There is the potential for lots of people to access the FA Events Platform at any one time, and this includes applicants, parents and county staff.
Your Role As A County FA Staff Member
If you’re part of a County FA, you can switch to 'CFA view’ in the top right corner of the screen which will take you a County FA version of the Events Platform after logging in. This option won't be visible if you are just an applicant who wishes to set up a provider.
In the County FA view, you can view the applications that have been submitted or are still in progress from providers in your county. You can select whichever programme or provider you need to action from the drop-down menu shown towards the top of the 'My Applications' tab.
Providers who have the status of 'Under Review' need action taken by you, the county staff, because the organiser of that provider has submitted their application to you to look at. Simply click on their application to view it.
Meanwhile, providers which have been placed into an 'Approved'/'Amendment Approved' or 'Rejected'/'Need Clarification' status have been confirmed so by you, but you can still click into them to view.
For example, by clicking into an 'Under Review' application, County FA staff have the ability to 'Add Comment' to any particular section of the application that you perhaps want more information on. Just press the button and type your message which will then go back through to the applicant when you send the application back to them.
County staff can then approve, reject or send the application back to the applicant for clarification at the bottom of someone's application page.
Things To Look Out For
Applicants and providers will be submitting their applications to you with various degrees of information on. It's your job as a county staff member to decipher if that information is enough or not enough, and appropriate or not appropriate - based on the guidelines for the programme. Below are some top tips to look out for before you hit 'Approve' on someone's application:
- You will still need to re-approve an application from a provider if they make any changes to their application flow and submit it to the County FA. This could be a new venue, a new coach, or a new start and end date amongst other things.
- Consider if the venue put forward in an application is a suitable place to hold football and is a legitimate location on the Events Platform and PitchFinder. It's probably not best to approve a venue that is just a muddy field in the middle of nowhere.
- Ensure that the staff members who are going to part of the centre are all qualified for their roles. They show up in red text if they aren't which should make it easy, but double check that the criteria is met for each person.
- See if appropriate days and times are selected for the type of programme chosen, as well as if the dates in the application fit in with the programme's requirements. You shouldn't be approving Weetabix Wildcats sessions that take place on a Friday night at 10pm every week, for example.
- Have a look at those documents that have been uploaded because sometimes centres make mistakes with them. You can click the document link to view the documents on the submitted application and make your own judgement of if they have been completed correctly.
- Check the personal details of the applicant and make sure the right email address and contact details are there (because that's what participants may need to contact in order to book onto sessions), in addition to the provider's specific intentions - i.e. disability only, student, futsal. The more obvious and finer details are sometimes most important!
- Utilise your ability to comment on the application using the 'Add Comment' text boxes if you need some extra reaffirmation about something. If someone is wanting to charge participants over £5 for an hour's Snickers Protein Just Play session, it's something definitely worth querying with the applicant.
- Don't be afraid to send an application back for clarification numerous times if changes have been constantly submitted wrongly or you're not quite happy with some of the detail. You're in control and can help guide the applicant to what may be required before approving it for them.