⚙ Club Settings

Club Identity settings control your club’s name, address and contact details. These appear throughout the plugin — in emails, print headers, the dashboard, and the public member portal.

🧪 Test Mode

The Test Mode switch at the top of the General tab lets you run the whole system safely without anything going live. Everything keeps working — bookings, the members app, portals, reports — but every email the system sends is redirected to a single address of your choice (the original recipients are shown in the subject line, e.g. [TEST → member@example.com] Renewal due), Cc/Bcc copies are stripped, and SMS/WhatsApp and push notifications are suppressed. A member whose email matches the test address still receives app push notifications so those can be tested too. While it’s on, an amber 🧪 banner shows on every Pavilion admin page so it can’t be forgotten. Perfect for initial setup, training sessions or trying new features on a live site.

Key fields

• Club name — used in all outgoing emails, the dashboard header, print sheets and shortcodes
• Club address — shown in email footers and the member portal
• General enquiries phone — shown in the member portal and email footers
• Duty Steward phone — printed on the daily booking sheet for on-the-day contact
• Bookings email — shown on booking-related screens and emails
• Treasurer email — receives notifications when expense claims are submitted
• Rink map colour — the background colour of the live rink overview on the Bookings → Rinks tab. Choose from 8 preset swatches or use the colour picker. You can also change this directly from the Rinks tab toolbar.

Common questions

Where does the club name appear?

In all outgoing emails (subject and body), the dashboard title, admin print headers, the WordPress dashboard widget, and the [pvl_availability_grid] public shortcode.

Can I set a different reply-to address for emails?

Yes — go to Settings → ✉ Email Templates → Sender Settings. The Reply-To field overrides the From address for member replies.

How do I change the rink map colour?

Either click the Rink map colour picker here (choose from presets or use the full colour picker), or click the Rink Colours button in the Bookings → Rinks tab toolbar for a live preview.

Can I control what gets typed into member fields?

Yes — go to Settings → Members → Validation Rules. Create a rule per field: required, minimum/maximum length, numbers or letters only, a number or date range, valid email, UK phone or UK postcode format, a list of allowed values, a required prefix, or a custom pattern. Each rule has an optional custom error message, a built-in tester, and can apply to admin forms, member-facing forms (their profile and the join form), or both. Rules are checked whenever the record is saved and the save is blocked with your message if a value doesn’t comply.

Can I change when the membership year starts?

Yes — Settings → General → Membership Settings → “Membership year starts”. It defaults to April (1 April – 31 March, the common UK bowls convention), but you can pick any month: January for a calendar-year membership, October for indoor clubs, and so on. Renewal due dates and season labels (e.g. “2026–27”) follow the chosen month automatically. The club’s financial year is set separately under Settings → Accounting.

Is there a quick way to find a setting?

Yes — use the Search box at the top of the settings menu on the left. It searches inside the settings pages too, not just the section names, so typing a field like “sort code”, “gift aid”, “mileage” or “reply-to” shows the sections that contain it (with a note of what matched). Click one, or press Enter to open the first match. The settings menu also remembers its scroll position as you move between pages.