How to register for an Avnet Tech Games event
There are five easy steps to getting in the Games:
1) Create an account at www.avnettechgames.com. Every participant, from student to faculty coach, must have an account at the website. When you create an account, you’ll be able to tie it to your Facebook account, which will keep you logged into the site as long as you’re logged in to Facebook. You will also have an opportunity to build a personal profile, which later will show what games you participated in and how your team did.
If you're replying to an emailed invitation and plan on joining an existing team, let the team's creator know! The team creator is responsible for adding you to their team.
2) When you log in, you will be taken to your Gamer Dashboard. This is a handy place to see all your pertinent information in one place: your list of teams, your list of game registrations, and announcements from Avnet Tech Games game owners and game masters.
You will also have a new menu just for students and faculty. Your options will be:
Your Dashboard: This takes you back to your Dashboard, where you first land when you log in.
Create a Team: The form you use to create one or more teams. Teams, not individuals, register for games. More on that in a minute.
Send Invitations: You can send invite links to a list of your friends and future teammates with this tool. The email will include a link that will take them to the user registration form. Later, you will be able to track your invitations via your “edit account” tool.
Add a School: Hundreds of schools have participated in the Avnet Tech Games over the years, and frankly it’s just a lot of work to ask a volunteer to dump that information into our database. So we’ve provided an opportunity for the public to submit their schools to the database. Once an Avnet volunteer approves the listing, it’ll become available to associate with your personal profile as well as your team.
User Tools: Under the “Welcome (USER)” note, you have three options: Edit Profile (where you can personalize your information and upload a picture), Edit Account (where you can change your email and password, track invitations you’ve sent, and change how the website communicates with you), and Logout.
3) Since teams, not individuals, register for games, you’ll need to Create a Team. So find that in your user menu and click it. You there? Great!
Users can create as many teams as they wish, and teams can have one or many members. Even events with a team size of 1 still require that a team register for the event.
When you create a team, the only absolute requirement is that you give it a name. Make it fun! Don’t be rude or crude, please, or a Game Owner or Game Master will ask you to change it. There are other things you can upload as well: an image for your team (picture of the teammates or a logo or whatever), a description, and an association with a school that’s in our database. Remember, you can always add your school. When it’s approved, you can then associate it with your personal profile as well as your team’s profile.
After you've filled out your Team information, hit “Save.” You’re done! That’s the beginning of your Team.
Note: If you're joining an existing team -- perhaps after replying to an emailed invitation -- be sure to let the team's creator know that you've created a user account. You won't get a chance to join a team. Rather, team creators must add new members.
4) Back on your Gamer Dashboard, after you’ve created a team, you’ll now see a box called “My Teams.” Click through any of the teams you’ve created and you’ll be taken to your team’s profile page. The team’s profile page is the landing area for your team’s Zone – you’ll know you’re in the Zone when another team-specific menu shows up.
The options for this team, which you can do from anywhere within the Zone, are:
Team Home: Takes you back to your profile page.
Register for a Game: This is the good stuff here! We’ll swing back to this in a minute.
Manage Team Members: This is how you add, remove and modify your team membership. Within Manage Team Members, you’ll first land on the team list: At first, it’ll just be the team’s creator of course. The team creator will have a couple codes next to their name: Manager and Admin. Manager means they have privileges to manage the team page’s contents. Admin means they have privileges to add new members to the team.
You’ll also see two other options: Add Members and Configure Roles. On the Add Members page, start typing a name or (if you know it) username into the first field. When you find your teammate – assuming they’ve created an account – click on the name and it will be added to “List of Users”. Click “add users” when you’ve found everyone and you’re done. Under “configure roles,” the Manager can designate anyone as a Team Owner – and it’s Team Owners who must register their team for a game.
Add Team Note: Anyone tagged as a Team Owner can post messages to their Team’s profile wall. Any message that appears on the Wall is also, by default, emailed to all team members.
Add Team Event: If you wish, you can also post a date-specific event to your team’s Wall. It will also appear on your Calendar, which is visible on the Team’s profile page.
5) Ready to register your team for a game? Great! Make sure you’re in your team’s Zone – the Zone Menu will be visible. Look for “Register for a Game” and click it. This opens a registration form that’s configured only for this team. So make sure you’re in the right Zone! At the end of the form, the “Audience” should match the team you’re registering.
You’ll see a list of all games with currently open registration. Click one of the bubbles, hit save, and you’re done. This is what happens next:
a. A “your registration has been created and is on standby” message will appear on your team’s Wall. Standby means it’s awaiting approval by the game’s Game Owner or Game Master. This is a manual process and we do this so faculty can jump in and pre-create a bunch of registrations and teams.
b. The game’s Owner will review standby registrations leading up to the games and decide which ones to make active.
c. If/when your game registration becomes active, another message will be posted to your team’s wall. All the team members will be notified at this point via email.
Once you’ve created a team, added some members and registered for some games, all this information will be visible on your Dashboard. Active games and standby games will be in their own boxes, and all your Teams will be listed.
