Connecting channels

A channel is one destination you can publish to — for example your club's Facebook Page, its Telegram channel, or your members' phones via app push notifications. Connect channels on Club Admin → Social → Channels.

There are four ways to connect, depending on the platform:

• Sign in — Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, and X send you to the provider to authorize SportyPlus, then bring you back.
• Paste a credential — Telegram, Discord, Slack, Bluesky, and Zapier ask you for a bot token, a webhook URL, or an app password. SportyPlus checks it against the platform straight away, except for Zapier (see below).
• Install an app — Reddit uses the SportyPlus publisher app, which a subreddit moderator installs.
• Turn it on — App push notifications need nothing to connect; select Connect and it's ready.

You can connect one account per platform per club.

Channel status

Each channel on the Channels tab shows one of:

Facebook and Instagram

One Facebook sign-in connects both. Select Connect on the Facebook & Instagram card.

Before you start, make sure:

• you are an admin of the Facebook Page you want to post to;
• for Instagram, the account is a Business or Creator account and is linked to that Facebook Page.

After you authorize SportyPlus:

1. The channel shows Finish setup. Select Choose account.
2. Pick the Facebook Page to post as.
3. For Instagram, pick the Instagram account in the same way.

Each becomes its own channel, so you can publish to Facebook, Instagram, or both.

LinkedIn

Select Connect and authorize SportyPlus with the LinkedIn account you use to manage your club's presence.

Then select Choose account and pick where posts go:

• your personal profile, or
• a Company Page you administer.

X

Select Connect and authorize SportyPlus with your club's X account. Posts are published as that account. No further setup is needed.

Reddit

Reddit posts are published by the SportyPlus publisher app, which a subreddit moderator installs into the subreddit.

1. Select Connect. SportyPlus shows a pairing code and a link to the app.
2. Open the app page and install the app into the subreddit you moderate.
3. During installation, paste the pairing code into the app's settings.
4. Back in SportyPlus, select I've done this — check. The channel switches to Connected.

Notes:

• Posts appear from the app's bot account, not your personal account.
• The subreddit is fixed to where the app is installed. When you compose a post you set the title; you don't choose the subreddit.
• The pairing code expires after a short time. If it runs out, select Connect again for a new one.

Telegram

1. In Telegram, open a chat with @BotFather and create a bot. BotFather gives you a bot token.
2. Add the bot to your channel and make it an administrator with permission to post messages.
3. In SportyPlus, select Connect on the Telegram card.
4. Paste the bot token and the channel's @username (or its numeric ID for a private channel).
5. Select Save. SportyPlus checks that the bot can reach the channel and connects it.

Discord

1. In Discord, open Server Settings → Integrations → Webhooks and create a webhook for the channel you want to post to.
2. Copy the webhook's URL.
3. In SportyPlus, select Connect on the Discord card, paste the webhook URL, and select Save.

Slack

1. Create an Incoming Webhook for the Slack channel you want to post to, from your Slack workspace's app settings.
2. Copy the webhook URL.
3. In SportyPlus, select Connect on the Slack card, paste the webhook URL, optionally add a channel name for display, and select Save.

Bluesky

Bluesky connects with your club's handle and an app password — a separate password that can only post, which you can revoke at any time without changing your real one.

1. In Bluesky, open Settings → Privacy and security → App passwords and select Add App Password. Name it SportyPlus; leave direct-message access off.
2. Copy the password Bluesky shows (it looks like abcd-efgh-ijkl-mnop). It is shown only once.
3. In SportyPlus, select Connect on the Bluesky card.
4. Enter your handle (for example yourclub.bsky.social, or your own domain if you use one) and paste the app password.
5. Select Save. SportyPlus signs in to check them and connects the account.

Notes:

• Links and #hashtags in your post are clickable on Bluesky.
• The post's link is shown as a short address (for example yourclub.com/news/autumn-open) so it takes less of the 300-character limit; it still opens the full page.
• A post with an image shows the image. A post with a link and no image shows a preview card with the page's title, description, and picture.
• Images larger than 1 MB are shrunk automatically.

Zapier

Zapier lets you publish to places SportyPlus doesn't connect to directly. Some examples are a LinkedIn Company Page, Threads, Pinterest, or a Google Business Profile. SportyPlus sends each post to a Zap you build in Zapier, and the Zap does the publishing.

Connect Zapier

1. In Zapier, create a Zap. For the trigger, choose Webhooks by Zapier, then Catch Hook.
2. Copy the webhook URL that Zapier shows. It starts with https://hooks.zapier.com/hooks/catch/.
3. In SportyPlus, select Connect on the Zapier card and paste the Catch Hook URL.
4. Optionally, under Where the Zap posts, enter a name for display, for example LinkedIn page. The channel then appears as Zapier · LinkedIn page.
5. Select Save.

Finish the Zap

Zapier needs one sample post before it can show you the fields.

1. In SportyPlus, publish a post to only the Zapier channel. The Zap has no action yet, so the post doesn't appear anywhere.
2. In Zapier, select Test trigger. Zapier finds the post you just sent.
3. Add an action for where you want the post to go, for example LinkedIn Pages → Create Company Update.
4. Map the post's fields into the action, then turn the Zap on.

Each post arrives with these fields:

For a LinkedIn Company Page, map text into the update's text. LinkedIn builds the link preview itself.

Notes:

• SportyPlus can't test the URL when you connect. Zapier runs the Zap for every request the URL receives, so a test would publish an empty post. SportyPlus only checks that the address looks like a Catch Hook. If it is wrong, you find out on the first post.
• "Published" means Zapier received the post. It doesn't mean the destination accepted it. To see what happened, open the Zap's History in Zapier. Zapier posts don't return a link, so there's nothing to open in SportyPlus either.
• You can connect only one Zapier channel. To post to several places, add more actions to the same Zap, or use Zapier's Paths to send different posts different ways.
• If you turn the Zap off or delete it, the channel shows Reconnect needed. Turn the Zap back on, or connect a new Catch Hook URL.
• SportyPlus sets no character limit for Zapier. The destination's own limit applies when the Zap publishes, so keep LinkedIn posts under 3,000 characters.

App push notifications

This channel sends your post straight to the phones of members who have your club's app installed and notifications turned on. There is no account to connect and no password to enter.

1. On the App push notifications card, select Connect.
2. That's it — the channel switches to Connected and the card shows how many devices it currently reaches.

When you compose a post with this channel selected, you also enter a notification title — the bold line the phone shows. The post's message becomes the notification text, and the optional link is what opens when a member taps the notification.

Notes:

• Recipients are your club's members. A member with several devices gets the notification on each one; a member with the app uninstalled or notifications switched off gets nothing.
• Delivery counts, not links: a delivered push shows how many devices it reached (for example sent: 240/244) instead of an external link.
• Keep the title short — phones show roughly the first 65 characters of the title and 240 of the message before truncating.
• Images are supported and appear in the expanded notification.

Reconnecting

If a channel shows Reconnect needed, its saved authorization was rejected — for example a password change, a revoked app, or an expired token. Select Reconnect and repeat the connect steps for that platform. Your post history is kept.

Disconnecting

Select Disconnect to stop publishing to a channel. SportyPlus forgets the stored credentials but keeps the channel's post history.

To fully revoke access on the platform's side as well:

• Telegram — remove the bot from the channel, or revoke its token in BotFather.
• Discord / Slack — delete the webhook.
• Zapier — turn off or delete the Zap.
• Bluesky — delete the app password in Settings → Privacy and security → App passwords.
• Reddit — uninstall the SportyPlus publisher app from the subreddit.
• Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, X — remove SportyPlus from the connected-apps settings of your account.
• App push notifications — nothing to revoke; disconnecting stops future posts. Individual members can turn notifications off in their phone settings.