System Requirements
The database
is managed from your web browser and will work with
virtually any platform or OS, no other client software is required.
All you need is internet access and a browser that supports
CSS, Javascript, and has Cookies enabled. Explorer5+ and Netscape6+,
Safari, Firefox, Opera, and others should work fine.
Some Important Definitions!
Please read...
Here are the basics
of how players and tournaments are organized in the system:
Players
A Player is
someone who's been added
to the database by a club director. A
player record contains the player's name, city, state, and
country, plus the player's main home clubs. Since
a player might play at several different clubs, a player
record is global and can be used by any club.
Club Players
Club Players are those in your club player list (a
subset of the global Players).
A club player record adds the usual address book info plus some club specific
items
like "location" and "tournament
level" to
help organize your player lists.
Tournaments
A Tournament is
one or more club events that have a common title and completion
date.
Events
An Event is
a section of a tournament that has a single set of final standings.
Main and Consolation would be considered separate events
if each has it's own distinct 1st, 2nd, 3rd, etc. places.
Brackets
Brackets correspond
to the drawsheets that make up an event. For example, if an
event
has
Main Draw, 2nd Chance, and
Final Playoff
sections on the drawsheets,
then there would be 3 corresponding brackets in the
event.
Tournament Templates
A Tournament Template is
a snapshot of the tournament structure (everything but the
player names and match results)
making it easy to add future tournaments with
the same layout.
Tournaments
Small & Large...
Suppose you direct
a local weekly tournament. Your tournament would have one event
with one or two brackets and look something like this:
Typical Local Weekly Tournament Structure:
Tournament Name: Tuesday Weekly
Tournament Date: February 3, 2004
Event: Main (1st, 2nd, 3rd place)
Bracket: Main Draw
Bracket: 2nd Chance
Now consider a
much larger double elimination tournament with 3 divisions
- Open, Intermediate,
Novice - each with separate Consolation and Last chance events:
Typical Large Tournament Structure:
Tournament Name: State Championships
Tournament Dates: June 3-5, 2004
Event(1): Open Championship (1st, 2nd, 3rd, 4th place)
Bracket: Main Draw
Bracket: 2nd Chance
Bracket: Final Playoffs
Event(2): Open Consolation (1st, 2nd place)
Bracket: Main Draw
Bracket: Final Playoffs
Event(3): Open Last Chance (1st place)
Bracket: Main Draw
plus similar events for the Intermediate and Novice sections...
Here it becomes
obvious why the database is set up the way it is. Your weekly
16 player event can be entered into the database in less than
10 minutes. The large tournament shown
above will take some time but is still
quite manageable.
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