How to connect YouTube and plan your streams

If you stream your courts on YouTube, connect your organization’s channel once, then add each event’s streams with the game each one starts at. Dodgeball Hub links every game to its moment in its court’s stream, so visitors can watch a game from the event’s schedule, and writes a chapter per game into the video when the stream ends.

Before you start

• You need to be a manager of your organization to connect a channel. Anyone who can edit an event can plan its streams.
• Have the Google account that manages your YouTube channel at hand.

Steps

1. In your organization’s menu, open My Org and click Update information.

   

2. Under YouTube channels at the bottom of the page, click Connect a YouTube channel.

   

3. Google asks you to sign in, to choose the account if you have several, and to allow Dodgeball Hub access to your YouTube account, which it needs to read your streams and write their chapters. Google then brings you back here: the page says The channel is connected. and lists the channel.

   

4. Click Make default. The channel is marked Default for events, and your events use it unless one chooses another.

   

5. Open your event’s planner and click Settings at the bottom of the sidebar.

   

6. Open the Courts tab.

   

7. YouTube channel shows the channel this event uses. Organization default follows your organization’s default; choose another of your channels if this event streams elsewhere.

   

8. Under Streams, paste a court’s stream link in YouTube video link. A scheduled stream’s link works before it goes live.

   

9. In Starts at game, choose the first game the stream shows. The games are grouped by court.

   

10. Click Add stream.

    

11. The stream is listed with its court and its status, Upcoming until it goes live. Add one for every court you stream.

    

How a stream plan works

• A stream covers its court from the game it starts at until the next stream on that court starts. If a court streams in several videos, such as one per day, add each one at its first game. A game joins its stream when it actually starts, so running late doesn’t matter.
• The channel and the streams save as soon as you change them; you don’t need Save All Settings Changes. Choose another game under a stream to move its start, or click Remove to take it off the plan.
• Each stream’s line shows whether it’s Upcoming, Live or Ended, how many games it links, and whether its chapters were written. Dodgeball Hub checks the streams regularly around the event. Once one has gone live, Sync streams now appears at the top of the tab to check right away.
• On the event’s schedule, each court links to its stream for the day, and a game with a video offers Watch (Watch live while it’s on), starting the video where the game began.
• When a stream on the event’s channel ends, Dodgeball Hub writes a chapter for each game into the video’s description. To stop that, turn off Write game chapters on the channel.

Look after your channel

• Disconnect removes the channel: no more chapters are written, and events that used it switch to your default channel, or to none. Streams you planned stay listed.
• If Google stops letting Dodgeball Hub in, the channel is marked Needs reconnecting. Click Reconnect and sign in again.