What is the best way to approach scheduling?  Should you use:


  • the Scheduler
  • import your schedule from a spreadsheet
  • use them in combination


Tasks to be done


A good place to start is to review the lead-up to your tournament.  Here are some likely steps:


  1. size up your tournament
    • How many teams are you expecting? 
    • How many appraiser teams (ie appraiser rooms) will you need?  
    • How many appraisers?  
  1. determine your tournament timeline
    • when will team registration open and close?
    • when will you train appraisers?
    • what is the timeline for online forms
      • when can teams start entering online forms
      • what is the deadline for online form pre-check
    • when and where will you tournament be held


While you can export data from the Resource Area to figure this out, the Scheduler is designed to assist in #1.  If you are using Register Your Teams (RYT) to register teams, it will add teams to your tournament as they complete registration.  If you want to do this before team registration is complete, you can use Collect Teams to size-up your tournament.


Gathering appraisers and training them usually overlaps team registration.  The Scheduler lets you setup rooms so you can build appraiser teams in the Resource Area.


If you use RYT, it enable teams to start filling out online forms once a team has completed its registration.  If you are not using RYT, the Scheduler can manage the teams at your tournament using Collect Teams.  If you are not using RYT, this will enable teams to fill out online forms.


If your appraisers wish to try Mobile Scoring as part of training, the Scheduler likely will allow preparing this faster than importing a schedule.


The Scheduler does not support multi-day tournaments.  The Scheduler is also more rigid in how it sets up a tournament.


The Scheduler automatically incorporates most schedule requests.  You need to do this on your own when importing a schedule.


Editing the schedule is typically easier with the Scheduler.  If you don't use the scheduler you need to either re-import the schedule or use its less graphic mechanism to edit the schedule that is more designed for last minute changes.


Suggested Approach


Use the Scheduler as much as you can.  It supports sizing up your tournament, giving teams access to online forms, and setting up appraisers.


Switch over to import if you must.  Once you import a schedule using import, you will not be able to go back to using the Scheduler unless you reset the schedule.