SMS Match Reminders & Score Alerts

Tournaments get messy fast when teams miss their match times. The SMS notification system sends automatic match reminders to captains about 15 minutes before their next game, and score alerts to interested parties when results come in. Messages use your organization's SMS credits and respect each recipient's opt-in status.

When to use it

• Reminding captains their match starts in 15 minutes
• Notifying parents that their kid's team won and advanced
• Alerting scorekeepers when a bracket match is ready to start
• Broadcasting a schedule change to all affected teams

What you get

• Cron job runs every 5 minutes to find upcoming matches that need reminders
• Reminder sent once per match (no duplicates if the cron re-runs)
• Score alerts triggered when a match is marked complete
• Advancement notifications when a team moves to the next round
• Schedule-change alerts if a match time or court changes
• Uses organization SMS credits via Mobile Text Alerts (visible in the dashboard)

Setup

1. Make sure your organization has SMS credits (Messaging tab in Settings)
2. Confirm that captains and players opt in to SMS during registration
3. Enter accurate phone numbers in the roster so reminders deliver
4. Enter match scores promptly so score alerts fire on time
5. Update the schedule from the Schedule tab if you need to push or swap a match - alerts go out automatically

Tips

• Buy SMS credits in bulk - the per-message rate drops and you won't run out mid-event
• SMS captain-only by default - blasting every player for every match burns credits fast
• For a score-alert blast, add parents as SMS subscribers to the team record
• If an SMS fails (invalid number), the system logs the error but doesn't retry - clean up rosters before the event
• Combine SMS reminders with email reminders for a belt-and-suspenders delivery