Linking and syncing Sportlink

With a Sportlink link, matches, results and standings arrive in 4planning automatically, and referees can be assigned directly.

Setting up the link

The link itself is set 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

There are two different links, each with a different purpose:

1. 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.
2. Assigning referees automatically — go to Sportlink management → Automation (Referee Matrix). For each Sportlink team, choose "Have this group referee: [group]" or "Don't assign automatically (manual)", then click Save matrix. As soon as a new home match for that team is imported, the referee task is automatically assigned to the chosen group (see Scheduling referees as an administrator).

The Referee Matrix only shows teams that already have at least one home match — so only after the match sync has run for that team.

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

• 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 and the Referee Matrix yourself afterwards.
• The Referee Matrix is empty, even though I do see matches. The matrix only shows teams with at least one home match. If a team has only played away matches so far, it will only appear once its first home match has been imported.
• 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.