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A tryout is a short program for evaluating players for selection onto one or more teams. You capture across a few sessions the same way you always do, compare trialists on what you actually saw, and promote the ones you pick onto their target team.
A tryout is about selection, and RinkNotes is honest about that — with players, with parents, and in what it shows you. It counts what coaches noted; it never turns a trialist into a rating or a rank, and no report ever states a selection outcome.

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Create the tryout

Like a camp, a tryout is created by an org admin from the team switcher.
1

Open the team switcher and choose New tryout

At the bottom of the switcher menu, tap New tryout.
2

Say what it's selecting for

Pick the team or teams this tryout feeds under Selecting for — at least one. This is where trialists get promoted to.
3

Set the variant and dates

Choose Skater tryout (the default) or Goalie tryout, then set the name, start, end, and number of sessions, and tap Create tryout.
Trialists live on the Trialists & Consent tab. Each one carries a Trialist chip and the squad they’re being considered for. Consent still comes first — you can’t capture about a trialist until consent is granted — but the ask is framed for what a tryout is. When you request it, the player (or their parent) is asked to consent to the player being evaluated for selection, not only observed for development. RinkNotes is explicit that a selection decision may follow, and equally explicit that no report ever states the outcome.
Consent works exactly as it does on a team — invite the parent, or use “This is my child” for your own. On an adult tryout the player consents for themselves. See Send consent requests.

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Run the sessions

You capture a tryout in the phone capturer, session by session, exactly like a camp — New session, say it or type it, check the preview, capture. Notes are filed under the session you’re in.

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Compare and promote

The Comparison tab lays out your trialists against the skill areas as a grid of how many notes each one drew in each area.
Those are note counts, not scores or rankings. A busier row means a trialist drew more of your attention, not that they’re “better” — RinkNotes won’t rank players for you. The call stays yours.
To select a trialist, open them and use Promote to . Promotion is an org admin (director) action. It creates a fresh roster spot on the target team — a clean start. Tryout notes don’t carry over, so a player begins their season without their evaluation attached. Once promoted, the trialist shows a green Roster ✓ chip.

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What parents receive

By default, nothing. A tryout’s evaluation stays with the staff — parents don’t receive tryout reports. That’s deliberate: a tryout is a selection process, not a development record for families.

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Where each part lives