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RFC: Open Squadding Support in PractiScore


Ken N.

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I'm soliciting feedback on this spec for supporting Open Squadding in PractiScore. Chime in, cause this is what we are going to write, unless some big flaw is pointed out.

First, we support two cases:

- unconnected : the scoring devices have no concept of who is registered

- connected : a source for registration information is constantly available

Common to both is that when Open Squadding is chosen:

  • Squads information and screens go away
  • Replaced by a Stage Shoot Order View that permits adding shooters, re-arranging shooters, and scoring shooters
  • Devices may be locked to a stage (this will be available generally in PractiScore)

Connected:

  • registration is not permitted on stage devices
  • shooters may only be added into a Shoot Order if registered
  • a quick synch button synchs registration information into the stage device
    We opted for pull, cause it is safer, and makes it so only one device has to be up predictably
    Optionally, quicksynch could automatically happen after every shooter
  • Use case:
    - shooter registers, walks to stage, checks in, she's not listed, quick sync, she's there, add her to shoot order
    - shooter skips registration, tries to checkin, no joy, back to the office bub!

Unconnected:

  • we assume some low tech way of knowing they paid (like a reciept or hand stamp)
  • shooter checks in on the stage
    • enters name
    • optionally an id (phone, uspsa #, 3gn #, IDPA #, or clubs.practiscore.com #, or an alias)
    • necessary match data (division, so forth)
    • name + division + [optional id] identifies shooter uniquely
  • At match synch finalization, the stats officer has a list of orphaned shooters that either collided (same name, no unique id) or had typos and merges them to one shooter. This already exists in PractiScore.

Thoughts?

As an aside, the Shoot Order view will also be an option for regular squadding to create custom shoot orders.

Ken N.

Edited by Ken N.
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What are you defining "Open Squadding" to mean exactly?

Here's our use case:

  1. People sign up online (currently Shoot'n Score It).
  2. Online registration closes, match is exported to EZWS via ssi2ezws
  3. On the day of the match, walk-ups are added to squads with available space
  4. When registration closes, all online sign-up no-shows are moved to squad 98
  5. Squads are rebalanced, if necessary
  6. Match is exported from EZWS to PS via ezws2ps

Now, if we go eliminate the EZWS step, we'll still need to download our registration information (with squadding info) to PS. PS needs to be able to read the squads.txt file that EZWS currently uses to handle "online squadding".

What I want is an iOS implementation of what the squadding facility in EZWS does. It needs to show a list of squads, the number of shooters in each, and have an easy way to move them from one squad to another. Drag and drop would be nice. Doesn't need to be fancy graphics, but the list of squads should be able to be expanded and contracted (ala EZWS) so I can get quick overviews.

Locking a device to stage would be nice. I'm not sure how that would be handled, since each stage device has to be synced (sunk?) from the master device. The ability to move a person from one squad to another on each device is desirable, because of shoot-throughs and people who are confused about what squad they're on, or get moved at the last second after the NOOKs have been synced to the master iPad.

For our matches, shooters don't "check in at stages". This seems to be some sort free-for-all model that's popular in your corner of the country. Here, people check in prior to the shooters briefing (nominally 5-10 minutes before start of the match). If you show up late, well, enjoy the drive home. We don't let people just show up at a stage, register, and start shooting. There's money to be taken and waivers to be signed.

Another item that needs to be added to PS pronto is the ability to export the "master database" of the device. We have too many instances where a single device is not always what is used to register competitors. Some clubs have dedicated devices, and need to be able to move the master database to another device for when they upgrade, have a failure, whatever. Some clubs use personal devices for registration because they might prefer the iPads over the Android devices, so they'll use their personal iPads to register. That means they have a localized master database. That's not really on-topic here, and was added to Mantis some time ago.

Edited by jcwren
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I like the automatic synch but that could force the radio to really drain the battery. Probably the manual, really quick and easy, synch would be a better pathway.

Definitely an option. Not an early one either, cause pushing a button ain't too tough,

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Tuesday night steel matches here in our neck of the woods are a kind of "pick-up match". You go to the stages in the order you choose and add your name to the shoot order. You move from stage to stage this way until you are done. The match is open for several hours, but each shooter can finish faster. It is a way to attract new shooters to the range, as well as regulars with less time on their hands on a weekday evening. It is a bit less formal than an online club registration. We see that many ranges do these matches.

In the connected model, the registration device could be kept on power or a battery backup, so that it can stay on and provide the names of shooters to the stage scoring devices as the shooters arrive at each stage. The stage devices would be powering on and off as needed, so they would pull from the master(registration) device to get names of shooters arriving since the last pull.

There is no concept of squad, only a rolling shoot order list per stage that is ordered by arrival at the stage.

The guy who gets there at 5:00 PM runs through the match very quickly as he is first on the stage. He shoots, goes to the next stage and puts his name on the shoot order.

It is simple on paper, but requires hours of data entry after the match. PS looks to get the MD home faster and provide reliable results.

As an added benefit, it works as a control point for payment, waivers, orientation to the range.

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What are you defining "Open Squadding" to mean exactly?

>>>>>>KN Open Squadding means people go where they go, when they want, as they want while the match is open. I run a 40 person match like this every Tuesday, Rio in Phoenix does 100+, Vegas does 6 or 8 a month this way.

Here's our use case:

  1. People sign up online (currently Shoot'n Score It).
  2. Online registration closes, match is exported to EZWS via ssi2ezws
  3. On the day of the match, walk-ups are added to squads with available space
  4. When registration closes, all online sign-up no-shows are moved to squad 98
  5. Squads are rebalanced, if necessary
  6. Match is exported from EZWS to PS via ezws2ps

Now, if we go eliminate the EZWS step, we'll still need to download our registration information (with squadding info) to PS. PS needs to be able to read the squads.txt file that EZWS currently uses to handle "online squadding".

What I want is an iOS implementation of what the squadding facility in EZWS does. It needs to show a list of squads, the number of shooters in each, and have an easy way to move them from one squad to another. Drag and drop would be nice. Doesn't need to be fancy graphics, but the list of squads should be able to be expanded and contracted (ala EZWS) so I can get quick overviews.

>>> KN the version we are testflighting you tomorrow will have our early version of this. I think it meets this test.

and I'd like you to give clubs.practiscore.com a shot if you don't mind. (-:

Locking a device to stage would be nice. I'm not sure how that would be handled, since each stage device has to be synced (sunk?) from the master device. The ability to move a person from one squad to another on each device is desirable, because of shoot-throughs and people who are confused about what squad they're on, or get moved at the last second after the NOOKs have been synced to the master iPad.

>>> KN it's optional. And typically moving a shooter is permitted. It makes sense for Open Squadding

For our matches, shooters don't "check in at stages". This seems to be some sort free-for-all model that's popular in your corner of the country. Here, people check in prior to the shooters briefing (nominally 5-10 minutes before start of the match). If you show up late, well, enjoy the drive home. We don't let people just show up at a stage, register, and start shooting. There's money to be taken and waivers to be signed.

>>>>> KN it's actually fairly calm and enhances social atmosphere. It usually only works with low reset matches, like steel, although there are large USPSA matches( north of 100 shooters every saturday) run that way.

Another item that needs to be added to PS pronto is the ability to export the "master database" of the device. We have too many instances where a single device is not always what is used to register competitors. Some clubs have dedicated devices, and need to be able to move the master database to another device for when they upgrade, have a failure, whatever. Some clubs use personal devices for registration because they might prefer the iPads over the Android devices, so they'll use their personal iPads to register. That means they have a localized master database. That's not really on-topic here, and was added to Mantis some time ago.

>>>>> KN master database... will consider. It's likely to be part of the cloud services. So you get a device, login as club, synch master dbs, and it consolidates.

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I really like the idea proposed for the shooting order screen. For Open Squadding, FIFO would be pretty much the rule. For defined squads, this is not the case.

I would suggest extending this beyond open squadding to all squadding. Just because you are in a squad does not imply that the the shooting order is taken care of.

Currently, most squads come to the stage and present their scoresheets in whatever order the squad wants. Many use their EZWS shooter number and then rotate one down per stage so that everyone gets a chance to be first. They may do the same using alphabetic order or may do a custom order to keep shared guns apart, video opportunities, or maybe just use a random order. In any event, the squad is who determines the order in most cases.

Propose have a squad shooting order screen that the squad could look at and easily move entries around to set up the order for that stage. You may be able to use one of your rolling options to give an initial sort but it would be important to provide a drag and drop (or similar) capability of customizing the order to that stage.

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>>>>>>KN Open Squadding means people go where they go, when they want, as they want while the match is open. I run a 40 person match like this every Tuesday, Rio in Phoenix does 100+, Vegas does 6 or 8 a month this way.

We had 211 shooters for this past Tuesday Night Steel. Would hate to think about getting that many shooters thru 4 stages in 5 hours using any kind of pre-defined squads. Open Squadding is da Bomb!!!

By the way, scores were posted by 9:40 that night (without PractiScore - Great Job Cheryl!). http://www.riopractical.com/text/tue_nite.pdf

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With open squadding how do you handle ROing patching and picking up brass and the final packup.

I generally have people pre-shoot, and monitor a stage. brass is picked up by competitors (theirs only) or our range staff as a perk

we leave our stages up, we control the facility.

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We try not to shoot the ROs so we don't often have to patch them. :'(

Brass and taping duties are done by the competitors using the shooting order to designate jobs. We have helpers setup and breakdown the stages. They shoot for free and have some minor compensation.

Edited by pcarst
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The question of who has paid vs registered. Pre-registration is a separate process from paying for it. It may be an option to pre-pay but in most cases, people will pay when they get to the range. If they pre-pay, then you also have to deal with refunds/credits if they don't show.

I can imagine a field on the registration record where the stats person taking the money can check when they have paid. Only then will the registration come down to the MASTER tablet which then would be available for the STAGE tablets to pull.

Currently there is no way to do that so we have already had people go to a stage without paying. Since they are in the tablet, they shoot. At the end of the day, the match reconciliation has to go thru quite a bit to find out why there are more shooters than money. I presume the new cloud match management function will have a money recon section but that paid field may help with the money function as well.

Today we are solving this by handing out shooting order cards that they only get once paid. Once the shooting order screens are implemented, we will not need the cards and we are left without a "are you paid" solution. Maybe we stamp their hands? lol

Edited by pcarst
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I don't like the part where a shooter or scorekeeper enters shooter information at each stage. First it's redundant data entry at each stage and too prone for errors and orphaned shooter stages. I'd prefer one registration entry and syncing to clients.

How would quicksync and Nooks work? Sounds like an oxymoron.

I do like the shooter order page idea.

I have shot at 1 range in the past that did open squadding and I enjoyed it...however, at my current range we do not have enough RO's to stay the day, let alone setup and teardown...so our current format is setup (day before the match), register, shoot (using stage Nooks), and teardown.

Ken, If you implemented this open squadding, would we still have the current capabilities?

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Open Squadding to me means You go to the match, they hand you your scoresheet (Old Days, obviously have to update that part) and you wander about the match and stop at stages with smaller lines, you shoot and scoot to the next stage. That is how it was explained to me. Then they always add the caveat that most guys tended to travel through the match in somewhat fixed groups, to which i have replied, "Oh, like in a Squad?" My feeling has been that you squad the shooters however you want to, either online or by allowing them to sign up as they wish or by assigning them to a squad. Then they work their way through the match in an orderly fashion. In truth I think that this is really what happens. The squads actually do form up and travel through the match. otherwise complete chaos.

So with that in mind, what is the big deal about open squadding. What you do need to be able to do is add a late shooter in such a manner that he is not lost or confused or duplicated in the match. Then you stick him onto an already existing group.

We squad everyone but we don't bother squadding them in the Nooks, we just scroll through and pick the person from the list. We know that won't work with a large match. One reason we do it is so that we have a written sheet that the squad leader can make notes on, such as DQ for Reason/Rule. Left the match early, Etc.

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After some thought, the open squadding has me spooked mainly because of an issue this past weekend. We had a steel challenge match this past Saturday and I had everyone registered and squadded, gave the match brief, and sent shooters out to shoot. One shooter showed up late and did not get in the system, but paid for the match and went with a squad. The squad leader for that squad added his name to each Nook (we used stage nooks for scoring) as they ran through the stages. At the end of the match I sync'ed all the nooks to the master tablet and verified all scores were on all stages. Then looking at overall combined scores I noticed that the walk-on person's name was entered 5 times, one score for each stage. Seems the squad leader did not enter the same person 5 times.

So not sure how it will work unless you have all your folks properly trained on match registration / primary keys fields. I would have reported the issue on bug tracker, but I think it's a user error.

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On the master, go to each different registration and adjust the "Is walk-on" switch. See info button above, but basically it will find shooters with common identifying info and merge them after confirmation.

Ken, that seems to work EXCEPT...I had the shooter in the 5 stage match as two names, two entries with a middle initial and three without. The merge process worked good for the two and the three as grouped, but when the final two tried to merge, the result wasn't was expected...I ended up with only 1 score out of 5.

I think if the "walk-on' checkbox was used from the get go, it would have merged all correctly. I think it's part of the learning process for our scorekeepers and since no extensive documentation is available, we'll get it as time goes by. I'd still rather use Practiscore than the old way. THANKS!

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