of all club "Mary Rose Contact"s, though it would seem reasonable to have such a capability.

By contrast, the old CA database maintained properties against individual members, e.g. whether or not they are a referee, and one of those properties was Club Handicapper. The new database, therefore, has a label owned by Croquet England called "Club Handicapper" and Croquet England is responsible for maintaining it, but has no idea (other than by inspecting their memberships) which club a handicapper relates to.

Feature Description

A shared label combines:

• a label owned by Croquet England that is assigned to individuals and provides a central register of holders
• with the functionality of a club-owned label for a club's representative.

Examples include Mary Rose Contact, Club Handicapper, Club-Level Coach, Club Safeguarding Officer, Federation Development Officer, which are nationally recognised positions that relate to particular clubs.

Federations might also use shared labels for local-league contacts.

In some cases, the club can manage the holder (e.g. Mary Rose Contact), otherwise, Croquet England (or the federation) manages the holder and notes the related club (e.g. Club-Level Coach).

An individual can hold the same label for more than one club and more than one individual can hold a label for a club. For Club-Level Coach, no further information needs to be recorded, but for Mary Rose Contact, an annotation to distinguish (for example) the A-Team and B-Team is available.

Administration of the label itself is carried out by the owner, which is Croquet England (or the federation).

Labels owned by a governing body (Croquet England or federation) have a field 'Associate With' whose setting is a choice of:

• No Association (default) - this is a regular label and is not shared. Only the owner organisation can use it and there is no associated club with its assignment to a person. Examples include "AC Referee".
• Club - a shared label that associates the holder with a particular club. Examples include Mary Rose Contact.
• Federation - a shared label that associates the holder with a particular club. Examples include Federation Development Officer.

A shared label includes a checkbox 'Associate Can Manage', which, when set, allows member organisation administrators to add, reassign, and remove the labels associated with their organisation (but not others).

When 'Associate With' is set as 'No Association', it is a regular label, assigned and wholly managed by the owner (and the 'Associate Can Manage' flag is ignored).

The 'Associate With' settings 'Federation' and 'Club' make the label available to member federations or clubs, and if 'Associate Can Manage' is set, the federation or club can assign the label to their members (admins for the owner, of course, can also do this). When they do, the related club (or federation) is assigned depending on their admin authority.

Labels (not just shared labels) can be configured as managed by a committee or group within the owner's organisation, members of which group can manage the assignment of the label. This is an efficiency saving that allows, for example, Tournaments Committee members to manage Inter-Club contacts without office staff being involved.

A tab in the details view of each organisation (club or federation) includes all labels that can be associated with the organisation, with the tab named as the owner of the shared label. Shared labels that can be assigned by the organisation are distinguished from those assigned only by the owner as follows:

• A shared label, which is either:
  • assigned only by the owner organisation, or
  • assigned by the owner organisation or any member organisation

In views and CSV downloads of labels, the related organisation name appears alongside the holder.

Limitations on Overlap

Confusion reigns if a Croquet England Affiliate Club has a label with the same name as another label shared with it.

• Attempts by an organisation administrator to create a label named the same as an existing one, or one shared by Croquet England or its Federation, are intercepted with a warning and cause the new label name to include Please Rename Me.
• Attempts by an organisation administrator to rename an existing label to the same as an existing one, or one shared by Croquet England or its federation, are intercepted with a warning and cause the label name to include Please Rename Me.

If Croquet England or a federation creates a shared label named the same as one already in use by related clubs, the database administrator will support on request moving across to the shared label.

Implementation

Completed actions are displayed like this.

1. New Label fields for AssociateWithTypeID and AssociateCanManage.
2. New Connector field ForOrgID that annotates a connector (which connects a label to a person) with an organisation (a club or federation).
3. Add organisation-setting edit control to the labels edit dialog.
4. The new tab in club and federation display to display shareable labels.
5. In views and CSV downloads of labels, add organisation name alongside the holder.
6. Affiliate Clubs that have no one currently assigned to a particular shared label should be readily identifiable.
7. Attempts to create a label (or rename a label to one) already available as a shared label are diverted.
8. Labels belong optionally to a committee, members of which committee can manage the assignment of the label.
   1. add a Management Group field to label configuration
   2. treat members of the Management Group as club administrators of shared labels
9. Migrate club contacts for national Croquet England events to shared labels owned by Croquet England (removing the club-owned labels and their automatic creation when a new club is created).
10. Consistency checking and preventing renaming/creating conflictingly named labels