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District Certification Instructions

These instructions are for Water Polo, Volleyball, Football, Basketball, Soccer, Softball and Baseball. Other sports will have different certification instructions provided on their specific sport pages.

District chairs will be submitting directly to MaxPreps via the UIL Portal.  Once district certifications are submitted, the online brackets will auto-populate with the teams from your district. 

You must complete these steps on a computer, NOT on a phone. If you try to complete these steps on a phone, you will get an "out of bounds error" message on MaxPreps when you click the link. 

Before certifying your district you must have 2 items. We would advise that you make sure you have both of these items set up BEFORE you attempt to certify your district:

1. Designated DEC Chair or DEC Secretary Role - You must be designated as a DEC Chair or DEC Secretary role in the UIL Online Portal. If you do not have the role of DEC Chair or DEC Secretary in the UIL Portal, the option to certify will not appear on your homepage. Only those with a DEC Chair or DEC Secreatary role in the UIL Online Portal can certify districts. 

Instructions to add the role of DEC Chair or DEC Secretary to your account HERE
 

2. MaxPreps Account - You will need a MaxPreps account. Once logged into the UIL Portal, you will be asked to log into MaxPreps to complete the process. There are 3 options to accomplish this:

  • If you currently have a MaxPreps account, you will use that to log in 

  • If you do not have a MaxPreps account, you can create one before certifying. Your MaxPreps account does not need to be linked to any school to complete the certification, however you will be asked to log in. If you don't have an account, it will prompt you to create one at the time of certification. Please remember your MaxPreps account log in for future district certifications. 

  • If you do not have a MaxPreps account and you do not wish to create one, you may use a generic log in that we will provide to you once logged into the portal. The generic log in will be provided to you in the portal once you begin the certification process. 

To certify your district: 

(District Certification Walkthrough with Images)

Note to 1A/2A Softball and Baseball District Chairs

For 1A/2A Softball and Baseball district certification, you will need to submit your form twice. Once for your 1A district representatives and again for your 2A district representatives. Once you hit save on your first submission in MaxPreps, you will need to return to the UIL Portal and go through the steps again to submit your second submission. Failure to start from the beginning could result in schools appearing on the wrong conference bracket. 

Note to All District Chairs

You MUST enter the 1-4 district finish places. There can not be ties. You must enter a 1, 2, 3, and 4 (when applicable), district finish for each school. For sports with a division split, a 1, 2, 3, 4 must be determined and entered even if schools are being split into separate division. District certification must indicate a 1st through 4th place finisher in the dropdown menus based on district standings. No ties. All ties must be resolved prior to submission. In the event there are Co-District Champions, one of the two teams must be declared the #1 seed overall - even if the co champions are being split between divisions in the postseason. 

Step 1: Log into the UIL Portal: UIL Portal Login

Step 2: Under Student MGMT/Athlete MGMT, either on the left or at the top depending on your version, click DEC MaxPreps. This should be listed right underneath your DEC Dashboard. (This will only appear if you have the role of DEC Chair or DEC Secretary in the Portal) 

Step 3: Select the Sport, Classification, Region and District you will be certifying. (For Football, you will also need to select Division), Click Find League

You MUST select the correct conference, region, district (and division for football), for the specific sport you are certifying. Putting in an incorrect combination of these items will cause you to receive an error stating no results found. Especially for football, with the division breaks for 1A through 5A, your region and district number will be different than the other region and districts your school is in for other activities. If needed, please reference the posted alignments for the correct conference, region, district and division number on our website here.

Step 4: You should see your district appear with a green check mark that your league has been found. Click on the search result to be directed to MaxPreps. If you do not have a MaxPreps account, login details will be provided that you can use.

You will be redirected to the MaxPreps website. 

Step 5: Sign in to your MaxPreps account. If you do not already have an account, you will need to create an account, or use the login details provided in the UIL Portal. 

Step 6: Ensure the Conference, Region and District shown at the top of your screen is correct.

Step 7: Enter the names of each school. Please note: MaxPreps will have team records indicated, however those records are only as accurate as the team’s MaxPreps profile. Teams can update schedules and records through their team profile in MaxPreps.  You will still be able to certify the district if the records are not accurate and records will not display on the MaxPreps bracket.

Step 8: You MUST enter the 1-4 district finish places. There can not be ties. You must enter a 1, 2, 3, and 4 (when applicable), district finish for each school. For sports with a division split, a 1, 2, 3, 4 must be determined and entered even if schools are being split into separate division. District certification must indicate a 1st through 4th place finisher in the dropdown menus based on district standings. No ties. All ties must be resolved prior to submission. In the event there are Co-District Champions, one of the two teams must be declared the #1 seed overall - even if the co champions are being split between divisions in the postseason. 

Step 9: Hit Save

When completed and the information is saved, the teams will automatically populate in the bracket. You can verify your submission was successful by checking the brackets on the UIL website. It could take up to 15 minutes for the system to refresh after a district is submitted to appear on the bracket. 

If after you check the brackets, a mistake was made (ex: schools are appearing in the wrong division bracket) you can resubmit your district certification as many times as needed until the district certification window closes. 

The system will close and lock after the posted district certification deadline for each activity. You will not be able to enter and submit your district certification teams after the deadline. Once the system locks, it will not allow you to submit. If you do not submit your district certification by the posted deadline, you must email UIL staff with your district results to manually enter on the brackets.