Entering results from multiple timers per race

Some teams have two timers timing the same race and average the numbers from the two to get more accurate results. This feature is being supported now.

To enable this feature, please contact TSTM so we can enable it for you.

Once enabled, on the meet result entry page, you will see the following layout.

Note there is a drop down box circled in red. It has 3 items, Final, Timer 1 and Timer 2.  If your team uses two timers per race, you should NOT select Final because TSTM will calculate the averages from Timer 1 and Timer 2 and fill in the result into the Final view automatically.  If only Timer 1 or Timer 2 has data, the Final view will take the available value.  For teams only uses one timer per race, you should not see this new drop down box and everything should work like before. 

Only manual data entry is supported for the two timer feature and the batch result import is disabled.

TSTM Emergency kit

The set of files in this emergency kit makes team vital data available to admins no matter what happens to the server.  Although a lot of efforts have been made to keep the server online, there are situations that are out of our control to make the server available, such as power outages or network interruptions. With this kit, admins should have the most important team data at hand. The data may not be the most up to date, but it is better than empty handed right before a meet.

The zip file can be generated on the Season Setup page. At the upper right corner, click on the red cross icon to create the the emergency package. Then you can download the file to your local machine. You are recommended to recreate this file weekly or when your team data has significant changes.

TSTM backup server

To improve server availability, TSTM will have a backup server hosted in Virginia. This should reduce potential server down time during the busy months (May though July).

You can access the backup server using either of the following URLs. They point to the same web site.

TSTM Backup Site URL1: http://ww2.tsaswimteam.com

or

TSTM Backup Site URL2: http://backup.tsaswimteam.com

Due to the dynamic nature of the TSTM web site, the backup server will not have the most update to date data. The data will be replicated from the main site periodically. Please only use the backup site when the main site is confirmed down and doesn't appear to recover in a few hours. Of course, if you only need to look up some team data, the backup can be used at any time. Don't make changes on the backup site unless the main site is confirmed down for extended period of time, or you may lose your changes on the backup server when the main site becomes available and the downtime is brief.

Preparing lineup for the trial meet

TSTM does lineup based on past personal best times. For the very first meet in a season, in order to make the lineup meaningful, we will need the results from the past season. If your team has the premium features enabled, on the Meet Setup page, at the lower right corner, there should be two arrows. The left arrow will activate meets from last year and right arrow will deactivate them.

Here are the steps to prepare a lineup for a trial meet:

Activate the past season meets.

Go to menu Meets->Line up

In the popup window, you should see personal best times calculated from past season meets.

Click on the link Lineup at the upper left corner.

Select the trial meet in the drop down box (probably already selected for you)

Select max 4 events per swimmer.

Select 0 relay teams.

Select "All" for lane type.

Click on the Line up button.

When the lineup shows up, click on the blue ribbon icon at the upper right corner.

In the new window, select "all heats" checkbox at the upper right corner.

Click on Create Event Sheets button.

Download "TSA Boy Main Event File" (for printing on blue sheets).

Download "TSA Girl Main Event File" (for printing on pink sheets).

Download the Heat Sheet CSV File (view it in Excel).

Go back to the Meet Setup page and deactivate (right arrow) the past season meets!

That is all!

Seasonal checklist

At the very beginning of a season:

Before closing the past season, backup your team data (TSTM Emergency zip file).  To do so, go to the Season Setup page and click on the red cross icon (upper right corner) and wait for the green download icon to appear.  Click on the download icon to save the zip file on your local computer.

On the same page, now you can close the season by setting the Status to Close and click the Submit button. This will clear and archive all past season data. Then change the Status to Open and click the Submit button.

Go to Team Setup and Season Setup pages to review all settings. Make necessary changes for the new season.  You can lock the team site from non super admin users to access on the Team Setup page while you are preparing for the new season.

Go to the Other->Manage roles page and update roles for the new season.

Let me know of your admin changes (if any) so I can update the mailing list.


After all swimmers are registered:

If any families in the View families page is grayed out, please resolve them. This means that these families never verified their registration by clicking on the link sent to them in the registration email. Admins can help them to verify their accounts on this page by selecting the checkbox of the corresponding families and scroll to the bottom of the page, selection action "Lock / unlock (verify)" and then submit.

Generate the TSA required swimmer roster file. Go to Swimmers->View by criteria. Then click on Export "Roster" (upper right corner) and then download the file: TSA Swimmer Roster CSV File.

Download the TSTM Emergency file for the current season (Season Setup page).  It can be very useful should the web site become temporarily unavailable.

For teams using Hy-Tek, it is very important to synchronize the swimmer roster between TSTM and Hy-Tek. Please use directions here:
http://tsaswimteam.blogspot.com/2012/09/synchronizing-swimmer-roster-in-tstm.html


Freeze volunteer assignment/selection:

Two weeks before the first dual meet, you may want to freeze up the volunteer assignment/selection. Go to the Season Setup page and change the Status to Freeze to prevent members from deselecting their assignment or selections. They can request switching jobs afterwards.

For teams using volunteer preference selection method (instead of first come first serve), there is an automatic volunteer assignment feature. Please take a look here. You need to freeze the season for families to see their assignment.
http://tsaswimteam.blogspot.com/2012/02/automatic-volunteer-assignment-based-on.html

Before each dual meet:

Majority teams used TSTM's automatic lineup. If your team has new coaches or admins using the auto lineup and needing help, please use these instructions. They can email me directly if they have questions.
http://tsaswimteam.blogspot.com/2013/04/automatic-line-up-seeding-function.html
http://tsaswimteam.blogspot.com/2012/02/new-feature-to-allow-manual-tweak-auto.html

Print heat sheets and personal best time labels:
http://tsaswimteam.blogspot.com/2012/02/printing-features-for-tsa-swim-team.html


Invoice date:

6/20 is the invoice date and your team due will be finalized at 3AM. Please make sure you don't have duplicated swimmer registration before that time.  Invoice can be viewed in the Team Setup page (upper right corner). You can send in payment by check or Paypal (non-credit card payment). Payment is expected to be received on or before 7/20.

Late fees: Due to a growing number of teams paying late in recent years, we reluctantly introduced late fees to encourage teams paying on time. Your payment check will not be cashed before 7/20 no matter when it is received. If a payment is not received by 7/20, there will be a 5% late fee. Each additional month past due will have an increment of 1% late fees.

Admin guide:
http://tsaswimteam.blogspot.com/2013/05/tsa-swim-team-manager-user-guide.html

TSTM meet result notification service sponsor program

TSTM (TSA Swim Team Manager) is the largest online swim team software system serving 15 TSA (Tarheel Swimming Association) swim teams in the 2014 season. We will start offering an email advertising service for our sponsor businesses in 2015. If you want to reach out to thousands of swimmer families and send your contact information through us, this is a great opportunity for you.

Here is how the advertising system works:

When swim meet results are entered into TSTM, emails are sent to the registered parents of the swimmers. At the top of the email message, it has the most up to date swimmer meet results. 3 pieces of your business information (business name, telephone number and web site or email address) are listed at the bottom of the message. The entire message is short enough to fit most email readers. Although such meet result notification emails are optional, 98% of the families remained subscribing to the service in the 2014 trial run. This provides a great channel to promote your business information to the majority of the swim team families. Your business information is estimated to be delivered to families (spread out in Wake county) for at least 2000 times which statistically covers every family subscribing to the meet result email service. These emails are typically sent in June and July months after swim meets so please signup early so we can set everything up for your business.

Your business information is expected to go to these teams (teams marked with a star, subject to change each year).

http://www.tsaswimteam.com/selectTeam.do

After signing up as a sponsor, we will create an account for you at http://www.tsaswimteam.com/sponsor.html. Using this account, you can monitor the number of times your business information has been sent to families.  You can also update your business information to be delivered to families.

Please contact us at tsaswimteam@gmail.com if you are interested in sponsoring TSTM.

Thank you!

Messaging in TSTM

Sending messages has always been a weak link in TSTM services, mostly because we depend on external services to deliver the messages. Sometimes, thousands of mails are sent without issues but some other times, it just stops sending for no apparent reasons. Sending messages in time is very important for teams, especially during inclement weather. If you found TSTM is not sending messages, there is a feature to assist you to send the message from your own mail client. TSTM provides you with a list of addresses that you can plug into your email software. Here is how to do it.

Go to admin menu Other->Send messages.
Select your recipient criteria and click the "Show recipients" button.
On the new page, at the upper right corner (above the Subject field), there is a link called "Email address list". Right mouse click on the link and copy the addresses.
Go to your own email software and in the To, CC or BCC field (your choice), paste the address list.
Type your message there and send it!

This works for both email and text messages.

Although this is not as convenient as directly typing messages and sending within TSTM, it should be a good workaround. One other advantage to send messages this way is that your recipients can reply to your inbox directly.

Transfer from one team to another

As the number of teams using TSTM grows, more and more families have the need to switch from one team to another due to moving or changing clubs. In the past, all such requests are manually handled by me.  To facilitate such changes by all teams, a new feature has been implemented so that such team transfer can be accomplished between the transferring family and the new team administrators. Please save this link so you can refer to it when a family requests to be transferred to your team.

To securely transfer a family from one team to another, there are three steps needed.

1. The family goes to their Family information tab. At the lower right corner, there is a new drop down labeled "Transfer to". The family selects the new team they want to join and click the button "Go" on the right. An email will be sent out to the new team's administrators. BTW, this admin email address is set on the Team Setup page. Multiple emails can be set in that field delimited by commas.

2. When the new team admins receive such an email, s/he should validate if this request is true, not someone plays a hoax or accidental. The best way is probably through email or phone call. Once the admins confirm the request is legitimate, s/he should click on the link that is included in the transfer request email. The transfer is then approved and an email will be sent back to the family.

3. When the family receives the email from new team's admin, s/he should click on the link included in the email to complete the transfer. Note that the actual team transfer is done in the third step. The first two step hand-shake is just to make sure neither party makes any mistakes and the transfer is agreed by both parties.

In the past, all family transferred to a new team would lose their swimmer's past meet results. There is an improvement such that the past results will be carried over with the swimmer to the new team.

TSTM Social Event Signup

This function is to facilitate team social events management. Instead of using external signup web sites, admins can set up social events for team members to sign up within TSTM. Members can specify how many people will attend an event and add a comment along with the signup.

To set up a social event, go to the admin menu Setup->Social event . You can create a new event or delete an existing event.  Each event can have a name, description, a URL and an attachment. It also allows members to specify how many adults and children will attend the event. To view the sign up results, click on the Signup column for the event.

Team members will see the list of available events from their menu after logging in and click on the Social event menu item on the left. They select the events to attend by selecting the corresponding checkboxes and specify the number people will attend the event.

Line up all lanes for a time trial meet

In the past, the auto line up program only used half the lanes when seeding for a dual meet. For a time trial, teams want to use all lanes.  This function has been implemented.  If a meet type is 'Trial', all lanes will be filled.  One limitation is that it only seeds even number of lanes.  So if your team has a 5-lane pool, only 4 lanes will be lined up.

After a season is closed, team admins don't have access to past season meets in general. If you are not a new team using TSTM, you probably have meet results from the last season.  If so, with premium feature turned on, you can take advantage of past season's results when creating the line up for a time trial.

Here are the steps.

Go to the Meet Setup page.

At the lower right corner of the page, you will see two arrows pointing left and right. Clicking on the arrow pointing left will bring back all past season meets. The results from these meets will be taken into account when you do a line up.

When you finished with lining up the trial meet, come back to the Meet Set up page and click on the arrow pointing to the right to hide the meets from the past season.

Caution:
DON'T delete the past season meets. Doing so will remove all result history of these meets from all swimmers.  Using the right pointing arrow on the Meet Setup is the correct way to hide these meets.

Note that new or swimmers who didn't participate in the previous season will be consider having no times and thus will be lined up in the later heats in the events.

Line up will only consider swimmers who select to participate in a meet. You can use the green button "Attend all meets" on the Meet Setup page to make everyone select all meets.  Also, please make sure that the pusher lists are not excluding any swimmers from attending any strokes from last season.  It took me a while to realize that's the reason a swimmer was not seeded in a stroke during my test.

Exporting heat sheets of time trial meet can be used for PGTiming system.  You don't need to do anything special.

Meet result in CSV file format and import a meet result file

The feature to import meet results is for teams not using Hy-Tek or don't have internet access at the pool and want to enter data into a file for later upload to TSTM when internet is available.

There are two formats you can use to enter meet results in a CSV file.

1. By event number:

The file has a header line (only the first line) as the following:

Event,SwimmerId,Time

Starting from the second line, you should enter a TSA event number in the first column, swimmer's ID or number in the second column and the time in the third column.

TSA event numbers are in this TSA document:
http://tsanc.org/documents/XLS/EventSheets.xls

The event column can be left empty if it continues the same event from the previous line.  It is only required if the event is different from the previous line.

The time column can be entered in any of the following formats.

Example: the time is 1:23.45

The valid time strings are:

12345

1:23.45

2. By stroke:

The file has a header line (only the first line) as the following:

Stroke,SwimmerId,Time

Starting from the second line, you should enter one of the 4 strokes as the following.

Example for stroke column:

Free or Fr or fr or 1

Back or Bk or Ba or bk or ba or 2

Breast or Br or br or 3

Fly or Fl or fl or 4

The stroke column can be left empty if it continues the same stroke from the previous line.  It is only required if the stroke is different from the previous line.

The second and third columns are the same as described in "By event number" above.

There are two template files for the two types of csv file at the following location.  You can download and save them as a .csv file.

http://www.tsaswimteam.com/MeetResultByEvent.csv

http://www.tsaswimteam.com/MeetResultByStroke.csv

To upload result from a .CSV file (or Hy-Tek .zip or .cl2 meet result file), go to the admin menu Meet->Manage results.  On the new page, select the meet you want to import.  Then click on the import meet result icon (the first icon on the right side of the meet dropdown box).  On the new import window, click on the Browse or Choose File button and look for the .csv file on your system.  Click the Ok button to import.  Note that if you use CSV format, the file name extension must be .csv.

Meet Entry Export for TSA Championship or Cary City meet

Here are the steps to create a Hy-Tek compatible meet entry file for invitational meets:

Note this is a premium feature.

Meet creation:

Create a new meet on Championship Saturday or Sunday depending on your team's ranking or Cary City Meet.  Choose "TSA Championship" or "Cary Meet" as your opponent team. Choose Meet type "Other" and check the "Show strokes" checkbox.

Stroke selection:
Notify team members to sign up for this meet. They should also select their preferred strokes for each swimmer for this meet on the Meet selection page.

After strokes are selected, do the auto lineup (Meet->Lineup, etc).  Select 4 for Max events / per swimmer.  The lineup results for individual events only serve as stroke selection, not real lineup for the meet (unless this is for a dual meet), but for the relay teams, they are actual teams.  The seed times are personal best times.  For relay teams, the seed time is the sum of all swimmers' personal best times in the strokes they will swim.

If admin/coach wants to drop a stroke for a swimmer, they can switch into the family's account and make such changes. Another option is to use the pusher list, Meet Setup->pusher list (the 5th icon) for that meet to drop certain strokes.  Red color crossing out a name means a swimmer will NOT swim that stroke.  Don't use the Orange color because it only prevents a swimmer from attending the first heat.  When possible, use the family's Meet selection page instead of the pusher list to make stroke selections.

Meet entry export:

Go to the Meet Setup page and export the meet entry (third icon).  It should be a .ZIP file.  Pay attention to the date of the file to make sure it is just created.  Download the zip file and save it locally.  Send this file to the meet organizer.

Click on the report (6th) icon on the Meet Setup to create the Championship meet report (signup line items and total cost for the team).

TSA Swim Team Manager user guide

This guide is for all TSTM administrators what needs to be done at what time throughout a season.  Team admininstrators come and go.  The purpose of this guide is to help them to learn and manage their TSTM team site smoothly.  It may take a new admin 15-20 minutes to read through various documents.  Once doing that, the admin should have a good understanding what features the system offers and how to do most of the tasks.  Doing things as designed in TSTM could save you and other volunteers a lot of time comparing to using traditional manual processes.

All new admins are highly recommended to read through the basic admin guide page at:

http://tsaswimteam.com/admin/guide.jsp

Feature list:
http://www.tsaswimteam.com

Close and Reopen the season:

Before a new season starts, an admin must close the previous season and reopen the season on the Season Setup page.  This cleans up all past seasonal data and prepare for the new season.  Once a new season is open, please use the above guide to prepare the site for a new season.

Team due and the premium options:

On 6/20 (at 3:00AM), team due and the premium features will be locked in for the season.  Before this date, please double check the premium option setting on the Team Setup page (only super admins have access) and make sure all active swimmers are accurate (e.g. no duplicates, which may cost team extra unnecessarily).
http://tsaswimteam.blogspot.com/2012/08/tstm-premium-features.html

Collaborating with Hy-Tek:

For teams using Hy-Tek, after all swimmers are registered online (mid to late May), you should export swimmer roster from TSTM and import it into Hy-Tek.  Please read the following link for details.

http://tsaswimteam.blogspot.com/2012/09/synchronizing-swimmer-roster-in-tstm.html

Volunteer assignment:
There are two volunteer assignment options in TSTM.  One is first come first serve.  The other type is to allow families to specify their preferred job types and which meets they are available to work.  Actual assignment is assigned by admins or the system (auto assignment).  This option is on the Team Set up page.  If you want to use the second option, there is a guide for it.
http://tsaswimteam.blogspot.com/2012/02/automatic-volunteer-assignment-based-on.html

Automatic line up:

Before a meet, if your team plans to use the automatic line up function, please follow the directions in the following blog.

http://tsaswimteam.blogspot.com/2013/04/automatic-line-up-seeding-function.html

Printing functions:
With the result from an automatic line up, you can also print main event heat sheets and TSA meet sheets.  Please read directions below.
http://tsaswimteam.blogspot.com/2012/02/printing-features-for-tsa-swim-team.html

Import meet results:
After a meet, you can either enter the meet results at the TSTM web site, or if your team uses Hy-Tek to collect meet results, you can import the meet results from an exported Hy-Tek meet result file (.cl2 or .zip).

Import meet results in .CSV file format:
http://tsaswimteam.blogspot.com/2013/07/meet-result-in-csv-file-and-import-meet.html

Create Hy-Tek compatible meet entry file:
http://tsaswimteam.blogspot.com/2013/07/meet-entry-export-for-tsa-championship.html

Still have questions:
Feel free to send me an email.

Automatic line up (seeding) function conforming TSA rules

Properly line up a meet is always a time consuming task.  I was told that coaches spent many hours working on this before a meet.  TSTM has a built-in function that can automatically calculate line up for a dual meet based on swimmer's past performance in a matter of seconds.  The results are based on past personal best and conform TSA max 3 main events per swimmer rule.  For top swimmers that are good at all 4 strokes, the program will attempt to drop a stroke so that the overall time is best benefiting the team.  Swim up is also supported as a premium feature.  Swimmers will be considered in the line up process only if they select the meet in their meet selection page.  Relay line up also honors swimmer's selection.  If you don't see your favorite swimmer to show up in a main event or relay, please check if that swimmer selects to participate the meet and relays.  Please inform families that it is very important to keep up with the meet attendance selection so the line up process can be more accurate.

To use to automatic line up feature, here are the steps.

Log in and go to the admin area (click the Team administration link at the top of the page)

Click menu Meets->Line up.  You will see a new window popup with swimmers' personal best from past meets in the current season.  Line up for the season's first meet requires results from the time trial.  Otherwise, the system has no data to base on when calculating the line up.

Click on the "Line up" link at the upper left corner of the page.  You should see the page with the following content.

Select line up options:

Select a meet that you plan to line up for.
Select the maximum events a swimmer can swim in the meet.  Note that even if you choose 4, all swimmers can only swim maximum 3 main events.  The 4th event will be arranged in heat 2 or later.  For 6&Under swimmers, their maximum events will be the selected number minus 1 because they don't swim butterfly.
Select maximum how many relay teams you want to generate (in the case of a large team that may have too many relay teams)
If your team does line up based on previous meet result instead of personal best time, check the checkbox "Use previous meet result".
When choosing "Use previous meet result", select "Use PB if NT" to use personal best time to be the default times when the swimmer didn't attend the previous meet.
Check the "Swim up" checkbox if your team needs that feature for relay line up (premium option)
Select the number of lane the pool has.  The system may already select it for you, but do double check it.
Select the lane type (odd or even).  The system may already select it for you, but do double check it.

When all options are set, click on the "Line up" button.

Wait up to 30 seconds, you should see the line up results coming back.  Line up results can be displayed by the order of swimming (heat) or by swimmer name.  You can click on the "Load/List by name" button if you want to see the results sorted by swimmer names with their heat, lane and stroke assignment.

To override automatic line up results, there are two things you can do.  One is to use the pusher list to eliminate certain swimmers from swimming a particular stroke.  To access the pusher list, you click on the Menu Meets->Setup.  On that page, find the meet you are working on and click on the 4th icon to open the pusher list.  On the pusher list, select an age group you want to work on.  When the swimmer names show up, you can click on their number to remove a swimmer from the meet (absence) or click on the name under a stroke to remove that swimmer from attending that event.  Then re-run the line up routine and the program will consider your pusher list selection when doing line up.

I am not recommending this second option because it is not easy to use, but you can manually edit the line up results on the web too.  Click on the "Edit/Refresh" button, then you can double click on a heat or lane for a swimmer and override it.  Once you start doing manual editing, you will have to manage the line up to meet TSA rules.  The system will no longer track that, so please be very careful if you have to use this option.

Important: If you made manual changes after an auto lineup, please click on the "Load/list by name" button on the lineup page to verify if you have any conflicts. Any items displayed in red must be fixed.

Once you are satisfied with the line up results, you can publish it (upper right corner) so the team members can see it.  You can also withdraw a published line up by Unpublishing it.  Team members can view the line up from their Meet selection page.

With the line up results, you can also print main event ribbon and TSA meet sheets.  On the Meet Setup page, click on the ribbon icon for the meet.  You will see a new window open with several functions.  You can print personal best ribbon labels after meet result is entered, print main event ribbon label and TSA meet sheets (blue or pink) before a meet.  Download these files from the web site and open them in Word or Excel to print.

Synchronizing swimmer roster in TSTM and Hy-Tek

To better utilize the features of TSTM, teams using Hy-Tek software should do the following once a season. This can save a lot of typing work in Hy-Tek.  It should be done after all swimmers are registered online.  Without synchronizing data in the two systems, it will be hard for later operations such as importing meet results from Hy-Tek to TSTM.  Manually entering results in both systems is NOT fun!

Here are the steps:

1. Wait until all swimmers are registered online in TSTM.

2. In TSTM, choose a swimmer numbering method and assign swimmer numbers.
Team Administration->Swimmers (menu)->Assign numbers->Choose a numbering method.

3. Export swimmer roster from TSTM to Hy-Tek format files.
Team Administration->Swimmers (menu)->View roster.
Click on the link "Export roster" at the upper right corner of the roster page.

4. Download the exported file (full_roster.hy3) to your local hard drive.

5. Start Hy-Tek Team Manager
Backup your Hy-Tek database (just in case you need to rollback any changes).
File (menu) ->Backup -> Choose a location to backup your Hy-Tek database

6. Import swimmer roster
File (menu) ->Import-> Athlete rosters.
Use the file selector dialog window, navigate to the full_roster.hy3 file downloaded from TSTM.
On the import dialog window, make sure the checkbox "Overlay existing administrative information" is checked.
Click the OK button to complete the import.

Now you should have the swimmer data synchronized in both systems.  Later in the season, if there are any roster changes, such as adding a new swimmer, you can do the above process again or manually make changes in both systems.

Please email me with any questions.

TSTM premium features

Premium features in general require more system resources during service time and/or extensive development work that may only benefit some of the teams.  The total cost will be automatically calculated for each team on the Team Setup page.

Current premium features:

- Send text messages to team members.  This feature allows administrators to broadcast text messages directly to members' registered cell phones so they can be notified with the most up to date information such as inclement weather.

- Display sponsor ads on  the front page with images, texts and URLs.  Please reduce image size to be no larger than 150 pixel per dimension.

- Export meet entries created by TSTM auto lineup program and and import into Hy-Tek Team Manager.  This is useful when the meet organizing party (Championship meet or dual meets)  requires meet entry in Hy-Tek format.

- Social event management and sign up.

- Volunteer positions can now be associated with two new meet types "Trial and Other" (in addition to Home and Away).  This should make admin's life easier when some positions are only created for a non-dual meet.  Each position is associated with a meet type.  The following is a chart that shows which type of position is available for which type of meet.

Meet type                Position for meet type
                    Home     Away     Trial     Other
Home              X            X
Away                             X
Trial                               X          X
Other                                                      X

- For non-dual meets (meet type: Other), teams can now ask swimmers to select the strokes they prefer to swim.  When a meet is set to type "Other", swimmers can do stroke selection online.  A report can be generated based on such data from the Meet report page (linked from Meet Setup page).

- Swim up: this is an option available on the Line up page.  When enabled, swimmers from lower age groups who are not lined up to swim relay in their own age group (due to not enough swimmers or too many relay teams) can be moved to a higher age group to be considered in a relay team.  The program uses personal best data and adjusts times based on distances so that various age group swimmers' time can be comparable during line up.  Due to various reasons, it may not create every relay team perfectly so validation from coaches and admins are recommended.

- Live data entry at the pool.  Enter swimmers' meet results through a mobile device so families can see their swimmers' result at the pool via browser on their mobile devices.  Only users with Coach, Admin or Super admin roles can enter results.  The URL to access the web interface is:

http://www.tsaswimteam.com/mobile.html

*Note*: You should NOT use this method as the only way to record meet times.  Please make sure that you have another method to record times (such as on paper) at the pool in case of technical difficulties (such as set up or network problems) or the web site goes down during a meet.

Get ready for the meets!

Teams did really well during the registration process and all data are pretty much online now.  I hope the web site can boost your team management efficiency.  Keep adding the extra number of hours you would have spent working the traditional way :-).  I may do a survey at the end of the season.

At this time of the season, you may want to review the following,

1. check your family list to see if any family is still unverified (grayed out).  These families might have lost (or didn't know where to look for) the email to verify the account so they could not log in.  As a Super Admin, you can verify these accounts manually and email them to log in and complete the registration.  There are not many such accounts, so don't be surprised if you don't find any.

2. The meets will start in a few weeks.  When the time comes that you don't want families to freely change volunteer positions, you should lock the season (on Season Setup page).  Once locked, families can only request switching of a job.  The original family is still responsible for that position until another family takes it over.  You can review if all families signed up required number of jobs on the "View family" page.

3. Browse the admin area and get familiar with various export files to see which ones you can use through out the season.  It may save your team volunteers a lot of time to use such export files.  If you plan to use the automatic line up program, please also check out the auto generated meet sheets (blue and pink TSA forms).  These forms are new features so please let me know if you find anything unexpected.

4. Experiment the swimmer numbering methods and pick one that works for your team.  If your team needs a method that doesn't exist, please let me know.  Once you decide on a method, you may want to clean up all swimmer numbers for now because if a new swimmer registers now, many swimmer numbers can be shifted causing confusions to the families.

A few new features added.

1. The system now supports Meter to Yard results conversion.  It determines the type of the pool by team and the meet type.  For example, a Home meet for a team that has a Meter pool, it will automatically assume the meet results will be in Meter.  Meter results are converted and saved as Yard results.  This way, all results are comparable and can be used for lineup purpose regardless of what type of pool a meet was held.  I need input from teams with a Meter pool how you publish the results to the team.  Are they in Meter or converted Yard results?  It seems to me posting converted Yard results makes more sense because  swimmers can easily compare with other Yard pool results to see their progress.

2. There is a new basic Forum feature from the admin menu (Other->Forum).  This is intended for all team admins to share ideas and experiences about using the system and/or managing a TSA team in general.  At this time the forum threads are created by me.  If you think of an interesting topic that is not listed, please let me know and I will add it.  I'd appreciate it very much if you can spend a few moments to wrote a paragraph in the customer feedback thread.  I may use that as user testimonials and publish somewhere on the web site.  Thank you very much in advance!

3. Teams now can have an optional slide show (up to 7 images of identical size) on their home page.  The images will fade out and in during transition.  This is part of the premium options (free in 2012).  Manual set up is needed.

Some of you asked about how many teams are using the system.

There are 6 new teams joining this year in addition to the 3 teams that used the system in the past, total 9 teams so far.  I am really excited about the growth rate.  I hope more teams will adopt it in the future and reduce more team volunteers' workload.  If you like the system, please share the web site info with other TSA teams.  Your words weigh much more than mine.  Thank you!

April update

Here is an update of recent changes.  Please take a look to see if you can take advantage of the new features.

New account requires super admin approval:

This optional setting is on the Team Setup page.  When it is turned on, if a user registers a new account, instead of receiving an email to verify the account, an email will be sent to the team email address (configured on the Team Setup page).  After receiving this email, the team administrator (must be a Super Admin) can go to the View family page and verify the new account (will be shown as grayed out).  To activate the new account, select the checkbox for the account, then scroll to the bottom of the page.  In the dropdown box, select "Lock / Unlock (Verify)" and click the Submit button.  Upon approval, the new account owner will be notified through email that the account has been activated.

Super admins can use the same method to help users to verify their accounts when they don't know how to or have lost the verification email.

Batch set meet attendance selection:
Some teams want to default meet attendance selection to "Yes", then manually de-select for those who will not attend a meet.  On the Meet Setup page, there are two new links "Attend all meets" and "Remove all meet selections".  The first link allows an admin to set every swimmer on the team to attend all meets for which they have not made selections.  The second link clears all existing meet selections.  DON'T use the two links if your team requires swimmers to make their own attendance selection.

The swim suit order feature during registration can now be customized to fit your team's needs for ordering items such as T-shirt per swimmer.  You can define the item's label on the Team Setup page.  Item sizes and prices can be defined on the Season Setup page.  The selected sizes for swimmers can be viewed in the Swimmer list pages.

Super admins now have a 2 hour session time out limit instead of the 30 minutes for regular users.

Supporting SMS text message to team members:
Admins can now send short text messages to cell phones through SMS (Admin menu: Other->Send messages).  Select the checkbox "Send text message" at the bottom of the page.  This allows instant broadcast of messages to team members (e.g. when weather is unpredictable before a meet or practice).  To be able to receive text messages, families must select their cell phone providers on the family info page.  Text messages can not be sent to users who have not selected their cell providers.  This optional feature is part of the premium options and will be charged separately (from 2013).  For 2012 season, it is free for all teams.

Thanks!

A few update: emergency contact, school calendar and hide team store

A few updates:

Teams can now collect family emergency contact and school track info during the registration process.  The emergency info is optional and can be turned on/off on the Team Setup page.  School track info is on the swimmer page.

The emergency info, together with other family contact info, will be displayed in a new report.  It is under the Family menu -> View detail list.  This list is only available to super admins.

The swimmer school calendar info will be displayed in some of View swimmer lists, roster, as well as the roster export file.

If your team doesn't use the team store, you can now optionally hide the store menu by turning off the option on the Team Setup page.

For automatic lineup function, a new option is added to allow the seeding process to be based on the previous meet result instead of personal best times of the season.  On the lineup page, check the "Use previous meet result" checkbox to enable this feature.  When unchecked, seeding will be based on personal best times.

For teams that ask families to choose volunteer preferences (not actual jobs), please use the automatic volunteer assignment based on user preferences.  There should be a "+" icon at the top of the assignment page to start the auto assignment.  The icon is only available if your team asks families to choose preferences, not actual positions. 

For teams that used this web site last year, please don't forget to Close and Open the season on the Season Setup page.  This will clean up the seasonal data and prepare the site for the new season.

Automatic volunteer assignment based on user preferences

Volunteer management has always been a challenging task to run a TSA
swim team.  Although first come first served model has been used by
some teams, some other teams prefer to assign volunteer jobs manually
by an administrator.  This is commonly done by asking families to
select the types of jobs they want to do and which meets they are
available to volunteer (on paper or online).  I don't have the
complete list of reasons to do this.  Partly it could be that a family
may pick a task and didn't realize that the job needs prior training,
or the "easier" jobs are quickly taken, leaving the rest of families
with jobs they don't know how to do.  Whatever the reasons are,
manually allocating jobs based on user's preference on meets and job
types is a very tedious task (takes hours or even days) and the admin
can easily make mistakes such as assigning a family to a work in a
meet they didn't select (on vacation) so they can't do it.

I recently implemented a feature (built into the TSA Swim Team
Manager) that allows such assignment to be done automatically based on
user preference selections.

Some highlights of the feature:

1. set the priority of a job.
For example, a family selected Timer, Starter and Runner as preferred
job types.  Not many people have the training to work as a starter so
we can raise the priority of the Starter job.  The system will assign
the family to do starter and leave the lower priority tasks to other
families.  Task with a priority of 0 means no auto assignment will
happen, e.g. a job named as "Substitute" or "Any position".  Admin can
also set priority to 0 for jobs they'd do manually later (i.e. they
know who should do such jobs).

2. find troubled spots and assign such spots first.
For example, only 4 families selected to volunteer as Timer for 6/24's
meet and we need 6 Timers, we will put these 4 families as Timers
instead of any other preferred tasks they selected that have more
available families.

3. honor family job preference (priority).
If both family A and B selected to work as Runner, but only 1 runner
is needed and family A selected the task as their first choice and
family B as second, family A will be assigned this task.

4. balanced work load.
Each family will be assigned at most the number of tasks defined in
team's Season setup.

5. rerun.
Assigned positions will NOT be overwritten.  When situation changes,
this routine can be rerun to pick up the (preference or job) changes.

6. manual overwrite.
All automatically assigned positions can be manually overwritten and
stay that way.  Auto assignment only happens to spots that are
available (unassigned).

No family will be assigned a job or work in a meet that they didn't
select.  To make this function work better, please ask families to be
more flexible (select more job types and meets) to give the system
more options.

I tested this routine against one of the teams' 2011 user preference
data and 90+% of the assignments can be made in a matter of seconds.
The remaining unassigned positions/families are mostly due to their
limited preferences (e.g. they only chose to work in 3 meets as 9-10
boy pusher but these positions are already filled).

This feature should save the volunteer admin a lot of time and reduce
the number of wrong assignments due to human errors.

Thanks.