Eligibility categories

Categories are optional labels for athletes, used to say who a session is aimed at. The typical use case: a session is meant for “Academy” kids rather than “Part-time” — you tag the event with Academy, and Part-time families see a note saying so.

Categories advise. They do not hide.

Everyone in the event’s groups sees the event. A family outside the eligible categories still sees the card, with a line naming who it’s for; if they RSVP yes anyway they get a warning to check with a coach first, and the RSVP is still recorded.

Group membership is the hard boundary — a U14 athlete never sees a U16-only event. Categories are the soft one.

If your club doesn’t need this distinction, just skip it — an event with no categories ticked shows no note at all.

Manage at /coach/categories.

Step by step — add a category

1. Go to /coach/categories.
2. Type a label (e.g. Academy, Part-time, Race team) in the Add category field.
3. (Optional) Sort — a number that controls display order in pickers. Default 0.
4. Add.

Step by step — assign categories to an athlete

1. Go to the family’s detail page at /coach/families/<id>.
2. In each athlete row, check the boxes for the categories they belong to.
3. Save categories.

An athlete can have any number of categories (or none).

Using categories on events

When you create or edit an event, you can pick eligibility categories. Families whose athlete matches see nothing extra. Families who don’t match see:

• before they answer — a quiet line: “This session is for Academy/Full-Time and PG. Suzy’s group isn’t listed — check with a coach first.”
• after they RSVP yes — an amber warning to clear it with a coach before attending, which stays while the yes stands.

Nothing is blocked. That’s deliberate: there are always special circumstances, and a coach saying yes in person shouldn’t be fought by the software.

Why it works this way

Hiding the event would only hide it on the family page. The same family would still get the email, the Telegram post, the calendar entry and the “what’s changed” banner for something they could not find — a worse outcome than either extreme, and the source of exactly the “was something cancelled?” questions this is meant to prevent.

Categories don’t narrow messages either

Sending a message to “All families on these groups” reaches everyone in the groups, regardless of category. To limit who gets it, add an RSVP rule — Responded yes is the usual one. See Send a team message.

What happens when you change an athlete’s categories

• The change applies immediately. No notifications fan out.
• The next time the family loads the family page, the advisory notes reflect the new categories.
• Nothing appears or disappears — the event list is driven by groups.

Archive, don’t delete

Categories archive instead of deleting so historical event data keeps a useful label. Archived categories don’t show up in the event-create form.