simple registration import utility

[MoNsTeR]

download the program and sample input here:

http://monster.freeshell.org/ImportToEZWS_beta_sample.zip

You will need the .NET Framework 3.0 to run this. If you have Windows Vista or Windows 7 then you already have it, otherwise if you don't have it you can get it here: http://www.microsoft.com/download/en/details.aspx?id=31

Unzip the .exe to wherever you like, for example the EZWinScore folder.

You will need to create your match before using this tool, and your match will need to be empty (no competitors registered)!

I have tried my best to make it easy to use, so I am not posting or including instructions. Please give it a try and post your impressions in this thread.

[JThompson]

huh?

[Jim Norman]

Am I to understand that this will allow me to import a properly delineated file into EzWin?

I will give this a try, it is one of my biggest complaints about Ez

[MoNsTeR]

Am I to understand that this will allow me to import a properly delineated file into EzWin?

Precisely!

[Dan Burwell]

I know I am not the best computer guy, so I suppose I am a good test subject. I opened the program, I choose the competitors_sample.csv file for the one to open and the test.db (match file I created to test this out)as the import target. When I hit go I got a pop up saying import progress and a good bye button, but nothing more happened. Something amiss or am I as bad at this stuff as I thought?

running Win7Pro SP1

[Graham Smith]

I'll run some tests this weekend. Just so I can be sure I understand so I will know what to look out for:

--This is going to import into the match specified in the Match Info?

--How does this handle people who are not already in the Master db?

--Does the setting "Add to master" in Match Info effect this?

--What happens if you put someone into a division they are not already registered in?

Just guessing here at the data map but it looks like:

competitor_no

first_name

last_name

uspsa_prefix

uspsa_suffix

division

class

female

military

law

age

squad ?

power_factor

reentry ?

pays_fee ?

Edited July 21, 2011 by Graham Smith

[JThompson]

I know I am not the best computer guy, so I suppose I am a good test subject. I opened the program, I choose the competitors_sample.csv file for the one to open and the test.db (match file I created to test this out)as the import target. When I hit go I got a pop up saying import progress and a good bye button, but nothing more happened. Something amiss or am I as bad at this stuff as I thought?

running Win7Pro SP1

I get the same thing.... XP with NET 3.5 SP1

I am interested in this esp if it will add names to the MN database too

Edited July 21, 2011 by JThompson

[Graham Smith]

I'm also not getting anything imported. I've tried it with and without EzWin open and with and without SQLAnywhere running. We are missing something - perhaps an ODBC DSN?

[wgnoyes]

I'll run some tests this weekend. Just so I can be sure I understand so I will know what to look out for:

--This is going to import into the match specified in the Match Info?

--How does this handle people who are not already in the Master db?

--Does the setting "Add to master" in Match Info effect this?

--What happens if you put someone into a division they are not already registered in?

Just guessing here at the data map but it looks like:

...

I'm just going to guess here as I didn't write this, but I doubt it will add anything to masternames.db, regardless of what you have checked in ezws. That's a whole different and much more complicated database than any match database and (being me) if I had gone to the extra effort to also update masternames.db, I think I would have said SOMETHING about it somewhere, just out of pride of accomplishment.

A consideration exists for that supposedly desired feature in that now, if you register someone out of masternames.db into your match, you'll see his masternames relative record number in his competitor record. If you type him in from nothing, however, that field remains blank. IF there were a 'add to masternames' feature to this, you'd end up with a whole load of duplicate records in masternames for anyone who shoots with you on a regular basis.

[wgnoyes]

I'm also not getting anything imported. I've tried it with and without EzWin open and with and without SQLAnywhere running. We are missing something - perhaps an ODBC DSN?

Yeah, nothing's happening, same symptoms as described above. That's with Adaptive Server Anywhere running or without it running. When running regular ezws, the text window in ASA that normally updates file events as various databases open and close is, with this import program, just sitting there noting nothing. Therefore the match database is not getting opened at all, otherwise ASA definitely would note it, as it does when I run my own match director's awards summary .asp script. I had created a new match, named it, and even put a stage out there, so there absolutely is an odbc systemdsn entry for the file; I went and looked. The program just isn't opening it. Oh, and this is windows 7 professional SP1 with .NET framework 3.5.1.

Edited July 21, 2011 by wgnoyes

[MoNsTeR]

I'll run some tests this weekend. Just so I can be sure I understand so I will know what to look out for:

--This is going to import into the match specified in the Match Info?

--How does this handle people who are not already in the Master db?

--Does the setting "Add to master" in Match Info effect this?

--What happens if you put someone into a division they are not already registered in?

Just guessing here at the data map but it looks like:

...

I'm just going to guess here as I didn't write this, but I doubt it will add anything to masternames.db, regardless of what you have checked in ezws. That's a whole different and much more complicated database than any match database and (being me) if I had gone to the extra effort to also update masternames.db, I think I would have said SOMETHING about it somewhere, just out of pride of accomplishment.

A consideration exists for that supposedly desired feature in that now, if you register someone out of masternames.db into your match, you'll see his masternames relative record number in his competitor record. If you type him in from nothing, however, that field remains blank. IF there were a 'add to masternames' feature to this, you'd end up with a whole load of duplicate records in masternames for anyone who shoots with you on a regular basis.

Right you are. The app as it stands now does not attempt to relate registrations to masternames, though I have thought about it. It would be possible to take the raw registration data, look people up in masternames by their USPSA number, use the info from there if found and insert them if not found. But there's a whole host of issues with doing that which I'm not yet prepared to tackle.

[MoNsTeR]

I know I am not the best computer guy, so I suppose I am a good test subject. I opened the program, I choose the competitors_sample.csv file for the one to open and the test.db (match file I created to test this out)as the import target. When I hit go I got a pop up saying import progress and a good bye button, but nothing more happened. Something amiss or am I as bad at this stuff as I thought?

running Win7Pro SP1

I uploaded the wrong version because I am a super smart dude!

Try downloading it again and giving it another try. I appreciate everyone's participation in this test, and patience with my ineptitude

[wgnoyes]

Okay, that worked. Now, you have a show stopping problem in that after importing the competitor data, you would think upon entering ezws that you'd be ready to enter scores. However, everything under the "Match" pulldown is grayed out except for match reset, so something hasn't been set somewhere.

You may also need to care whether any stages have been defined or not. I put one in on my test, but that's because I know the flow of ezws and he won't let you register the first person until after you have stages (ANY sort of stage) defined. There may be a reason for that; I don't know.

It would be nice to collect an email address and plug that in.

Female, law, and military are not set correctly. The correct value is not "N" or "Y", but "Yes" or "No" spelled out. Foreign isn't filled in at all, and it needs to be as well. In fact (looking at the "already registered" tab), you really need to fill in every yes/no field in the competitor's record (and there are a LOT of them, including the currently erroneously blank "dq'ed from pistol, and the "entered" in rifle!shotgun!agg fields. I know you're not doing a 3-gun tournament here, but all those fields need to be filled in anyway. USPSA has a MSACCESS-based registration processor that they use to register people in the Nationals, and having scored 6 nationals now that came out of that system, the match files are ALWAYS screwed up and require some sort of manual manipulation through an external odbc connection before scores can be processed correctly. Also any numeric fields in the table probably need to be set to some sort of default.

Best thing I'd say is define a match, register someone in it, and then go into the match file and look at all of the defaults that were set in the competitor's record, and then add all those values to your import file. You want this process to be utterly transparent to ezws, and that's the way to accomplish it.

(Hmm. Also, if after opening the generated match file I then go and try to open some other completed match file, I get a pop-up msg saying the match file is read-only and please go find another one. Bouncing ezws resolves that problem. Something going on in your generated match file.)

Edited July 21, 2011 by wgnoyes

[Graham Smith]

I think that if you start by entering one person into registration manually before you import the file, you will be ok as far as the greyed out menus goes. But you will have to start your competitors with Number 2

Note: I haven't had a chance to test this yet so...

Edited July 22, 2011 by Graham Smith

[wgnoyes]

Well yeah, but I'm sure we all agree the importer really needs to deliver a match file that is ready to use in actual scoring, so it needs to flip whatever bits to enable all appropriate features.

That brings up another question. Does this app assume you're registering EXCLUSIVELY using it, or can you do both. I ask because you obviously don't want to whack anyone already out there, but also (and this is critical) the competitor numbers MUST be sequential in increments of +1. If you have any sort of gap, you'll blow up ezwinscore. Been there, done that at the 2003 Nationals with fixing the mess caused by USPSA's msaccess pre-processor, still have the bad memories.

Edited July 22, 2011 by wgnoyes

[Graham Smith]

FWIW, I'm still tinkering with the database I have connected to the EzWinScore database(s) and am reasonably sure that with some more tinkering I will be able to populate the Competitor db as well as Master and Divisions and anything else that needs populating. I don't think that this is anything that would ever be practical for others to use because of the cost of the software program I am using (it requires a runtime license), but it does show that it should be able to be incorporated into EZWS fairly easily by someone who already has the existing specification and code in front of them.

[MoNsTeR]

Lots of good stuff here, going to take me a while to get through it all. A few quick things...

1. It's not the case that you can't register competitors in EZWS until you've defined stages. Doing precisely that is how I've tested it every time so far. However that doesn't mean that doing so doesn't have weird side effects, so I will need to do more thorough testing.

2. Even though the flag values in the input file are Y/N, they should be translating to Yes/No in the database. If they're not then that's just something I forgot and can easily fix.

3. My goal was to populate the minimum set of fields necessary, but having not yet done a complete end-to-end test I admit that my initial guess is somewhat arbitrary. I've been operating under the assumption that fields which are conceptually irrelevant (e.g. 3-gun stuff) are also technically irrelevant, which may be faulty. The schema design is not making this easy.

4. The intent is to use this import to populate the initial set of competitors, while allowing walk-ins or late registrations to be entered manually.

5. The point about gaps in the competitor numbering is well noted, though this kind of Special Instruction Counter To Everything Right And Good About Software makes me sad. I'll probably just take COMPETITOR_NO out of the input file and just generate values in the code starting from 1.

[JThompson]

There is a need for it out here buddy.... keep plugging away!

JT

[wgnoyes]

Lots of good stuff here, going to take me a while to get through it all. A few quick things...

1. It's not the case that you can't register competitors in EZWS until you've defined stages. Doing precisely that is how I've tested it every time so far. However that doesn't mean that doing so doesn't have weird side effects, so I will need to do more thorough testing.

...

Huh! You're right; 4.07 lets me register people now without a stage. But I know it certainly used to have that restriction. That's why I had adopted the practice of defining a match with any sort of single stage (usually a classifier) so I could start registering people for a major match months ahead of time. (Stats is not a weekend exercise; it's a months long project that begins with the first eager beavers registering 4 months ahead of 1st shot fired for the really popular matches.)

Nothing to be "sad" about, just something to be aware of for anyone writing something like this.