How to bring your data into AI4Padel
If you dread switching software, the word “migration” is probably why. Fair enough: migrating sounds like a week with the club running at half speed, records lost along the way and a jump you cannot undo.
With AI4Padel there is no migration. It connects alongside whatever you already use: it reads your Matchpoint without touching it, it imports your member spreadsheet, or it starts from zero if you run the club from memory and a notebook. And if you ever switch it off, your club stays exactly as it was.
These are the three ways to start, with what you will see on screen in each one. And at the end, what happens if you ever leave.
Your data already exists: in a system, in a spreadsheet or in your head.
From your spreadsheet
Most clubs keep their members where they always have: a spreadsheet that started as a list of phone numbers and now has columns only its author understands. It works as-is. In the players screen there is a button, “Import from a file”, that opens a three-step window. The first screen, “Import players, step 1 of 3”, states the rules before you upload anything:
- An Excel or CSV exported from wherever you keep it is fine. No required format: there is no template to fill in and no columns to rename first.
- We recognise the columns and you review them before anything is imported. AI4Padel proposes which column is the name, which the phone, which the level; you confirm or correct. If your level column is called “Cat.”, no problem.
- Up to 2 MB and 2,000 rows. Plenty for a club’s member file. If yours is bigger, write to us and we will look at it together.
- Nothing is saved until the final step. Close the window at step two and not a single record has come in.
The first step of the import: rules up front, before the file is even uploaded.
Two more details worth knowing. One: duplicates are recognised by phone number, so if you add twenty rows next month and upload the same file again, nobody comes in twice. Two: people who arrive from a file will not receive promotions unless the permission column says so. Cautious by default: nobody gets marketing just for being in a spreadsheet.
From Matchpoint, read-only
If you run the club on Matchpoint, you don’t even need the spreadsheet. The connector reads your data directly and keeps it fresh: players, bookings, levels. The important word is “reads”. AI4Padel never writes to your Matchpoint. Not a booking, not a player card, not a level: your management software stays in charge, and while it is connected it keeps the last word on its own data.
That is not just a promise: it is written on the screen itself. The player list is headed with it, “Matchpoint data (read-only)”, and each player’s level carries a small tag saying where it came from. (The product runs in Spanish; the screen quotes here are translated.)
The list says where the data comes from: at the top and on every level.
And when something doesn’t add up between the two systems? That is what the “Review data” screen is for: it shows when data was last brought in, what arrived new and what doesn’t match. Nothing gets corrected on its own. The rule is printed right there, word for word:
“We never touch your Matchpoint data: if something doesn’t add up, fix it there and it will be picked up here on its own.”
The last data pull, whatever doesn’t match, and what still needs entering in Matchpoint, all in plain sight.
“Still to be entered in Matchpoint”
When AI4Padel fills a match, Matchpoint doesn’t know about it yet. And since AI4Padel never writes to it, it reminds you to enter the match yourself. In “Review data” there is a block listing the matches put together in AI4Padel that you haven’t yet entered in your own system. You write them down there and the notice clears itself. It is less convenient than writing it for you, and it is deliberate: nothing is ever written behind your back.
The Matchpoint connector is included from the Pro plan up. On Esencial you can always import your spreadsheet: it comes in just the same.
What about Playtomic?
They coexist, each doing its own job. Playtomic keeps doing what it does well, bringing you outside players you didn’t know, and nobody disputes that. Your regulars, the members who already fill your courts every week, come into AI4Padel from your member spreadsheet. The two tools don’t step on each other; why they don’t compete for the same job is explained in the comparison.
From scratch
If you run the club from memory and a notebook, you are not missing anything: AI4Padel acts as the agenda from day one. Courts created, opening hours set and members loaded in under ten minutes, tested with a club built from an empty database. What an ordinary day looks like from there, hour by hour, is in the demo in writing.
Every value with its origin
However your data comes in, every level says where it came from. It arrived from Matchpoint, it was imported from your file, the club set it, or it is estimated from the matches we have seen that player play.
Why does it matter? Because when AI4Padel proposes players who fit an open spot, each name comes with its reason: “Level 3.00, compatible with this match”. That reason depends on the data behind it. With the origin visible you know whether that 3.00 came from Matchpoint, was set by your coach or is a recent estimate, and you decide with that in view.
If you ever leave
The WhatsApp number belongs to the club: your players write to you, not to us. The conversations are yours. Each player’s card, when they really play, who they play well with, how many invitations they accept, is yours too. If you leave AI4Padel tomorrow, we hand you your data and your club carries on as it was: your Matchpoint never noticed, because we never wrote to it, and your spreadsheet is where it always was.
No lock-in period. Our job is to make staying worth it every month, not to tie you to a contract.
Is your case one of the odd ones? A spreadsheet with columns only you understand, a well-worn Matchpoint with years of members inside? Book a 15-minute demo and we will go through it with your data on the table.