A split is necessary in 2 cases:

  1. when there are too many teams in a Challenge-level for a room of appraisers to appraise (click here for more on rooms)
    In this case the teams are split into multiple groups. Splits identify which team is in each room.

  2. a tournament might be hosting more than 1 affiliate and each affiliate is advancing it own teams
    In this case there is still just 1 room.  Splits identify which teams are competing against one another.


Why is this important?  The Scoring Programs certainly needs to know about this as the different splits are no longer competing against one another.  Each split will advance its own teams.


A split is designated using a single letter.

  1. for case #1, often the letters D & I are used to distinguish the split a team is part of
  2. for case #2, blank (default split) is used for the hosting tournament and M (for Maine) might be used for the visiting teams as in the example below.



Designating a team's split can be done in a few ways:

  • when using the Scheduler you can
    • specify the split when importing a team list  (more here)
    • set a team's split in Collect Teams using Change Team Rooms (more here)
    • use Move Teams on the Scheduler Dashboard (more here)
  • when using schedule import, you can specify the split when importing the schedule (more here)


The Resource Area can check your tournament to see that your splits are set up properly.  

  • if you are using the Scheduler, go to the Collect Teams page.  You will see the Check Splits button in the Misc Actions that will check the splits in your tournament teams are correct.
  • if you are using a .CSV to import a schedule, pick the Check Teams red tab under schedule. The Check Splits button is on this page.


Check Splits checks that all the teams in a split for a specific challenge-level will see the same 2 appraiser teams (TC and IC).


What letters should a tournament use for splits?  We made some suggestions above (D and I, blank and M).  Starting in the 2026 DI season, the Resource Area introduced the idea of potential splits for the tournament.  Potential Splits are the list of letters a tournament plans to use.  Having a specific list makes it easier to select a split for a team and avoids issues with typos in import files containing split information. For more on setting your potential splits go here.


Note: the Classic Scoring Program talks about splits in a slightly different but equivalent way.  The standard levels in the Scoring Program are EL ML SL and UL. Splits are viewed as new levels such as EL-N and EL-H to designate a split.  The Web Scoring Program does understand splits without inventing new levels.