Technology Support
Systems to Make Grassroots Admin More Efficient
dedicated essex county fa tech support
E-Mail technology@essexfa.com
With the grassroots football 2022/23 player registration process opening, we're sharing details of how we, alongside our colleagues in The FA’s Grassroots Technology Team, can support club volunteers.
A number of key updates are now available on our website to provide comprehensive support with the IT systems and technology which is used to administer the registrations, aiming to make the task as efficient as possible.
Grassroots Technology Knowledge Base
The FA have produced a series of self-help guides and articles via their ‘Grassroots Technology Knowledge Base’, which now includes a 24-hour answer bot to support volunteers. This can be found in the bottom right-hand corner of the screen.
Grassroots Technology Known Issues
Complementing the Knowledge Base is the ‘Grassroots Technology Known Issues’ page. Divided into sections relating to all aspects of FA Technology, it lists issues currently being investigated, including updates on the progress towards a resolution from the Grassroots Tech Team. Anyone encountering issues with FA tech, should check here first to see if the matter has already been reported.
FA Grassroots Technology Online Training
Full Time: This session is to help leagues gain a better understanding of the advanced fixture scheduler and understand how to create fixtures, taking into account venue-sharing across divisions, allocating time slots and much more.
Wednesday 3rd August (2:00pm, Fixtures) (Register Online)
Wednesday 3rd August (6:30pm, Fixtures) (Register Online)
Club Portal: Player registration training for clubs. This session will run through the full process in the club portal, highlighting any new functionality along the way.
Wednesday 27th July (6:30pm) (Register Online)
Monday 15th August (6:00pm) (Register Online)
Thursday 8th September (6:30pm) (Register Online)
Competition Portal: Player registration training for leagues. This session will run through the full process in the competition portal, highlighting any new functionality along the way.
Wednesday 10th August (6:30pm) (Register Online)
Matchday: This session is to help team managers and players to navigate the app and get a sneak preview of the new features being introduced. Each session is expected to last approximately one hour and will include time for questions and answers.
Wednesday 24th August (6:30pm) (Register Online)
Monday 12th September (6:00pm) (Register Online)
All webinars will be recorded and posted on The FA's Grassroots Tech YouTube channel.
Essex County FA Technology E-Mail Address
Building on 2021/22 learning, we've launched a new E-Mail address to deal with tech queries. Anyone encountering problems using FA systems who can’t find help on the ‘Known Issues’ page, can E-Mail technology@essexfa.com to ensure the quickest response.
This is monitored by a larger pool of staff and should be used rather than contacting individual team members.
Top Tips
Below are some top tips to help support grassroots football volunteers in completing player registrations as smoothly as possible this season:
* To get started on your player registration, please log into clubs.thefa.com directly, rather than using the ‘Player Registration’ tab in the FA Whole Game System. Guidance on how to register a player can be found here.
* If a player provided online consent last season, this lasts for five seasons, so you won’t need to complete this again. Offline consent will need to be provided again, as this only lasts for one season.
* Search for a new player using their name and date of birth before creating a new account. A player having more than one account could mean you don't see an active suspension on that player, which could lead you to playing an ineligible player.
* If you are unable to add a player, check that the player has all details included on their record (gender, date of birth, E-Mail) and that the team is set-up correctly (e.g. a mixed youth team, if you want to include both male and female players).
* In the first instance, please contact technology@essexfa.com and, if it’s not possible to resolve your query, this will be raised with the FA Grassroots Technology Team for additional support.