Create an activity for lottery registrants. Accept registrations until a cutoff date, then autodraft the registrants into generic teams including the lottery winner team (set count for number of seats available). You can have the second team be the lottery waitlist or Tier 2 winners. Draft from those names if a seat becomes available.

Potential Scenarios: 

• Your department has high demand and extremely limited spots for a charter bus tour excursion. You need to set up a lottery where 32 people are selected, and the rest are on a list as alternates in case a seat opens up. The lottery is free, but the excursion has a fee.
  • Set up a team sport program with a single lottery activity. Add two teams. The SELECTED team cap will be 32.
    • The WAITLISTED team can be used as alternates.
• You have a summer camp based on grade level, with only 25 seats per grade. The community is larger than spots available, the camp typically fills up in minutes leaving people out, so you need a fair way to randomly select the children who get to join the camp. The lottery is free, but there is a fee for camp.
  • Set up a team sport program with an activity for each grade level camp. Add two teams in each activity. The SELECTED team cap will be 25 in each activity.
    • The WAITLISTED team can be used as alternates.
• There is a childcare program through your department. Infants to after-school middle grade classes are offered, but each teacher can only have 12 students per class. These spots fill up almost immediately and are spoken for months in advance. You need a lottery for each age/grade level that will select the 12 children for that class, and two classes per level. The lottery is free, but there is a fee for childcare.
  • Set up a team sport program with an activity for each age/grade level. 
    • Add two teams for each activity. The SELECTED team cap will be 24 because there are two classes per age/grade level with 12 seats in each class
      • The WAITLISTED team can be used as alternates.
    • OR Add three teams for each activity. Two teams will be called SELECTED and each will have a team cap of 12. This will not only create the lottery winners for each age/grade level, but it can also be used to create the class roster for each of the teachers in each level.
      • The WAITLISTED team can be used as alternates.

The lottery activities can be set up with a fee, but this example will show a free lottery.

Setting Up a Lottery as a Team Sport Program

1. Open the Programs menu on the left-side navigation bar and click Add New Programs 
2. Complete the Program Name
3. Add a Description that includes the lottery rules, dates, and expected results
   1. If there are forms or other requirements, you can mention those in this space
   2. Be sure to explain any differences in the process if you had another lottery method in the past
4. Turn on Subheadings and set the Max Activities to 1 that start within 3 days of each other
   1. This will prevent a child from being entered into the lottery multiple times, but a sibling will still be able to enter the lottery if applicable
5. Add the childcare director or camp director's name as Coordinator so questions go to the correct person
6. Be sure to check Team Sport for the Program Type
7. Add a photo as desired
8. Staff Notes can be added to tell management users not to change the team or team member assignment

9. Click Update

Create a Lottery Activity for Each Class/Grade/Age Level

Before you can add any activities, you will need to create at least one subheading. We are using the subheading setup for this because it is very easy to set up even if you don't need it, but it you find out later (days, months, or years) that you need subheadings and didn't select the option when you created the program, you have to start over from scratch on the entire activity and program build.

See our scenarios above in relation to the steps below.

1. Click Add Subheading in the upper right corner of the program page
2. If you have no other subheadings in mind, type “2026-2027 Childcare Lottery” or something similar
   1. Otherwise, add the subhead title that you need specific to your department
3. Add a description, for example “Sign each child up only once for the correct age/grade level. Lottery entry will be open until March 31, and winners will be notified via invoice and account email by April 8.”
4. Click Submit, or Add to create another subheading
5. Click the link to Add Activity within your subheading
   1. Activity Name should be something like “Mackinac Island Bus Tour”, “2nd-3rd Grade Summer Camp”, or “Infant 1 Room - Lottery”
   2. Select the Category
   3. You can add the program director, childcare director, or camp director here as a Coach/Instructor, if desired, and can add classroom or camp leaders later on the Team/Group tab
   4. Here is a sample of an Activity Note that would be helpful “Ages 0-11 mo by Sept 1. Complete checkout and be sure to click PROCESS or your registration will be invalid. No payment is required at this time.”
   5. Make sure that the Hide This boxes are NOT checked
   6. The remain settings are optional
   7. Click Next Step or Update

6. Uncheck Add Schedule Later
   1. You can keep this checked for this Team Sport Activity, but you may increase calls to your office asking when the lottery will take place by not putting the lottery date on the activity
7. Add the date/time of the lottery drawing
   1. Start Date
   2. Start and End Time
   3. Location (Other) “Lottery Drawing”
   4. Recurring should be unchecked
   5. Click Create Event Dates
   6. Click Next Step

8. Enter $0 for the Res Fee and Non-Res Fee
   1. If only residents can enter the lottery, uncheck Use Non-Res Fee
9. Select the Budget Group even though the fee is $0
10. Enter 100 for Res Amt and Non-Res Amt (grayed out if not checked in step 8a)
11. Click Next Step

12. If the activity is for an age level, set the age range, but it the activity is for a grade level, set the grade range
    1. In the instance of the bus tour scenario, you can leave age and grade blank since it isn't a restrictor
13. For age limits, set the Custom Date age cutoff to match local school requirements or program requirements
    1. In this case, the age limit for childcare is determined by the state school requirements and is set for September 1
14. Set your Registration Type to Online Registration
    1. Do not select any other option
15. Use Registration Start and End Dates to automatically open and close the lottery enrollment window
    1. Be sure to set these dates in your system to avoid difficulty
    2. Here, we are closing the lottery registration one week before families are due to be notified of the results to give the department time to run the lottery and take care of contacts before that final date of notification
16. Click Next Step or Update

17. If you are going to collect forms, documents, signatures, or complete waivers during the lottery so they don't have to be completed during actual registration, you can add those requirements now
    1. The advantage to this is that you are not waiting for the paperwork to be completed after you have already awarded the child a seat. This will streamline the actual registration process as you can simply transfer the child to the actual activity and have their documentation on file and send their payment invoice or take payment over the phone.

18. Review your setup and Complete

Creating the Teams for Sorting

Now, you will create two teams to sort the selected lottery participants from those who have not been selected, based on the bus excursion and the summer camp scenarios from the beginning of this article. For clarity, MyRec.com suggests using the simple team titles of “Selected” and “Waitlisted” or “Not Selected” so your public users can easily see their result right on their invoice after the lottery is completed.

If you are using the childcare scenario from the beginning of the article, add three teams total, with two  “Selected” teams and one “Waitlisted” team.

1. Navigate to the Teams/Groups tab
2. Click Add New Team/Group
3. Type “Selected” into the Team/Group Name field
4. Set the Team Seat Cap for the total number of lottery winners you want selected for this activity/class
   1. You can set the Order #1 to 1 if not already set
5. Click Submit

6. Follow steps 1-5 to create a second team called “Waitlisted” or “Not Selected”
   1. For the bus excursion scenario, you are finished and can move to the section on how to run the lottery
   2. For the summer camp scenario, clone this activity for each grade level, edit the details on the Basic Info tab and on the Registrant Settings tab as needed
      1. You will do this prior to opening the program for registration
      2. Each grade level will now have a camp lottery with two teams: Selected and Waitlisted
   3. For the childcare scenario, clone this activity for each class level, edit the details on the Basic Info tab and on the Registrant Settings tab as needed
      1. You will do this prior to opening the program for registration
      2. Each childcare class level will now have a camp lottery with three teams: 2 Selected and 1 Waitlisted
         1. For instance, this means that for the Infant I level, there will be two classes of selected children, and all the rest will be waitlisted

Running the Lottery

After you have taken all registrations for the lottery activity, be sure that the lottery registration is closed by double checking it on the public side. In the image below, the 2-3 Room - Lottery is still open for registration, and the 4-6 Room - Lottery is closed for registration. The activity should not say “Register Now” if it is closed. This is a better setup than just hiding the activity from the public while it is still open for registration, and relies on those Registration Start and End Dates in the Registrant Settings tab.

1. Now that all entries have been collected, navigate to the Teams/Groups tab within the activity
2. Above the team names, click the Auto-Draft Teams link
   1. You do not need to Include Drop In Accounts since they were not used
3. Click the blue button Auto-Draft Teams

4. The Selected Team will be blind drafted at the top, and the Waitlisted Team will be blind drafted at the bottom
5. You can choose to immediately Remove Auto Draft at the top and bottom of the list, but once you navigate away from this page, you will have to remove drafted members manually from the team member list if you want to re-run the lottery.
   1. To re-run the lottery after the fact, click Members for each team

2. Check the boxes for every member on the team
3. Click Remove Selected From Team
4. Be sure to do this for every team, then you will have the option to Auto Draft Teams again from the Teams/Groups tab

Notifying Selected Participants

In addition to reaching out via phone or email to selected lottery winners, using the announcement feature on your public homepage, or posting to social media, the Selected or Waitlisted team assignment will appear on the public-side invoice and the management-side invoice for easy viewing. After you save or print a copy of the lottery results for security, you can let the public know that they can see if their registrant was selected by following these steps.

1. Login to your MyRec.com public household account

2. Go into MyAccount
3. Click Registrations

4. Scroll through the registrations to find the one for the lottery
5. Click the Invoice # for that item
6. The invoice will open in a separate popup and show the Team Name as the result of the lottery
   1. The red arrow shows a Waitlisted registrant
   2. The green arrow shows a Selected registrant
   3. The yellow arrow shows no team name at all and will be what the invoice looks like before you auto-draft the teams to complete the lottery
7. This will allow the public user to see the lottery results without having to contact your staff directly

After the Lottery

Once you have completed the lottery, the selected registrants can be transferred or registered directly for the actual activity from the management side. The public user can pay their registration fees online from their account balances due, or you can apply payment manually from the management side.

If you need assistance with the transfer process from the Member's Registration tab in their member page, please contact Client Services for support or refer to our Knowledge Base article for help.