Linking and syncing Sportlink

With a Sportlink link, matches, results and standings arrive in 4planning automatically, and referees can be assigned directly. See 4planning for football clubs for how this fits into the rest of the setup.

Setting up the link

You set the link up under Settings → Integrations → Sportlink Link. Note: this part is only visible and editable by the 4planning team, not by a regular (system) administrator of your club. Contact 4planning to have your Sportlink Client ID and own club code (relation code) set up — the club code is needed to determine whether a match is home or away.

There's also a switch "Enable automatic synchronisation" (on by default). If this is off, only the two manual buttons below still work, not the automatic background sync.

Starting a sync yourself

In the same place there are two buttons you can use yourself:

• Sync teams — fetches your club's teams from Sportlink. Afterwards you'll see a message with how many teams were added or updated.
• Check Sportlink now — checks directly for changes to teams and members (instead of waiting for the next automatic check) and can take up to a minute.

If the link is set up incorrectly, you'll see a clear error message ("Can't reach Sportlink" or "No Sportlink ID configured").

Linking a team to your club

Showing the match schedule to a group — open the group under Groups and choose the right team under "Link to Sportlink Team". Members of that group will then automatically see their matches in the app. Referees are not assigned via Sportlink: you do that under Manage matches, per match or all at once with the generator. See Scheduling referees as an administrator.

What happens automatically in the background

As long as "Automatic synchronisation" is on, several automatic checks run:

• Matches — fetches the schedule (two weeks ahead), several times a day. Matches that disappear or get cancelled are updated automatically, and an already-assigned referee gets notified of any change in time, location or team.
• Results — updates the result and status of recent and upcoming matches, several times a day.
• Standings — fetches the current league table for each linked team, several times a day.
• Changes to teams and members — regularly flags differences between Sportlink and your member records (new players, departed players, name changes) and queues them for approval. See Approving Sportlink changes.

If Sportlink is temporarily unreachable, the sync simply skips that round and tries again at the next check — you don't need to do anything. There's currently no "last synced on" date visible in the app; the clearest sign the sync is running is that new matches (and, where applicable, pending changes) appear.

Frequently asked questions

• Does Sportlink work for hockey too? Belgian hockey clubs run on Sportlink, so they link up as usual. Dutch KNHB clubs do not go through Sportlink: there you enter the schedule manually, and we are happy to look into a link with your system. See 4planning for hockey clubs.
• I don't see any matches, even though Sportlink is linked. Check that "Automatic synchronisation" is on, and that the team is linked to a group (see above).
• Can I, as a club administrator, set up the Sportlink link (Client ID) myself? No, the 4planning team arranges that for you. You do manage the daily changes inbox yourself afterwards.
• Wasn't there a "Referee Matrix" to have teams refereed automatically? Not any more. In practice no club ever set it up, and the assigning itself has moved to Manage matches — there the app proposes a schedule that you adjust and confirm.
• I manually changed a member's Sportlink ID — is that safe? Be careful: at the next sync, that member will take on the name and teams of the new ID. The app explicitly asks for confirmation before this.
• Our federation doesn't use Sportlink. Is it still possible? For the Dutch Rugby Federation it is: we fetch that competition directly from the federation. See Competitie van de rugbybond koppelen.