What an IDP is in ClubFlow
An individual development plan describes where a player is now, where they’re heading, and what to work on to get there. Each player has their own plan on their profile, bringing together a long-term vision, year-by-year career goals, concrete development areas, and the player’s own reflections.
Every plan carries a next review date, so it gets followed up instead of forgotten. Because a plan belongs to a player, the player needs to be in ClubFlow first. If you’re still building a squad, the import players from Excel guide is the quickest way to get a whole team in.
Plans start from a template
Every plan is built from a template. The template sets which sections and questions a plan contains, so plans stay consistent. You can keep different templates for different age groups or positions, and pick the one that fits when you create a player’s plan.
There are two kinds of template:
- Global templates. Ready-made templates that come with ClubFlow, a good starting point if you haven’t built your own.
- Club templates. Your own, built from scratch or from a global one. You manage them under Settings → IDP Templates.
A template has up to four sections, and you choose which to include: a long-term vision, a year-by-year career plan, development areas, and personal reflections. The next section covers what each one holds.
Creating a plan, step by step
- Open the player. Go to the player’s profile and open the IDP tab.
- Start a new plan. Select Create IDP. If the player already has an active plan, ClubFlow asks you to confirm first. The current plan is archived as history and the new one becomes the active plan.
- Pick a template. Choose between Global and Club templates, then select one. You’ll see a preview of its categories before you continue, so you know what the plan will ask for.
- Set the next review. At the top of the plan, pick the month for the next follow-up with the player. This is the one field you must set before you can save.
- Fill in the plan. Work through the sections the template includes: vision, career plan, development and personal reflections. A sticky tab bar across the top shows how much of each section is filled in, and you can leave anything blank for now.
- Reuse the last plan if it helps. If the player has a previous plan on the same template, the Copy from last IDP button brings its goals across, so you update rather than retype them. You can also copy a single section or category from the previous plan.
- Save. Select Save IDP. The plan now appears on the player’s IDP tab and in the club-wide overview.
The four parts of a plan
Depending on the template, a plan is made up of up to four sections:
- Long-term vision. The player’s ultimate ambition (the “dream”), a long-term goal, and a short-term goal. This is the “why” the rest of the plan works towards.
- Career plan. A concrete goal for each of the next few years, laid out year by year. It turns the long-term vision into yearly steps.
- Individual development. The heart of the plan. For each area you note a strength to build on and something to work on, and how high a priority it is. This is where “improve weak-foot passing” becomes a goal you can track.
- Personal reflections. The player’s own answers to the template’s questions, in their words: what motivates them, how they feel they’re progressing, and anything else the club wants to hear directly from the player.
Reviews, status and follow-up
The next review date is what makes a plan a living document. ClubFlow uses it, together with the plan’s state, to show a status at a glance:
- On track. An active plan whose review date is still in the future.
- Draft. A plan that has been saved but not filled in yet.
- Expired. The review date has passed. The plan is due a follow-up. ClubFlow flips plans to expired automatically once the review month is behind them.
- Missing. The player has no plan at all.
When a review comes due, open the player’s latest plan, update it with them, note what changed and what’s next, and set a new review date. Only the latest plan is editable; earlier ones stay as a read-only history so you can see how the player has progressed over time.
Tracking every player at once
Alongside the per-player tab, ClubFlow has a club-wide Individual Development Plans page that lists every player and the state of their plan in one table: status, when it was last updated, the next follow-up date, how soon it’s due, and how many development goals are filled in.
You can search by player and filter by status and team, so it’s quick to answer the questions that matter at club level: who has no plan yet, and whose review is overdue. Open a row to jump to the player, or preview the plan in place. It turns player development from something each coach tracks privately into something the club can see and steer.
Common questions
Who can create a development plan? Anyone with permission to manage the player. That is the same access that lets you edit a player’s profile and roster. If you don’t see the Create IDP button, ask a club administrator.
Can a player have more than one plan? A player keeps one active plan at a time. Older plans stay on the profile as a read-only record, so you can always look back at how the player has developed. Starting a new plan archives the current one.
What is the difference between a global and a club template? Global templates ship with ClubFlow and are available to every club. Club templates are ones your club builds itself, from scratch or by cloning a global one, under Settings → IDP Templates.
Do I have to fill in every field? No. Only the next review date is required to save. The template decides which sections appear, and you can leave any goal or reflection blank and come back to it later.
What does an “Expired” plan mean? The plan’s next-review month has passed. Open the latest plan, update it with the player, and set a new review date to bring them back on track.