Time saver
Keeping parents and athletes informed is a job that never ends: the schedule goes out, then the bus time changes, then a tournament moves. The shared Season calendar does that job for you. Share one link, and everyone who subscribes gets every dual meet, tournament and practice in their own calendar, and every change you make in Takedown, with no second message from you.
The schedule you already keep in Takedown is the only one you maintain. Enter the event once, with its time, location and notes, and parents and athletes have it.
One calendar per Season
Each Takedown Season has its own calendar and its own link. A program that runs its girls’ team in one Season and its boys’ team in another has two calendars, and girls’ parents get only the girls’ schedule. The same goes for a middle school team or a club season kept separately. Share each Season’s link with the people who belong to it.
Share it once
Open the Season in My Team and tap Share Calendar; repeat for each Season you want to share. The sheet shows a QR code and a link. Tap Mail Link to send it to your contacts by role, Share Link to send it any other way, or Save QR Image to put the code on a handout for the parent meeting. Add to My Calendar subscribes this iPad.
Anyone who opens the link sees a page with two buttons: Apple Calendar / Outlook and Google Calendar. One tap subscribes. Other calendar apps can use the address at the bottom of the page. A parent who wants step-by-step instructions from their calendar provider can use Apple’s (iPhone, iPad and Mac), Google Calendar’s or Outlook’s.
What each entry carries
- Dual meets are titled with the opponent’s name and the competition level, for example “Central High - Varsity,” and show the start time.
- Tournaments and dual meet tournaments appear as all-day entries spanning their days, titled with the event name.
- Event Notes go out as the entry’s description, word for word. Bus times, admission, what to bring: whatever you type in Notes is what parents read. Write it for them.
- Location is the event’s address, so the entry opens in Maps. Set a location on each event.
- Practices show as “Practice” or “Weigh-In Only” with their start and end times.
Entries are marked free, not busy, so the team schedule never blocks anyone’s own calendar.
How quickly changes show up
The calendar is a subscription. Takedown publishes changes immediately; how soon they appear depends on how often each calendar app checks.
- Apple Calendar on iPhone and iPad checks about every hour by default. To check more often, go to Settings > Apps > Calendar > Calendar Accounts > Fetch New Data and choose 15 or 30 minutes; that setting applies to all accounts on the device.
- Apple Calendar on a Mac has a setting per calendar: Control-click the calendar, choose Get Info, and set Auto-refresh to every 5 minutes, 15 minutes or hour.
- Outlook checks about every 3 hours, sometimes much longer, with no setting to change it.
- Google Calendar checks only once or twice a day, and nothing speeds it up: there is no setting on the parent’s side or ours, and removing and re-adding the calendar doesn’t force a check. A change you make this morning may not reach a Google Calendar until tomorrow.
So enter and change events as early as you can. The one time the calendar doesn’t save you a message is a same-day change; send that one yourself, since parents on Google Calendar may not see it any other way.
Who can see it
Anyone with the link. There is no login. If a link gets out, tap Reset Link in the Share Calendar sheet; the old link stops working and you share the new one.
Step-by-step instructions are in the help center: Sharing the Season Calendar. For everything else to do before the first practice, see Preseason Setup.