How does the auto scheduler work?

Overview

ManageMyMatch has a fully automated scheduling capability for team fixtures. For the organiser, scheduling is managed within the Scheduling tab of Manage events.

The scheduling process takes into account the following criteria:

Hard Rules - rules that are never broken

1. Fixtures are scheduled within the start and end date (inclusive) of the event (typically a season)
2. A club never hosts more than one fixture on any particular day - unless the club has set up alternate choices in Court sets for auto/speed booking under Hosted events - in which case multiple fixtures may be scheduled up to the number of alternates defined
3. A team is never involved in more than one fixture within a prescribed period in days - as set in the "No play period" in the schedule criteria.
   • Set to 1 day (the minimum possible) means no team can play on the same day
   • Set to 2 days means no team can play on the same or consecutive days
   • Set to 7 days means no team can play more often than once a week
   • If unset, the system defaults to 7 days
4. Fixtures are only allocated on permitted week-days
5. Fixtures are never scheduled on an excluded date

Rule number 2 applies for all fixtures across multiple league systems that the club might be involved in. For example, if a club is involved in two different county leagues (or A Women's and Men's league in the same county) then a schedule set in one league system will prevent the other from using that date - subject to alternate auto-book court sets.

It may be that there is not enough time to schedule all fixtures whilst adhering to these rules. In which case some fixtures are left unscheduled. The organiser is informed of unscheduled fixtures and must manually allocate a date - probably on a week-day that is not the norm.

Soft Rules - rules that the system fulfils to the best of its ability

1. Fixtures for any one team are spread evenly throughout the season with as many days between each fixture as possible
2. Home and away fixtures with the same opponent team are scheduled in opposite halves of the season
3. For any one team, home fixtures and away fixtures are alternated

Mathematically, not all soft rules can be adhered to for all teams. In fact, the more matches that need to be scheduled the harder it becomes to satisfy the soft rules (and ultimately the hard rules). The main rule casualty, you will find, is soft rule number 3. There may be quite a few situations where a team finds itself playing home or away 2, 3 or even 4 times in succession.