What do I need to know about the old vs new HC?

Hi, if you have been using HC as a league or tournament software before November 1st, you have probably noticed some major changes. Please take a few minutes to read these important in-depth notes of what has changed and why:

Why?

We had discussions with many of you and most of the requested features that would make your league and your players experience much better would require major architectural upgrades. Since 2014 we had a team focusing on this task. This new platform will allow us to be more reactive at implementing your requests. 

What are the main changes?

For Administrators

• Every page has been rethought and redesigned. 
• The navigation has been made more intuitive for your staff members to facilitate self-training.
• Built in "Live chat" feature to provide live assistance. 
• Games can be scheduled with one team at first and be later completed with the second team.
• Period lengths can be customized.
• Schedule, standings and leaders pages can be customized to have videos, sponsors, social media, etc.
• Money will be wired directly to your bank account without manually requesting electronic transfers.
• Additional new features have become available in our FREE plan and PRO plan. Learn more here: http://hockey-community.com/software/pricing

For Players

• Your entire league website is now available from the "Hockey Community" iOS and Android app. Prior to this it was only your league teams. 
• Player waiver form can be signed from the app.
• Team captains can now customize and set game reminders .
• Players will benefit from hockey community features which allows them to find players and gear between each other. You can read more here: https://medium.com/@hockeycommunity/hockey-community-is-expecting-a-new-baby-878f4589980d.

Are there any new upcoming features we never heard about?

This November 2016 update is really meant to launch and set a great foundation for what's to come in 2017. While you may see some subtle changes now we have a much longer-term vision for your league that will accelerate all future innovations. Here's what our new architecture has planned for so far:

• Ability to work with large organizations around the world
• Give staff members granular access to admin features (scorekeeper, media manager, head referee, CFO, etc.)
• Ability to consolidate billing between different leagues that belong to the same company. 
• Ability for teams to participate in different leagues within the same company. 
• A translation platform has been created so players can translate the app in their own preferred language. 

• Ability to connect to third-party services such as
• TV Monitors in arenas
• Score boards
• Motion sensors
• and more 
  
  
• Ability to book and pay for rink times from surrounding arenas.
  
  
• Ability to collect payments and taxes in 6 new currencies on top of CAD: 
• EUR: Euro
  GBP: British Pound
  USD: United States Dollar
  DKK: Danish Krone
  NOK: Norwegian Krone
  SEK: Swedish Krona
  
  
• Leverage AI (artificial intelligence) for auto-scheduling games and automatically schedule playoff games smartly.
  
  
• Ability for teams to customize their own pages the same way you customize your league website. 

• Automatically generate personalized post-game images and videos for your players to share them on social networks.
  
  
• More importantly, we are here to listen and are committed to make your life easier while improving player experience. 

Wait! What about the features that have disappeared? 

We've made some tough decisions in temporarily removing certain features but will be re-introduced as we take a bit more time to improve it's usability. It's removal was also due to other factors such as:

• They were used by a very small portion of our customers. 
• The cost of re-engineering them before the launch would have delayed the update of the new site dramatically.

Here's the list of features with their estimated release dates:

• Will come back in 2016:
• Line editor for team captains
• League updates 
• Individual sign ups
• Proper formatting for double elimination and best of three playoffs bracket
• Pre and post games summary
• Ability for team to make online payments toward the league during the season
• Power rankings
• Instagram widget 

• Will come back in 2017:
• Enhanced and smarter auto-scheduler
• Live & mobile scorekeeping 

• Will most likely not come back:
• Team photos: we debated a long time for this one but HC is about helping your league grow and providing the best experience to your players. We acknowledge Facebook is an amazing platform for sharing photos but also has the benefit to expose your league to their network of friends and family. This can happen when they like your league photos, tag friends or set them as profile picture. We strongly suggest you to leverage Facebook for posting photos and will study how we can make them discoverable within the HC app in 2017.

What action do you need to take?

We did our best to minimize the amount of work for you during this update but you are required to revisit your homepage as your layout may have been rearranged to accommodate the update. We know, we're sorry but it's for the better :)

• Your home page layout may have changed so please feel free to reconfigure your layout. 
• Navigation menus may have reset so please take a look and rearrange your menu links. 
• If you are using online payments, please contact support@hockey-community.com 
• Warn us as soon as you see a suspicious bug. Our team will be working 24/7 till November 15th 2016 across two continents to guarantee quick response times.

What we really want you to know?

Our commitment to serve you as a league manager and the community is stronger than ever. Before it was difficult to make your requests happen because we knew the current HC was not in good shape and needed some love. So here we are with a new foundation ready! 

Some of our engineers and designers may have never worked with you because they have been working on this new technology in the shadow. Please keep in mind that there will be unpredictable glitches at the beginning but our team is ready to build the future with you on a much greater foundation. 

Have a great day,