Groups & Brackets: Tournament Builder
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This is a guided tour through the "TD Builder". If you follow it to then end you will
have a functional tournament web page in a very short time.
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Feel free to depart from this script and use your own tournament data.
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Send comments, suggestions and comments to
tom@soccer-tournament.us
- Hit the space bar or swipe left for next slide
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Hit 'C' for a Table of Contents
Start Tour
- Click here to bring up a Build page
- Make the new page its own window rather than a tab.
- Optional: Check "Clear ALL" then click on "Clear Tournament Data" to clear any remnants
of earlier builds.
- Enter "Demo JV Boys Tournament" or your choice of a tournament name.
- Click "Save"
- Click "Next"
Locations
This page is used to enter game locations.
The Locations table has the following fields:
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- Ref. Name - Used in scheduling, must be a single word
- Name - The Name will be displayed on the web page.
- Lat/Lon - The latitude/longitude is used in the Directions page.
It is optional and not used in this tour.
- Long Name - The Long Name is used with Lat/Lon in the Directions page.
Enter the locations:
- Enter "F1" in the first "Ref. Name" field.
- Enter "Soccer Field" in the first "Name" field.
- Enter "F2" in the second "Ref. Name" field.
- Enter "Football Field" into the second "Name" field.
- Click "More.." to create a third location if necessary.
- Enter "F3" in the third "Ref. Name" field.
- Enter "Alt Field" into the third "Name" field.
- Click "Save Locations"
- Click "Set Location Colors"
Location Color
This tournament will be color coded by division so location color is
not as important as in single division tournaments.
- Click "Set Colors" to use the default color.
- Click "Next Page"
Divisions
This page is used to define the single division used in this tournament.
- Enter "Boys" in the "U18B" Name field and enter "JV Boys" in the U18B Long Name field.
- Enter "Girls" in the "U18G" Name field and enter "JV Girls" in the U18G Long Name field.
- Click on "Save Divisions"
- Click on "Set Division Colors"
U18B and U18Gwill be used to reference the Divisions,
but "JV Boys" and "JV Girls" will be the public name of
the divisions.
Division Colors
- Click on the box under "U18B"
- Click on the desired color. Light blue (BBFFFF) is a good option.
- Click on the box under "U18G"
- Click on the desired color. Light brown (FFEE99) or yellow (FFFF99) look good.
- Colors can also be entered directly.
- Select all the text in the box
- Enter "E6FFFF"for U18B.
- Enter "Return" or click on "Set Colors" to save the color choices.
- Click "Next Page", "Next", or "Teams" to proceed
Teams
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Click inside this box, Select All, then Copy:
- Click on "U19B" in the Build window
- Click inside the input area (bounded by division color) and Paste
- Click "Save". The saved teams will show on the right.
- Three 3 team groups are created.
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Click inside this box, Select All, then Copy:
- Click on "U19G" in the Build window
- Click inside the input area (bounded by division color) and Paste
- Click "Save". The saved teams will appear on the right.
- Click "Next" or "Matches" to move to the next step.
Matches - U18B
The previous steps have set up the context for the
core of the Build process, which starts here.
The "Matches" page generates all
group games based on the number of teams in each group.
It will be used to define
one Single Elimination game.
- Optional - check "Split Home/Away"
- Check "Intergroup = Single Elim." if it is not checked
- Click on "U18B A3 B3 C3", just under "Division Params:
- Click on "A-1:B-1", which will turn blue. B-1:A-1 will turn light blue
- Click on "Save U18B"
- The newly U19B generated matches are listed at the bottom of the page.
- "U18B A3 B3 C3 - Click .." is replaced by "U18B A3 B3 C3 - Saved"
- A "U18B" Button appears below "Save U18B"
- Click on "U18G A3 B3" to continue...
Matches - U18G
- Click on "U18G A3 B3" (Should be already here, but included here for completeness)
- Click on "A-1:B-1", "B-2:A-2" and "A-3:B-3". "B-1:A-1", "A-2:B-2", and "B-3:A-3" will turn light blue
- Click on "Save U18G"
- The newly U19G generated matches are listed at the bottom of the page.
- "U18G A3 B3 - Click .." is replaced by "U18G A3 B3 - Saved"
- A "U18G"Botton appears below "Save U18G"
- Click on "SE/C" or "Next" to continue.
Single Elimination Games- U18B
One U18B Semifinal and three U18G games have been defined.
- Enter 'Semi1' in Label 1 (A-1:B-1)
- Enter '3' in the "# of U19B S.E/Cons. Games" field
- Click "Save U19B SE/Cons."
- Enter 'C-1' in Opp 1 of line 2
- Enter 'W-1' in Opp 2 of line 2.
- Enter 'Semi2' in Label of line 2.
This is a semifinal between the winner of Group C and the Wildcard winner
- Enter "Semi1" and "Semi2" into "Opp 1" and "Opp2" in line 3.
- Enter "Final" in the line 3 Label. This is not necessary but "Final" will appear in the
schedule.
- Click on "Save U18B SE/Cons."
- Click on "U18G"
Single Elimination/Consolation - U18G
Three U18G games have been defined.
- Enter 'Final' in Label 1 (A-1:B-1)
- Change "A-3:B-3" from "S.E." to "Cons." (Consolation)
- Line 3 can be used as a Third place game or another consolation game.
- Enter "Third" in Label field and leave as "S.E".
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- Change Line 3 from "S.E." to "Cons." (Consolation)
- Click on "Save U18G SE/Cons."
- Click on "G Slots" or "Next" to continue...
Game Slots
This page is used to define when specific fields are avaiable for scheduling
of matches.
- Select the contents of this box:
- Paste into the "G Slots" input box
- Click "Generate"
- Review the output to make sure it's what you expect. 8 game slots are defined on Friday, with 7 defined on Saturday.
- Optional: Set the Scale to 60
- Click "Assign" to pass the generated game slots to the Assign page.
The "Assign" page is loaded when you click "Assign" so "Next" is not used.
- Any previously scheduled matches are cleared when you click on "Generate"
on the "G Slots" page.
Assign
Drag each match to a game slot to schedule that match.
Hover over a match to see team names. The center 'v' works well.
This only works for group games which have team names associated with them.
The Game Slots are time proportional so gaps and offsets are visible.
- Drag the first 3 U18B games to the 4pm slots, the next 3 to the 6:30 slots,
and the next 3 to the 9:00 slots.
- Drag the first 2 U19G games to 5:30, next 2 to 7:45, and next 2 to 10:15.
- Drag U18B "A-1 v B-1" and "C-1 v W-1" to the 1pm slots
- Drag U18G "A-3 v B-3" and "A-2 v B-2" games to the 1:15 and 2:30 F3 game slots.
- Drag the U18G "A-1 v B-1" to a 3 PM slot.
- Drag the "Semi1 v Semi2" to the other 3 PM slot.
- Click "Save" to save scheduled matches. At this point the schedule is complete.
- Click "Export" or "Next".
Export/Use
At this point tournament is completely defined, with all relevant
tournament information already entered into the Builder.
The "Tournament Definition" (TD) block contains this information in a format
that can be imported into a G&B web page or copied for external use.
The TD is generated each time the page is loaded, but can be regenerated,
with different switches, with the "Generate TD" button.
To use the TD externally:
- Set switches to the desired output format
- Click "Generate TD"
- Click inside the TD, Select All, and Copy
- Paste into another document. Use "Paste Special" to paste into a spreadsheet.
To use the TD on the G&B web site:
- Set switches to the desired output format. Most settings don't matter because
the Import function can handle any of them. However, the "Group By" setting
will affect the numbering. For example, if you group by division, all games
within a division will have a single range of game numbers.
- Click "Generate TD
- Click "Use Tourn. Def." to import tournament into G&B
- Click "Continue" to import the TD. The output shows details of the import
and can contain error messages. Errors are much more likely with a human-generated
TD than one built with TD Builder
- Click "Continue" to use "Update Groups". This will update the group standings
and IDs based on the just imported TD.
- The second page is the result of the Update Groups process, where group results are
updated to match the tournament.
- The tournament web page is 100% functional at this point.
Restricted Functions
- This page contains a "Define Ranking" link. This can be used to set the points system and
tie breakers for the tournament.
- Normally only Event Directors are allowed to Define Rankings and Import Tournament Definitions.
- Access restrictions are disabled for "build" demos.
- All Build functions other than "Import TD" ("Use Tourn Def.") are enabled for all
users. Anyone can use them to schedule matches if they want to use the TD externally.
Using the Tournament Page
This demo is focused on the "Build" capability,
but you can enter game results to verify that the tournament is functional.
Game reporting is usually restricted.
- Click on "Game #" to bring up the Report page.
- Enter goals scored for each team.
- Click <return> twice.
- Verify that the standings and brackets are updated as games are reported.
Making Revisions
The purpose of the TD Build is to make it easy to generate a TD. The format of a TD
is simple enough that it can be edited directly, though it is possible to return to
TD Build pages, tweak values, and generate a revised TD. For example, it's
possible to go to the Divisions page, click on "Set Division Colors", change the colors,
then click on "Export". The changed colors will be included in the TD.
- Locations
- Location Names can be changed.
- Location colors can be changed.
- Ref. Names and Names can be added.
- If new Ref. Names are used in the schedule, rescheduling will be required.
- Divisions
- Division names can be changed.
- Division colors can be changed.
- Division deletions and additions may require rescheduling
- Teams
- Team names can be changed and swapped
- If the number of teams within a group is changed, recheduling will be necessary
Making Revisions - Part 2
- Matches - Any changes will force rescheduling.
- G Slots - Game slots can be changed, but Assign will need to be repeated after new
Game Slots are generated. "Matches" do not need to be regenerated.
- Assign - Assignments of matches to game slots can be revised
Conclusion
- See a video of this build here (14:45)
- The Tournament Definition is built in under 8 minutes
- The tournament web page is 100% functional at 8:45, though it could've been online a
few seconds after the build.
- All 21 game results are entered in under 6 minutes while describing
various features.
- Send questions, comments, and suggestions to
tkonantz@gmail.com or
tom@soccer-tournament.us