Before you start
- Your school is ready. We've created it and added you as its Athletic Director.
- Sign in at athleticdesk.net with your school Google or Microsoft account -- the same email you gave us. No new password.
- Have these handy: your school logo (PNG or JPG), your MaxPreps schedules, and a list of your coaches' school emails.
- On a district network? Send your IT department the IT section at the bottom of this page -- click Copy for Email there and paste it into an email to them. Usually all they do is allow athleticdesk.net and add notifications@athleticdesk.net as a safe sender.
Security, privacy & what to allow
Most districts only need the first two items. Click Copy for Email and paste it into an email to your tech director -- it answers the usual questions.
Allowlist checklist
Allow for staff (category Education or Productivity). It's a new domain, so GoGuardian, Securly, Lightspeed or a firewall may block it as "newly registered" until it's allowed. Students don't need it.
Add as a safe/trusted sender so signup confirmations and reminders aren't quarantined. AthleticDesk never sends from a staff member's own account.
Admin console › Security › Access and data control › API controls › Manage third-party app access: set AthleticDesk to Trusted for staff org units. Email us and we'll send the OAuth client ID.
If user consent is turned off, an admin grants consent once for sign-in (openid, profile, email, User.Read).
The browser loads this library to build .xlsx files. CSV and Google Sheets exports work without it.
Google Fonts, for the lettering on pages and social graphics. Almost always allowed already; if blocked, pages still work with standard fonts.
Google permissions AthleticDesk asks for
| Permission | What it's used for | Who |
|---|---|---|
| profile, email | Signs the person in and matches them to their school. Only accounts the school's AD has added can get in. | All staff |
| calendar.events | Adds, updates and removes the games AthleticDesk publishes, on the one calendar the AD chooses. Never reads other events or changes sharing. | AD, optional |
| drive.file | Creates the Google Sheets the user asks for (exports, staffing sheet, year-end archive). Can only see files AthleticDesk created. | AD, optional |
| Never requested | Gmail, Contacts, Classroom, Admin SDK, full Drive, or anyone's existing calendars. The daily email is copied and sent by the AD from their own email. | |
Students & data
- Staff only. Students never sign in or get accounts.
- Student information appears only in the optional uniform inventory. The school picks names & numbers, numbers only, or off. Never stored: student emails, phone numbers, birthdates, ID numbers, grades or health information.
- FERPA: AthleticDesk acts as a school official under the school's direction and will sign your district's student data privacy agreement.
- Hosting: cloud-hosted on Render with a managed PostgreSQL database. Every connection is HTTPS; sessions use secure, HTTP-only cookies. One school can never see another's data, and coaches see only their own teams.
- Your data: an admin can export everything as one Excel workbook any time. If a school stops using AthleticDesk, data is kept read-only for 90 days, then deleted; deletion on request any time.
- Never sold. No advertising, no data sales, no profiling.
Full policies: athleticdesk.net/privacy · /google-data-privacy · /terms · Questions, a DPA, or the OAuth client ID: support@athleticdesk.net
That's it -- you're running.
From here, AthleticDesk mostly runs itself: coaches post scores, the calendar stays current, the crew fills from the signup link, and the daily email is ready every morning.
Questions? support@athleticdesk.net · athleticdesk.net