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Introducing PractiScore


Brian N.

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10 Stages :surprise: . Did they decide to move the Section match to May and not tell anyone?

It is 10 stages but it looks like they took 2 good stages and made 6 little ones....mainly to accommodate the large number of shooters they have been having, I am sure 20 person squads would suck.

#. Name Points #Rounds

1. Stock Standards 60 12

2. Ping 40 8

3. Pontoon 105 21

4. Quick & Easy 35 7

5. Blink 50 8

6. Field Study 160 32

7. Burn it down 145 29

8. CM 99-53 Triple 60 12

9. Across the pond 120 24

10. Swing Low 35 7

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Should be some new items to talk about after today; Cherokee Gun Club is running 10 stages, 112 competitors at last count.

Ended up being 95 shooters in 7 squads, and 160 rounds 10 stage match. We used 10 devices, all NOOK Simple Touch's. Yes, I solved the what feels like a device gets sluggish and then starts to act strangely, it's dust getting on the IR sensors housing right at the flat of the display, but on the sides. After cleaning them all and brushing off the dust, all 10 devices ran just fine all day.

We had zero issues, sync'd via wifi at the range to an Ipad (actually 2 of them) each time after I shot my slot in squad 7. Needless to say, we had the match scored, and uploaded before tear down was complete. We also used the PC basedup helper app from PS and had the EZWS file uploaded within 5 minutes of the PS upload :)..

Our integration was as follows.

- Used Shoot-n-Scoreit.com to do online registrations

- exported SSI's file for EZWS

- use a small translator perl script to fix some things because import of competitors from SSI isn't fully baked (an SSI issue)

- import the competitors, stages, and squads from SSI to EZWS

- do any juggle of squads, and walk up registrations in EZWS at the range

- export from EZWS, and import into PS

- Shoot and score the match with PS

- The post processing is pretty straight forward and what you do all the time if using PS.

It was all the above that we tried new. It worked so well, that we got a standing applause at the shooters meeting for doing it! We even juggled 8 shooters from an 8th squad back into the other 7 squads due to people who registered and didn't show up. That only took a small effort and while a manual effort it paid off in not having to create an 8th squad and make sure it had RO's on it.

We've still got a couple of tweaks to work through, but this was by far and away our simplest match to pull together and score with the PS way of doing things.

About the only thing that was noteworthy.... We (practiscore) need to abandon the Palm legacy interface with EZWS, it's time now to get them to create the interface that is really needed between the 2. There are just too many things you *cant* do because of the palm interface :(...

But man is it nice to have that large of a match done, scored and scores out to shooters *before* teardown was complete!

Alan

Edited by Alan Adamson
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I ran a match yesterday and ran into two small issues. After two stages, one of the Overstock.com refurbished Nook Simple Touches decided to "Lock up" Nothing would unlock it. LUCKILY...we were running paper backup summaries. Once I sync'ed all remaining devices and transferred data to EZWinscore, I had to manually re-enter about 6-8 shooters. One thing I noticed after calculations was all my shooters came across as Unclassified. Only had 8 shooters who were USPSA members, so not a big issue, but concerned why it happened.

Paper backups saved the day. I'll continue to use them.

Edited by Mark R
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Is SSi going to do anything about importing squadding, or do we have to continue to use the perl script. If the latter, where can we get it?

Chris is going to clean it up and maybe *webize* it such that you just give it the file from SSI and it will give you back the files fixed, both competitors and squad info. You then just import stuff into EZWS and go from there.

Don't want to put any pressure on him as I know he has a million work/work projects, but we'll see... If it looks like a long pole, I'll send you the existing perl script.

Alan

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I ran a match yesterday and ran into two small issues. After two stages, one of the Overstock.com refurbished Nook Simple Touches decided to "Lock up" Nothing would unlock it. LUCKILY...we were running paper backup summaries. Once I sync'ed all remaining devices and transferred data to EZWinscore, I had to manually re-enter about 6-8 shooters. One thing I noticed after calculations was all my shooters came across as Unclassified. Only had 8 shooters who were USPSA members, so not a big issue, but concerned why it happened.

Paper backups saved the day. I'll continue to use them.

Mark, here's the fix for both.

a) it's a known issue that PS brings people back to EZWS as unclassified, it's an issue with the legacy interface that is used from the Palm days. So just update the classifications on EZWS and all fixed. If you post to PS.com from an IOS device (and soon from an android device) you can update the classifications there in the sync tab and everything is happen as well.

On the second issue, I know what the problem is.

The NOOKS use an IR mechanism to sense touch, it's not a capacity of Resistive displays, it actually has a very thin plane of IR that is directed across the screen from a thin light pipe that sets out in that recessed area at the edges of the display. If you get *any* debris, dust, sand, a hair etc out there, the device will detect that as touch and all kinds of strange things will happen.... Usually an early sign is that things that you press (primarily buttons) don't do what you expect, or the screen will just start to act strangely. The simple fix is to take a damp Q-tip and run around the edge of the recess. And take a wide canvas type paintbrush and sweep all the debris out of that area (do the two things in the reverse order :) ).

That should fix it.... I did see one bug yesterday that I need to report.... but it was so strange and I remedied it so quickly that I doubt anyone else has seen it.

Alan

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My issue wasn't an erratic Nook...mine was an actual "Lockup". The time remained at 11:41. I recharged and tried a soft and hard reset, but nothing worked. since it was rooted and couldn't return the refurbished unit, I opened it up and discovered that by removing and reconnecting an electrical connection (left of power button from front) I was able to reset it. Then after about 30 minutes of using it at home, it locked up again. I pressed real hard on the area where the electrical connection is and it came back to life again.

So I don't think this is a dirty screen issue...it's a defective unit that doesn't need to be used again for scoring.

Thanks for the info on the "update classifications on EZWin"...i didn't do that until after I corrected the classifications...I'll try that next time. Thanks Alan.

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I ran a match yesterday and ran into two small issues. After two stages, one of the Overstock.com refurbished Nook Simple Touches decided to "Lock up" Nothing would unlock it. LUCKILY...we were running paper backup summaries. Once I sync'ed all remaining devices and transferred data to EZWinscore, I had to manually re-enter about 6-8 shooters. One thing I noticed after calculations was all my shooters came across as Unclassified. Only had 8 shooters who were USPSA members, so not a big issue, but concerned why it happened.

Paper backups saved the day. I'll continue to use them.

[never mind; already answered] -- a classification update against the match after it was imported back into ezws.

Edited by wgnoyes
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I ran a match yesterday and ran into two small issues. After two stages, one of the Overstock.com refurbished Nook Simple Touches decided to "Lock up" Nothing would unlock it. LUCKILY...we were running paper backup summaries. Once I sync'ed all remaining devices and transferred data to EZWinscore, I had to manually re-enter about 6-8 shooters. One thing I noticed after calculations was all my shooters came across as Unclassified. Only had 8 shooters who were USPSA members, so not a big issue, but concerned why it happened.

Paper backups saved the day. I'll continue to use them.

As to competitors coming back into ezws as U, don't know, but my practice would be to run a classification update against the match after it was imported back into ezws.

It's a limitation of the Palm interface. Which needs to die a very quick, very nasty, very miserable, very graphic and very painful death.

--jc

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...

It's a limitation of the Palm interface. Which needs to die a very quick, very nasty, very miserable, very graphic and very painful death.

--jc

THAT may take long. On the other hand, if we can get the USPSA BoD to sign off on PS being used as an actual scoring system (collect data AND calculate match results AND upload to USPSA), then you wouldn't need to visit ezws at all.

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...

It's a limitation of the Palm interface. Which needs to die a very quick, very nasty, very miserable, very graphic and very painful death.

--jc

THAT may take long. On the other hand, if we can get the USPSA BoD to sign off on PS being used as an actual scoring system (collect data AND calculate match results AND upload to USPSA), then you wouldn't need to visit ezws at all.

I disagree. I still maintain the the EZWS database is still the easiest way to administer shooters at this time. PS has to support a way to move databases across units before I'd consider divesting myself of EZWS. There's still too many useful things it does that PS does not *yet* do (Note my usage of the patented Alan Adamson *'s on either side of words :) ).

--jc

Edited by jcwren
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I disagree. I still maintain the the EZWS database is still the easiest way to administer shooters at this time. PS has to support a way to move databases across units before I'd consider divesting myself of EZWS. There's still too many useful things it does that PS does *yet* do (Note my usage of the patented Alan Adamson *'s on either side of words :) ).

USPSA should really provide an integrated calendar/signup/squadding/score submission system with interface to PS and EZWS... And not only to Level 3 matches but to everyone.

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I disagree. I still maintain the the EZWS database is still the easiest way to administer shooters at this time. PS has to support a way to move databases across units before I'd consider divesting myself of EZWS. There's still too many useful things it does that PS does *yet* do (Note my usage of the patented Alan Adamson *'s on either side of words :) ).

USPSA should really provide an integrated calendar/signup/squadding/score submission system with interface to PS and EZWS... And not only to Level 3 matches but to everyone.

Well, yea, that's pretty much a given. In an ideal world, all this stuff would play together seamlessly, there'd be a well documented, well supported data exchange system, it'd be platform independent (PC, MAC, Linux), etc, etc, etc.

The reality is people like Rob Boudrie and Roger Maier and others all have real full-time jobs, and do this as they can. PractiScore isn't a primary product for Nifty Bytes, in that it produces no revenue (to speak of), and their mainstream business comes first.

As a full-time software developer myself, I can see *tons* of things that could be done to make everything much cooler, modernized, and more useable. Unfortunately, having to remain backwards compatible to the AND gate (as we like to say) means changes have to be managed very carefully. You can't go break all the clubs running EZWS on older hardware, and aren't "power users".

The other more major issue with EZWS is the what's it written in, which is Delphi Powerbuilder. They're very limited in what they can do because of the age of the package. Ideally, it needs to be scrapped and re-written from scratch. But that's probably not going to happen any time soon. And because matches with money on the table are run with this software, it has to produce the EXACT same results between versions. This is one of the main reasons, I'm sure, that USPSA will (and should) be very careful about accepting third-party programs for classifier and results submission.

--jc

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I disagree. I still maintain the the EZWS database is still the easiest way to administer shooters at this time. PS has to support a way to move databases across units before I'd consider divesting myself of EZWS. There's still too many useful things it does that PS does not *yet* do (Note my usage of the patented Alan Adamson *'s on either side of words :) ).

--jc

Well you're right, ezws is better for that, especially for major match registration, which is a months long process. PS needs to implement a full masternames.db-type system that stores all of a given competitor's divisions and classes, and not just the most recently used. If it did THAT, and we were able to run classification updates at the range without an internet connection (I know that's a requested tweak to the existing classification update feature), then I would have no problems with the idea of using an external keyboard and an iPad to register walkups.

(Delphi is a separate pascal language IDE originally by Borland and now by Embarcadero. Powerbuilder is by Sybase. Both are very expensive. MS Visual Studio Express, which includes C#, is free. VS Prof starts at $499, WAY less than powerbuilder.)

Edited by wgnoyes
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Well, yea, that's pretty much a given. In an ideal world, all this stuff would play together seamlessly, there'd be a well documented, well supported data exchange system, it'd be platform independent (PC, MAC, Linux), etc, etc, etc.

The reality is people like Rob Boudrie and Roger Maier and others all have real full-time jobs, and do this as they can. PractiScore isn't a primary product for Nifty Bytes, in that it produces no revenue (to speak of), and their mainstream business comes first.

So what? It doesn't have to happen overnight. And it could be done incrementally with help of volunteers.

As a full-time software developer myself, I can see *tons* of things that could be done to make everything much cooler, modernized, and more useable. Unfortunately, having to remain backwards compatible to the AND gate (as we like to say) means changes have to be managed very carefully. You can't go break all the clubs running EZWS on older hardware, and aren't "power users".

I wasn't suggesting to break anything. See a note about interface to PS and EZWS.

The other more major issue with EZWS...

The whole EZWS is a separate story. You are right, of course, but online match support system is quite separate from EZWS or even PS.

PS: I must say that I have implemented such online calendar/match signup/results submission system for IPSC Ontario (over 1000 competitors, about 200 matches a year with online signup). It been online for half a year now.

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I managed 600 entries online for the recent Area 1 match. I generated a match import file from the online database. PS imported it straight away.

Registration had iPad/iPod Touches they could find people with, adjust registraton info, and synch it with stats. I found it pretty simple because we could have 3 people doing registration at the same time.

We have, underway, a project called "match director in a box". It handles all the things I did as A1 match director. Registration, wait list, squadding, group squadding, payment/comp/sponsor management, and e-mail sending to the field. It is about 80% done. I'm working with an NSSF authorized credit card gateway to get the lowest possible merchant fees (available to all).

The guy working it graduated and is now a full time NiftyBytes employee on other projects. But I'll get another sharp intern in to finish this.

Ken N.

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I managed 600 entries online for the recent Area 1 match. I generated a match import file from the online database. PS imported it straight away.

Registration had iPad/iPod Touches they could find people with, adjust registraton info, and synch it with stats. I found it pretty simple because we could have 3 people doing registration at the same time.

We have, underway, a project called "match director in a box". It handles all the things I did as A1 match director. Registration, wait list, squadding, group squadding, payment/comp/sponsor management, and e-mail sending to the field. It is about 80% done. I'm working with an NSSF authorized credit card gateway to get the lowest possible merchant fees (available to all).

The guy working it graduated and is now a full time NiftyBytes employee on other projects. But I'll get another sharp intern in to finish this.

Ken N.

Ken, what we found difficult to mamange with our two larger matches that we used on SSI are the no-shows. How are you managing them in PS, where you know who to delete from the match because they *weren't* there?

--jc

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PS has a No Show report (not released yet) that would identify candidates. We would move them to squad 99. And when confident they were no-shows, delete them.

So, for instance at A1, we had 435 squadded shooters, but that could dropped to 417, by Saturday. So they were in there, in squad 99, not bothering anybody, until we zapped them.

I managed all shooters online until Tue evening. Then took them into PS and managed them there til the match was done.

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EZWS's take at no-shows on the missing scoresheets report is that if a given competitor hasn't shot anything, he's a no-show (or is a sat/sun shooter if you're running missing scoresheets on friday). There is a checkbox that will show you all of these in the list if you wish it, and an additional control to check to have the system mark them as deleted.

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EZWS's take at no-shows on the missing scoresheets report is that if a given competitor hasn't shot anything, he's a no-show (or is a sat/sun shooter if you're running missing scoresheets on friday). There is a checkbox that will show you all of these in the list if you wish it, and an additional control to check to have the system mark them as deleted.

Yes, but that's not really useful if you're trying to check people off as they show up at registration. Mentioned this to Rob/Roger, and they agree you need a check-box type function that says "Yes, they're here, they've paid". Now granted, at majors, you pay before you're there (or I assume you always do, as I have always done that to assure my slot). But at a local match, using something like SSI for sign-up, you'll get people that sign up, and then don't show. You don't want them showing up in the squadding lists.

And since they can squad themselves on SSI, you can't use the solution of setting everyone to 99, and then setting their squad as they show up (SSI exports their squad for import into EZWS).

On the 'Already Registered' tab in the Match Registration dialog, there's a couple of totally useless columns, like 'Owes Fees'. No one cares about that. And there is one on the far whose name I can't recall that's also totally useless. What needs to be displayed is a check-box for 'Present', and their power factor for their division, so you don't have to double-click on the the user to verify that they're really shooting Open minor (KC Eusubio, for example).

Edited by jcwren
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So check them off of a competitor's list that shows PF?

I've got an external competitor's list that I create from 'export competitor information' and then get classification data from uspsa to show ALL of the guy's current uspsa classifications. That way, when someone checks in at the state match and they want to change divisions (it always happens), its a very simple matter to cross through the guy's declared division and circle the classification of the division he really wants, and that gets put into ezws later.

Edited by wgnoyes
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So check them off of a competitor's list that shows PF?

I've got an external competitor's list that I create from 'export competitor information' and then get classification data from uspsa to show ALL of the guy's current uspsa classifications. That way, when someone checks in at the state match and they want to change divisions (it always happens), its a very simple matter to cross through the guy's declared division and circle the classification of the division he really wants, and that gets put into ezws later.

Ob majors, I won't argue the merits of paper. On locals, same for backup. But the whole idea of this system is to dispose of paper. I don't want to print lists, cross people off, and worry about that junk. I want it *all* electronic, and easy to use.

There are some standards and best practices for handling all aspects of any match. There's no reason a good work flow analysis can't be done, and software written against it, to make it usable.

As a simple example, it's extremely annoying that EZWS resets the list of competitors to the top any time you move off that tab during match registration. If I'm going down the (Dog forbid!) paper list that has my no-shows on it, I shouldn't have to scroll each time (yes, I know you can type a few letters of the competitors name, but then I have to type something, when I could just be mousing, which means taking the hand off the mouse to type, thus slowing the whole process down). Scrollers should stick where they were when you come back to them.

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Our Chrono guy kept a list of folks that went minor/sub-minor, or that didn't come to chrono. Or that got bumped to Open on equipment check. Stats would update with that list periodically on PS.

Actually my recommendation is hold all that for the end and apply it after the last synch.

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