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When you sign up for a baby
pool at BabyPool.com you will become the
babypool administrator. Now even though it sounds like a daunting
title it is really simple to administrate a baby pool at
BabyPool.com. This page will give you insight into what it takes
to administrate a babypool.
The administration page is the first page you will see after setting up
a baby pool at BabyPool.com. On the administration page you will
find a Menu on the left and below the menu there will be an option to lock
your babypool and a button to log out of the administration program. To the right you
will find options for the selected menu item.
If you have just started the baby pool or it is the first time you have
logged in to the administration page you will want to setup some
options right away before inviting guests to your babypool.
If your pool is a Time based baby pool and participants will be
selecting Day and Hour combination blocks you will want to set the
Timezone for your babypool. Select the Baby Pool Options menu item and on
the right set the time to the same time as the place where the baby
will be born. Below the Timezone setting you will find a place to enter in
the expected date of birth for the baby.
The next option will allow you to change the title of your baby pool.
After the title the administrator can enter the sex of the baby if it is
known. The participant management option will allow participants to
manage their own guesses or block reservations. This is useful if you
would like to limit the number of blocks participants can reserve, but want
to allow them to change them at any time. The final option will set
the units of measure for the baby pool the choices are English or Metric.
The next menu item in the administration menu is "Baby Pool Rules". In
this section the administrator can set the rules for the baby pool.
First select a pool type, the choices are; Day and Time of Birth where
participants try to guess the Day and Time the baby will be born. Weight
and Length fo the baby where participants try to guess the weight and length
of the baby when it is born. Both Date and Time and also Weight and Length
where participants must guess the Date and Time as well as the Weight and
Length of the baby's birth.
The next rule option is choosing whether or not the participants must
also guess the correct sex of the baby along with the chosen type of baby
pool. For instance if a Date and Time type pool is chosen and this
option is set so that the participants must also guess the sex in each block
along with the time will be choices for Boy or Girl. So two
participants can have the same time but they will have different sexes with
their guess.
The third rule option sets how the winner will be determined at the
conclusion of the baby pool. The choices are; Closest: this will determine
the winner to be the participant with the closest block reserved to the
actual birth, this choice may end in a tie if the accutual birth falls
exactly between blocks reserved by two separate participants. Closest with
out going over: this will determine the winner of the baby pool to be the
participant with the block closest to the actual birth without going over.
Closest with out going under: this will determine the winner to be the
participant with the block closest to the block of the actual birth with out falling
under it. The last choice is the Exact Match: this choice will determine
the winner of the baby pool to be the participant with the reserved block
that exactly matches the actual birth, this choice could result in there
being no winner of the baby pool.
The next option under the "Baby Pool Rules" menu item are the settings
for the baby pool which will determine whether or not the participants must
contribute money to the baby pool. Baby pools can choose to have all the
contributions go to the Baby and Family, a percentage of the contributions
to the Baby and Family and a percentage of the contributions to the pool
winner, all contributions to the pool winner, or no contributions required.
After selecting a contribution type the administrator can select how the
contributions will be collected. The choices for collecting contributions
are collecting them directly or collecting them through a PayPal™
account and a combination of the two. If direct contributions are required
there is a input space for the administrator to instruct the participants on
where to deliver the contributions, and if PayPal™ is chosen there is
an input space for the administrator to add the PayPal™ ID to where
the PayPal™ contributions will be made. PayPal is a trademark of the PayPal Company
After selecting a pool conrtibution type and the associated methods for
contributing the administrator will want to set the price or cost per block
of the baby pool. This setting can be found after the contribution type and
methods if a contribution type and method are selected that require a block
price.
If a Day and Time baby pool is selected the last setting in the "Baby Pool Rules"
will allow for the baby pool blocks to be divided into smaller increments.
By default all Day and Time baby pools are days divided by hours in a day.
So there will always be 24 blocks in a column of the baby pool. This
setting will allow the Day column to be divided into smaller increments of
time; the choices are: 60 minute (the default), 30 minute, 15 minute, 10
minute and 5 minute blocks. the 5 miniute blocks will result in a baby pool
with 288 blocks in a day column and a lot of blocks over the whole baby
pool.
Selecting the Home Page Editor menu item you will
find an HTML editor so that the administrator can add and
edit the content of the Baby Home Page. Simply enter your text
into the box and click the Submit Button. If you would like to spiff
things up you can use the buttons on the editor to change the text size,
color and alignment as will as add links and images to the babypool home
page.
Selecting the Pool Administrators menu item will allow you to add or
edit the baby pool's administrators. Their must always be a
primary administrator and this will be the name that the e-mails and
invitations are sent as.
The List My Participants menu item gives you a listing of the
participants in your babypool. If your baby pool requires a
donation to reserve a block you will find a space to add information
about where your participants can deliver their donation
payments. There is also a table containing a list of your
participants, the baby names they have suggested, the number of blocks
they have reserved and if your baby pool accepts donations there is a
place to mark the participants as paid or unpaid to aid in the
accounting of your babypool. To e-mail a participant from the
list simply click on there name. In the suggested names column
you will find a listing of names each participant has suggested, next
to each name is a Delete button so that the administrator may delete
inappropriate or undesirable names. In the Blocks column you will
find a "list all" feature that when clicked expands the listing of
blocks from numbers of blocks to the actual block value. Next to
each block value you will find a Delete button to delete unwanted
blocks. If your pool accepts donations for block reservation you
will find a place to mark participants as paid or unpaid. When
you receive the donations for a participant just mark the paid column
and click the submit button at the bottom of the list.
When the baby has been born and it is time to close your pool select
the Close the Pool menu item. When you close the babypool all of
the participants of the baby pool will automatically receive an e-mail
announcing that the baby was born and who the winner of the babypool
is. On the right, set the day and time the baby was born as well
as add the weight and length of the newborn. There is a place to
add a message or more information for your participants, when you are
done select the Close The Pool button. This will close the
babypool and e-mail the announcement to all of the participants.
Should you make a mistake just make the changes and select the Close
The Pool Button again, this will re-send the e-mail announcement with
the changes.
To add pictures or photographs to your Baby Home Page select the Add
Pictures menu item. On the right you will find a place to browse
for images on your local computer system and select them to be
uploaded. Select the Browse button and a window will be displayed
for you to locate the image file on your computer. When you have
select the image file to be uploaded click the Submit button and the
file will be transmitted to the server. All images will be stored
on the server and scaled to fit on your Baby Home Page. Below the
form to add pictures you will find a listing of the photos you have
uploaded as well as a link to delete the file if desired.
The Baby Home Page can also display a link to the Baby's Gift
Registry. Most retailers with an online presence and that cater
to babies or expecting parents have their Gift Registries accessible
online. To utilize this BabyPool.com feature simply select the
Gift Registry Link menu item. To begin, if you do not know
exactly where the expecting parents are registered you can use the
supplied links to search some of the more common online baby
registries. Once you find the location of the baby gift registry
copy the URL or web site location from your browsers location or
address bar and paste it into the supplied form on BabyPool.com.
Next you can either input Text or select an image that will be
displayed as the link to the baby gift registry. When you have
finised entering your text or selecting an image click the Build it
button at the bottom and your Gift Registry Link will be constructed
and displayed on your Baby Home Page. You can add as many links
as you would like and delete the ones you no longer want displayed at
any time, just click the Gift Registry Menu item and all of the links
will be displayed at the top with a link to delete them.
After you have setup your baby pool at BabyPool.com and have made all
the desired changes and additions to your babypool and Baby Home Page
you will want to invite guests to participate in your baby pool.
The third menu section hold the tools you will need to send e-mails and
invitations to your babypool. If you select the Address Book menu
item you will find a place to enter all the e-mail addresses of the
people you would like to invite to the baby pool. You can enter
all the e-mail addresses separated by commas;
for example:
bob@example.com, mary@example.com, george@example.com, etc
OR
Export and upload e-mail addresses from your personal e-mail program. Common export
file types of .ldif, .ldi, .csv, .tsv, .tab and .txt are supported.
After you have entered your e-mail addresses click the Add button and
they will be added to your address book. Your e-mail addressbook
will be displayed below the address input box where you will find your
e-mail addresses listed along with a Delete link should you ever want
to remove an e-mail address.
Once your address book contains e-mail addresses of guests you would
like to invite select the Send E-mails menu item. Here you will
find a place to enter a message to your guests. This message will
be added and displayed in the e-mail along with a link to your baby
pool and some instructions on how to contact and recieve support should
the guest need assistance from BabyPool.com support staff.
Below
the message entry box is a listing of your Address Book. All of
the e-mails that you entered in the address book are displayed along
with a checkbox on the right. If an e-mail or invitation has not
ever been sent to a guest the check box will contain a check
mark. When you send e-mails you can select the guests or
recipients to recieve the e-mail by placing a check mark in the box
next to their name. To select all of the participants who have
not submitted their donations select the Unpaid link at the top.
To select all of the participants who have submitted their donations
click the Paid link at the top of the Send To column. To select
All of the guests or participants click the All link at the top.
To select all of the Slackers or guests who have no participated in the
pool yet, click the Slackers link at the top of the Send To
column. Finally if you would like to uncheck all of the checked
boxes select the No one link at the top of the Send To column.
After you have selected the guests or participants to recieve your
e-mail click the Send Email button under the message input area.
After clicking the Send Email button the page will reload and display
how many of the e-mails were sent out.
When you are finish administrating your babypool you can click on the
Log Out button at the bottom of the administration menu. When you
log out you will be redirected to the Baby Home Page.
This concludes the description of the Administration Section of
BabyPool.com's baby pools. Please select a link below:
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