📱 Members Mobile App

The Members Mobile App is an installable mobile app (a Progressive Web App) for members on Android and iPhone. From it members can see and make bookings, view and manage their rota duties, read alerts, follow the leagues and competitions they are in, and it can be added to the phone’s home screen so it opens full-screen like a normal mobile app.

It also carries Learn to bowl — the coaching tutorials, which answer the questions a new member has but does not like to ask. It appears as a card on the home screen and on the More screen, and how far somebody has got is private to them. See Coaching tutorials for what is in it and how to change it.

Members can also sign themselves in at the club from the app home screen — a “Club sign-in” card lets them say whether they are coming to bowl and sign in with one tap (no searching on the tablet), then sign out when they leave. It records the same attendance as the sign-in tablet. Turn this on or off under Settings → System → Devices → Member App features.

Setting it up

• Create a normal page (e.g. “Members”) and add the shortcode [pvl_member_app].
• Configure it under Settings → System → Devices → Member App: app name, accent colour, default light/dark theme and which features are on. (The home-screen icon is fixed to the Pavilion club logo.)
• Control who can use the app in the same place: choose “All members”, or restrict it to selected membership types. Administrators can always use it.
• Share the page link with members.

How members install it

• Android (Chrome): open the page and tap the “Install” banner, or the browser menu → “Install app / Add to Home screen”.
• iPhone (Safari): open the page, tap the Share button, then “Add to Home Screen”.

What members can do

See their next booking and duty at a glance — including who else is playing or on duty with them — book a free rink by date and session, cancel their bookings, confirm/decline rota duties, volunteer for open slots, and read notifications. Members can also submit expense claims from the app (a short two-step wizard, with one or more receipt photos/PDFs attached) and track each claim’s payment status — Submitted, Approved, Paid or Rejected — under Settings → Expense claims. Whoever is set as the club’s expense approver (the treasurer) additionally gets a My approvals card to approve or reject others’ claims and view their receipts, right in the app. If they play in a league or competition, a Comps tab shows their league tables and fixtures (with dates, times and rinks) and their competition matches.

The Home screen

Home is built from cards: green status, weather, next booking, next duty, expense claims (recent claims with their payment status, and a New claim button), next match, league and competition summaries, the digital membership card (with its check-in QR for the clubhouse), upcoming 🎉 events & socials (each member only sees events ticked for their group — volunteers also see volunteer-only items) and the 🎲 games night guide, and a read-only 🌳 Club officials card showing the club’s key positions and who holds them. Tapping an event opens its full details; tapping a game opens its picture, equipment list and how-to-play instructions. Small ⚙ cogs on the events, games and club-officials cards let each member choose how many items to show, and when there are more, a “Show n more →” link opens the full list in a pop-up — tap any item there for its details. Tapping ⚙ Edit widgets opens a pop-up where cards are reordered with big ▲ ▼ buttons and shown or hidden with the 👁 toggle — hidden cards appear struck-through and can be brought back at any time. All these choices are remembered per member.

Settings and staying up to date

The ⚙ Settings tab holds push notifications, light/dark and colour themes, the install button and log out. The app keeps itself current: it compares its version with the site whenever it loads data and quietly reloads once after the club updates Pavilion, and it refreshes its data automatically when brought back to the foreground after ten or more minutes — so members never need to reinstall or clear anything.

Common questions

Is this a real app from the App Store / Play Store?

It is an installable web app (PWA) added straight from the browser — no store needed. It behaves like a native app once on the home screen.

Can volunteers see the whole rota in the app?

Yes — volunteers and rota managers get a “View week rota” button on the Rota tab. It shows everyone’s duties for a chosen week (this week, next week or the week after). The Print button then offers a choice of two printable reports: a Volunteer rota (grid) laid out like the printed steward sheet (days down the side, duties across the top), or a Duty rota (list) with each duty, its time and volunteers. Either can be printed or saved as a PDF.

Does the app show a weather forecast?

Yes — if a club location is set under Settings (Bookings & Green → weather location), the home screen shows a 7-day forecast widget with the day, conditions, high/low temperature and chance of rain, using the free Open-Meteo service. If no location is set the widget is simply hidden.

How do I build and send a newsletter?

Go to Communications → Newsletter Builder. Pick a starter template (or one of your own saved templates) to create a draft, then build it up from blocks — masthead, headings, text, images, articles, two-column sections, buttons, callouts, dividers and a footer. Add a block from the palette, fill it in on the left, and watch the live email preview update on the right. Set the subject, an issue/date label, an accent colour and a font at the top. You can insert {{first_name}}, {{full_name}}, {{club_name}} or {{date}} anywhere and they’re filled in per member when it sends. Use “Send test” to email a copy to yourself, “Save as template” to reuse the design later, and “Publish & send” to choose an audience (all active members, newsletter opt-ins, a membership type, and so on) and email it out. It’s sent as a proper HTML email, so it looks the same in members’ inboxes as it does in the preview. There are 12 starter styles to choose from, blocks for galleries, events, two-up buttons and social links, one-click colour schemes, and you can add your own custom audience groups — or hide built-in ones you don’t use — from “Manage audiences”. You can also drop in a live fixtures, results or league-table block that refreshes itself from your leagues data each time you send, or a live 🎉 Upcoming events block that lists your next club events (choose the event type and how many to show — cancelled and admin-only events never appear), or a 🌳 Club officials block that pulls your committee straight from the Org Chart (choose how many positions and whether to show photos), schedule a newsletter to go out automatically at a chosen date and time, and see how many members opened each one once it’s been sent. You can print a paper copy from the editor (or the printer icon in the list), and “Add to Library” saves a copy into the Newsletter Library as a draft to review and publish for members. You can also save any block to your own reusable “saved blocks” with its ⭐ button, then drop it into future newsletters from the palette — handy for keeping a consistent footer, sponsor strip or sign-off. And “Create campaign” turns a finished newsletter into a new draft email campaign with the newsletter already added, so you just pick an audience and send. Building is drag-and-drop: reorder blocks by their ⠿ handle, collapse blocks you aren’t working on, insert a block at any point with the ＋ between blocks, and pick images straight from your media library. You can also put a decorative border (solid, rounded, double, dashed or beaded dots, in any colour) around any block to frame a section. To frame several blocks together in one continuous border, set the border on one block and use “blocks above/below” to say how many neighbours it should wrap. In the two-column block each column can also have its own decorative border and colour, and can contain other blocks (an image, button, table and so on) placed inside the column beneath its text. You can set the two columns to any width split (say 30% / 70%), the gap between them and the padding inside them. Columns come in two, three or four across, and any block — including the new Post-it note (a sticky note with editable text, font, size and note colour) — can be dropped inside a column. You can also set each block’s text alignment (left, middle, right) and text colour, and in text blocks colour individual words with the colour button in the mini toolbar (so a few words can be bold and coloured). There are also blocks for a table (rows, columns, header, striped rows and colours), an image with text wrapping around it, WordArt-style display text with funky fonts that can be straight, slanted, arched or wavy, and a thin coloured strip/bar. And for a bit of fun: a Sudoku puzzle (easy/medium/hard, with an optional solution block), a cartoon doodle (pick one or show a random one each issue), a “Contact us” list of names, roles and phone numbers, and a 7-day weather forecast for the club. There are also decorative dividers (thin, thick, dashed, dotted, double, wavy or zigzag), a QR-code block that turns a web address into a scannable code, and a bullet or numbered list block with dozens of bullet shapes and numbering styles (1. / 1) / a. / a) / i. and more) — press Enter for the next item. Newer blocks include a Hero banner (a big image with a headline, subtitle and button overlaid on an accent band), Stat highlights (a row of up to four big numbers with labels, e.g. members, teams, funds raised), a Member spotlight (photo, name, role and a short write-up), a Sponsor block (a labelled, linkable sponsor logo with a tagline), a Countdown (shows how many days remain until a chosen date when the newsletter is previewed or sent), and a Menu / price list (item-and-price rows for the bar or café). All except the Hero can also be dropped inside a column. You can also save several blocks together as one “group block”: click “Group” in the toolbar, tick the blocks, and save them under a name — they appear in a separate “Your group blocks” section in the palette (below your individual saved blocks) and drop in as a set with one click. To start quickly, use “Guided setup” on the Newsletter Builder home to set the title, issue label, accent, font and starting layout in one step; and inside the editor the ✨ “Guided” button next to “Add a block” opens a picker that groups every block by purpose with a short description of each.

Can members change the app’s colours?

Yes. Under the app’s More → Appearance, each member can pick a colour theme from 10 built-in options (Teal, Ocean, Royal Blue, Indigo, Violet, Plum, Rose, Sunset, Amber and Forest) plus a “Club default”. Their choice is saved on their own device and doesn’t affect anyone else, and it works alongside the separate light/dark setting. As an admin you can also create your own themes under Settings → System → Devices → Member App → “Custom colour themes” (give each a name, a main accent colour and an optional darker shade for gradients); your custom themes appear at the bottom of the list members choose from.

Can members rearrange or hide home-screen widgets?

Yes — the home screen has an “Edit widgets” button. Tapping it shows a drag handle and a show/hide eye button on each widget — green status, weather, next booking, next duty, expense claims, next match, league table and tournament. Members drag the handles to reorder, tap the eye to hide a widget (hidden ones appear dimmed while editing and disappear once done), then tap Done. Both the order and which widgets are hidden are saved on that device and used every time they open the app. Separately, admins can turn on “Hide empty widgets” under Settings → System → Devices → Member App so the Next booking / Next duty cards disappear when there is nothing upcoming, instead of showing an empty card. The app opens on the Home tab each time you launch it; if you pull to refresh while on another tab it stays where you are rather than jumping back to Home.

Can members see which rinks are free for a day?

Yes — the Bookings tab has a “Rink availability” button. It opens a day picker (today plus the next week) and shows every rink for each session, colour-coded as Free, Booked, Roll-up or Closed, along with your booking contact details. A Print button produces a full printable Rink Availability sheet in the club booking-sheet style — colour key, roll-up times, the session × rink grid, and the booking procedures (how to book, payment, cancellations). The email, phones and bowling fee shown are taken from your club settings (bookings email, Duty Steward phone, general phone and guest bowling fee), so keep those up to date.

Do members need a login?

Yes — members sign in with their normal club website account. The app shows each member only their own bookings, duties and alerts.

Can members follow their leagues and competitions?

Yes — if a member is in a league team or a competition entry, a “Comps” tab appears in the app. For each league it shows the full table (with the member’s team highlighted) and the fixtures, including the date, time and rink for scheduled games and the score for completed ones. For each competition it lists the member’s own matches with the opponent, date/time/rink, score and result. The tab is hidden for members who are not in any league or competition.

Can I give a league team a picture or icon?

Yes. When you add or edit a team you can choose from several built-in icon sets — Classic, Crests, Magic and Fun — or use “Upload & crop image” to add your own picture and position/zoom it into a neat square. All built-in icons are original artwork included with Pavilion and are not affiliated with or derived from any film, TV, video-game or book franchise. Each icon can only be used once per league — icons already taken by another team or player appear dimmed and can’t be picked, so every entrant stays visually distinct. The picture appears next to the team in the league table — in the admin standings, on the printout and in the members app. For a singles league the wording changes to “player” throughout (no team name is asked for), and if you don’t choose an icon or image the player’s own profile photo is shown; where nothing is set, a coloured initial is used.

Can I edit teams, change who is in them, or delete a league?

Yes. On a league, each team card has a pencil (edit) button — use it to change the team’s name, captain, picture and, for team leagues, tick exactly which members are in the team. You can also delete a whole league from the league’s Edit dialog (this removes its teams and fixtures), then create a fresh one, and regenerate fixtures at any time from the Fixtures tab (⚡ Regenerate rebuilds a clean round-robin from the current teams).

Can members crop their profile photo?

Yes. When a member adds or changes their photo — either on their own “My profile” page or when an admin edits their profile — a cropper appears so they can drag to position and slide to zoom, and the neat square/round result is saved. The photo is used on their membership card, at check-in, and (for singles league entrants) in the league table.

Can members add other players when booking a rink?

Yes — when a member taps a rink to book it, a confirmation panel opens showing the date and time and lets them add others in their group. They can search for and pick fellow club members, or just type a guest name.

Do members added to a booking see it on their own app?

Yes — if a club member is linked to a booking, it appears in their own upcoming bookings (and on their home screen) and they receive a notification. It is shown read-only: only the member who made the booking can change or cancel it.

Can I hide a feature, e.g. the rota?

Yes — turn features on or off under Settings → System → Devices → Member App. The rota tab only shows for volunteers.

The installed app opens the website home page, not the app — how do I fix it?

Under Settings → System → Devices → Member App, set the App page option to the page that holds the [pvl_member_app] shortcode. That box also shows the exact URL the app will open to. Because the home-screen shortcut stores this URL when it is first added, members should remove the app and add it again after you change it.

Does the app icon show a count for unread notifications?

Yes — while the app is open it puts a number badge on the installed home-screen icon to match how many unread alerts there are, on phones that support icon badges. The number refreshes each time the app is opened.

Can I control which members can use the app?

Yes — under Settings → System → Devices → Member App, set “Who can use the app” to either all members or only chosen membership types. Members outside the allowed types see a short “not available” message instead of the app. Administrators always have access.

What is the membership card QR for?

It encodes the member’s personal check-in link, so scanning it at the clubhouse records their arrival. It is the same token used by the QR check-in system.

Can members add their card to Apple Wallet or Google Wallet?

Yes — if you have set up wallet passes under Settings, the membership card screen shows an Add to Apple Wallet and/or Add to Google Wallet button. The buttons only appear for the relevant wallet once it is configured.

Is there a free way to get the QR into Google Wallet without setup?

Yes — the card screen always has a Save my QR to my phone button plus a step-by-step link titled “How to add it to Google Wallet”. Members save the QR image and add it to Google Wallet using its built-in Everything else pass — no club account, certificates or cost required. The instructions screen has a Print button too.

Can members get push notifications?

Yes — enable push under Settings → System → Devices → Member App, then each member turns it on per device from the app’s ⚙ Settings tab. Your site must be served over HTTPS. Push keys are generated automatically.

A member says the app opens but the boxes stay grey and never fill in.

It will now say what is wrong instead of sitting there. Up to 10.51.5 the app asked the club website for the member’s information and, if the answer came back as anything other than proper data — the server having a moment, the phone losing signal, or the app having been left open long enough for its security token to expire — it quietly did nothing and left the loading placeholders on screen for ever. It now shows the reason and a Try again button, and where the cause is simply a page that has been open too long it fetches a fresh one by itself.

It says “Your session has expired”.

An installed app resumed from the background does not reload its page, so after long enough the security token it was given when it was first opened is no longer accepted. The app now re-fetches the page once on its own, which puts it right. If it keeps saying it, the member has genuinely been signed out — tapping Log in fixes it.

Two members share the clubhouse tablet and one saw the other’s app.

Fixed in 10.51.5. Pavilion was running two service workers — the small offline helper that makes the app installable — at the same time, and the older of the two stored a copy of every page it saw, signed-in pages included, so a page built for one member could be handed to the next person when the connection dropped. There is now only one, and it never stores a signed-in page. Members do not need to do anything; it corrects itself the next time the app is opened.

Does it support dark mode?

Yes. You set a default (auto/light/dark) and each member can switch it themselves inside the app.