Attendance
A WhatsApp team attendance tracker for youth sports coaches
A youth sports attendance bot only helps if a coach will actually use it on a Tuesday night. This one lives in WhatsApp, where a coach is already standing with a phone: send the session, read the replies, then mark who turned up. Nobody learns a new dashboard.
20 coaches get 30 days free, with no card and one coach phone. The trial page checks how many places are left.
You message the bot first. It never adds anyone to a group chat.
What a coach needs
- A phone with WhatsApp. Nothing else is installed.
- The session details: the squad, the time and the place.
- A minute after the session to mark who actually attended.
Sending the session details
A coach messages the bot with the squad, the time and the place, or holds the microphone and says the same thing out loud. The bot writes it up and sends it to the families in that squad. One message, and the same details reach every parent.
- The squad, so the message reaches the right families.
- The day, the time and the place.
- How long the session runs, or the start time on game day.
- Anything a family needs to bring.
Reading the replies
Each family replies yes or no to the message in WhatsApp, and the replies collect against the session. A coach can see the count going up, and can see which families have not answered, so the follow-up is one nudge to a few people rather than a second message to everybody.
An RSVP is intent, not proof of attendance
A yes is what a family intends, and coaches know that a reply is not a player on the field. So the tracker keeps two things: the replies collected before the session, and the attendance the coach marks afterwards. Attendance is never inferred from a reply, and a coach always makes the final call on who was there.
Marking who actually attended
After the session, the coach opens the list and marks the players who turned up. That record is what a coach can look back on over a season, and it stays beside the replies rather than replacing them, so the difference between a yes and an appearance is still visible.
No extra app and no extra login
If your club already runs on WhatsApp, there is nothing more to set up: parents reply in the app they already use, and players never need an account. A coach starts by messaging the bot and naming the squad, and the bot never adds anyone to a group chat.
Questions coaches ask
Do parents need to install anything for attendance tracking?
No. Families reply in WhatsApp. Parents and players never make a Pitchside account, so attendance tracking adds no app to a family's phone.
Is a yes treated as attendance?
No. A yes is an intention. The coach marks the players who actually turned up, and the bot keeps the two records apart.
Can a coach track attendance for several teams?
Yes. One coach phone covers a coach across every squad they run, and each squad keeps its own session and attendance record.
Does it work if the club already uses Pitchside?
Yes. A Pitchside Pro organisation includes bot access and five coach phones, so a club that is already on Pitchside turns the bot on rather than taking a second subscription.
Price and coverage
The price, and where it works
A$4.99 a week for one coach, paid in Australian dollars. A coach phone covers one coach however many teams they run, and parents and players never take a seat. No club listing is needed to run the bot.
WhatsApp setup is configured for Australia, the UK, New Zealand, the US, Canada and Singapore. Coaches elsewhere cannot finish setup yet.
At the Reserve Bank of Australia rates for 14 October 2026 (USD 0.7002 and GBP 0.5275 for each Australian dollar), A$4.99 is about US$3.49 or GBP2.63. Checkout is in Australian dollars, so your bank's own rate and any fees can change the amount you see. Reserve Bank of Australia exchange rates.
20 coaches get thirty days of the bot free in the founder test.