Guide for Signing Up and Profile Management

1. Creating an Account

The platform supports two distinct account creation paths depending on whether you are joining independently or have been pre-invited to a trip.

Independent Registration

If you are joining the platform as a new user without a prior invitation, navigate to the signup screen. You can create an account using your email address and a password, or authenticate instantly with Google Sign-In. Upon your first login, your user profile is automatically provisioned in the database with your basic details.

Invited Participants (Claiming an Invitation)

If a trip organiser has already added you to a trip or a specific team using your email address, a temporary "placeholder" profile will be waiting for you in the system.

• The Setup Link: You will receive an automated email invitation containing a secure link. Clicking this link takes you directly to the signup screen with your invitation context intact.
• Automatic Data Merging: When you complete registration using that specific email address, the system runs an automated data-merging sequence. It seamlessly transfers your pre-assigned team positions, leg assignments, and organiser roles from the temporary placeholder to your permanent account.
• Consolidating Identity: Once your active race history is securely linked, the temporary placeholder profile is automatically deleted to ensure you have a single, clean identity across the platform.

2. Verifying Your Details

To maintain competitive integrity and fair play, all participants must verify their contact details before full platform access is granted.

Email Verification

Verifying your email address is essential to unlock full submission permissions, such as logging expenses or submitting checkpoints.

• Email and Password Users: A verification link is dispatched to your inbox automatically upon signup.
• Social Sign-In: Users authenticating directly via Google Sign-In bypass manual email verification links, as their verification status is inherited implicitly from their identity provider.

Phone Number Verification

Registering and validating a contact number is a critical onboarding step used to verify your identity before race departure.

• Formatting: When entering your phone number on your profile, the input field automatically formats it to meet strict international standards.
• SMS Verification: You will receive an SMS containing a One-Time Password (OTP) on your mobile device. Entering this code securely flags your phone number as verified in the system.

3. The Onboarding Banner and Profile Completeness

Upon logging into the race dashboard, your profile completeness is continuously assessed. If you are missing vital details, a prominent notification banner locks itself to the top of your screen.

• Tailored Guidance: The banner reads your profile status to tell you exactly what is missing, specifying if you still need to upload a profile photo, provide a phone number, or complete your outstanding SMS verification.
• Instant Dismissal: The moment you fulfil the last requirement, the banner vanishes from your dashboard automatically.
• Automatic Restoration: The banner will automatically restore itself if you make a retroactive change that invalidates your completeness (such as switching to a new, unverified phone number).

4. My Profile and Security Management

You can access and audit your personal details at any time by navigating to the My Profile menu option.

Profile Information and Image Processing

Your display name and contact numbers can be adjusted inline. When updating your avatar, the profile card features a premium drag-and-drop upload zone.

• Data-Saving Compression: Because you will frequently upload photos from train platforms or remote areas over mobile data, the app automatically compresses and resizes all uploaded images directly on your device before sending them, protecting your data allowance.

Sensitive Account Modifications

If you use an email and password login, a dedicated security section becomes visible on your profile page.

• Re-authentication: Performing critical modifications—such as updating your email address or changing your password—requires you to enter your current password as a protective guard before the change is processed.
• Email Verification Reset: If you successfully change your registered email address, the system will instantly reset your email verification status to unverified, locking your write permissions until you validate the new address.

5. Logging Out

To maintain local device security and secure your competitive data, locate the user profile navigation block at the bottom of your sidebar menu.

Clicking the Sign Out option initiates a hardened session termination routine designed to protect your account across shared mobile viewports:

• Token Purging: The logout sequence executes an immediate clearance routine, aggressively purging all active authentication data, tokens, and temporary files from your browser's memory.
• Full Context Reset: Rather than a standard page transition, the sign-out pipeline triggers a native, full-page browser redirection. This forces a clean page reload and complete context reset, guaranteeing that no residual team data or cached race dashboards remain visible on a shared device.