Series definition

Introduction

Every event or tournament has all its key features defined as a "series". This allows the event to rerun on a regular basis without having to repeat all the details of what the event is about. The series form has a large number of input fields and this article describes each one in detail. The form is arranged in several sections:

• Identifying information
• General features
• Block booking features
• Timing indicators
• Joiner settings
• Overall draw scoring
• Entrance fee
• Eligibility options
• Workflow automation
• Individual event features
• Match configuration

Each of these sections is covered as follows. For the large majority of questions, you'll find that the default answer is sufficient. You may end up only adjusting a few key fields, like name, draw type, match configuration and such like.

Identifying information

• Name - make this as terse as possible. Do not include the sport (eg, "tennis") as this is identified elsewhere. Also do not feel the need to include the club's name - the series is part of an affiliate whose name is included when events of this series are presented to the user.
• Description - Provide a sentence that gives a little more colour as to what events of this kind are about. The description is typically presented to the user in the context of them having to make a choice as to whether the event is of interest to them.
• Event group - Select a group so that this event may be presented in conjunction with others on the club's "Activities" tab in the visitors section. Groups are set up at the affiliate level (Manage affiliates, Events tab). If none are set up then this option does not appear.

General features

• Sport involved - Select one of the choices. Some choices are not sports at all, like "event" or "social" allowing for any kind of event.
• Draw type - select the type of draw that is typically prepared for each event. Some events do not involve draws in which case you should select "none". The tournament organiser can still choose different draw types so this acts as a default.
• Event does not involve individual court booking - tick this box members are not expected to book individual courts or create matches in the name of this event. For example if the event is for coaching. This option does not appear if the sport is "social" or other selection that does not involve game play.
• Maximum ladder players ahead to challenge - If you set this to any number other than zero, the event is assumed to be a ladder type whereby players get promoted and demoted in an ordered list according to their match results. Players will only be allowed to challenge others in this event who are no further up the ladder than the number specified.
• Prevent choice of non participants - for events that allow ad-hoc games (Draw type = None), players may normally nominate guests or opponents that are not joiners  as well as joiners. Checking this option will restrict the choice of opponents to only those who are already participating in the event.
• Force match results to Squash Levels - this option is only relevant for Squash and Squash 57 sports. Tick this if you want match results to be fed to SquashLevels irrespective of the users preference as to whether their match results get fed.
• Support for multiple teams or groups - tick this box if all matches are played by teams of people or you want to set up groups of people who like to play together regularly. Team or group events have a very different dynamic and will trigger functionality to create and build teams or groups for each event.
• Sell tickets to attend this event - Check if you intend to sell tickets to the event. This implies that joiners are not actual participants but spectators - so they will not be able to invite or book any matches in respect of this event. Ticket purchasers will be identified as 'joiners' to the event against which will be recorded the number of tickets bought. The maximum number of tickets allowed as well as how many each member is allowed to buy are set up on the individual event - not here on the series.

Block booking features

• Prevent block booking in the name of this event - Block booking court functionality will be unavailable - courts will only be bookable individually by members. The only other exception is where the event is a team or group type and a court set has been set against the group/team to allow for quick book capability for a session that the group leader or team captain wishes to make. In this case, the court set is so specific (typically only a few contiguous courts) the booking is permitted.
• Only allow court set restricted booking - if the above option is left unticked you can still stop bookings being made until specific times have been set up in the events tab of Manage clubs by selecting this option. This prevents organisers from being able to book any courts until the club has allocated which ones are allowable. Any court set that has been applied for auto/speed booking (set in this same page) may still be used to book courts, but only in the specific case of speed booking them in the context of a team or group.
• Charge fixed light fee for block bookings - Block bookings can attract a court fee as may be set by the club in the events tab of Manage clubs. This option is an optional additional fixed fee for the use of the lights should they be needed.
• Auto block book courts continuously - Tells the system to auto book courts as per the auto/speed booking court set applied to an event. Courts are booked in the name of the event whose period spans the booking date. If no such dated event exists on the series, then courts will not be booked.
• Days before or after block bookings to take court fee - By default, block bookers are charged for the courts the day before the booking. This means that the booker would be charged even if they made a last minute cancellation. This timing can be customised for this specific event - to either being charged earlier still, or on the day of the booking or even after the booking. A negative number is the number of days before the booking to levy the charge. Zero would indicate to charge on the same day and a positive number would incur the charge that number of days after the booking.
• Require no light confirmation (if relevant) - this is only relevant if, normally, players have to confirm the lights before play from the kiosk (A setting that is made on the court schedule under the Courts tab of Manage clubs). The effect being that the requirement for confirmation is lifted - i.e. the lights will come on without confirmation for bookings made in the context of this event.

Timing indicators

• Frequency of events - Give an indication of how often events of this series are expected to run (e.g. annually, every term). This gives users extra information so they know when to expect these events to occur.
• Give an indication of when events occur - Give a rough indication of the period(s) during which events are expected to run (e.g. Winter, June/July, Last day of the month). Again, helpful for the choosing user.
• Specific time period of events - Set this to make it easy to choose the event start and end times. For example, if the event is only ever on one day, then you can specify this so that an organiser need only choose a day rather than a time period.
• Season start & season end - give the months that mark a season from the perspective of this event. This is defaulted as January-December but it may be set to other months. This allows the system to aggregate and report on events in seasons rather than calendar year - particularly used to present results in My achievements.

Joiner settings

• All members to be automatically interested - only tick this box if you want the event to be forcibly in a members active events list in My events. It is very rare to require this but one example may be the club's AGM and you want to make sure that members can't completely ignore it! Another example is for a ladder event where non-participants can still elect to get involved from their My events page.
• No automatic entry from one event to another - tick this box if, whenever a new event of this series is created, you want to start with an empty joiners list. Otherwise, joiners are automatically entered into an event that is moved to Open stage according to their auto-sign-up preference. For regular monthly leagues this is definitely desirable. But for annual tournaments you may not want this feature as members may not be fully aware of their preference.
• Suppress logic to switch off auto-signup when no matches played. For regularly held events like  monthly leagues MMM has rules to automatically disengage players if they play no matches.  If you want to switch off this logic then select this option.
• Maximum number of joiners per event - if you wish to limit the number of joiners for each event then enter a maximum count.

Overall draw scoring

Typically, though not necessarily, box draws result in players accumulating a total score for all the matches they play in the box. This section provides two additional rules in determining a players total score and position within a draw. The section will not appear if the draw type for the series is set to "none".

• Bonus points if all matches played - Give any additional points a player (or team) would be awarded if they played all their designated matches for a particular draw.
• Ranking rule in case of a tied score - When a player ties with another for total draw score there are still rules applied as to who comes first. This allows flexibility as to what the next rule is to be. Even after this rule, a tie could still exists in which case the system will rank according to the head-to-head match between the two tied players and, if that too was a draw, the player ranked higher to start with will gain the upper slot.
• Prevent manual scoring of fixture matches. The point result of a match is inferred from the games and sets played as per Method used to score a match setting. But this rule can be overridden by setting the point score manually. The same applies for team matches whose point score is the accumulation of a set of individual matches. Setting this option ensures that the point score of a team match cannot be overridden.

Entrance fee

• Entrance fee - This is optional and the rest of the section only applies if an amount is given
• Add in all applicable discounts - Discounts are expressed as a percentage of the fee specified. The fee can be discounted in certain circumstances based on:
  • Age
  • Promptness of payment (only applies if up-front payment - see below)
  • If the member belongs to a specific club or clubs
• Require up-front payment - tick to insist on direct payment when signing up to this event. You would generally choose this option for higher priced events (over £10) and/or inter-club events. The payment circumvents member club balances and pays directly to the affiliate to which this series belongs. If the affiliate does not have a connected Stripe account payments go directly to ManageMyMatch. With up-front payment, the event is also classified as a "Programme" and can be joined from My programmes. Because a payment is required directly, only family heads (who control the account) can nominate themselves and their family members to participate - family members cannot sign up themselves.
• Club hosting payment on account - only necessary if you want to be explicit as to which club to use for member balance deductions. If not set whatever club the joiner is a member of will be the one used to debit their balance (if the member belongs to more than one club affiliated with the series, then one of them is chosen at random).
  • For up-front payments, however, this option has a very material effect. It means that the member will be given the opportunity to either pay from their balance or top up their balance to support the fee; The fee will not be applied to the affiliate or ManageMyMatch. Despite this, family members still need to be signed up by the family head. 
• Transfer payments to a specific member - only applicable if a club is specified above (Club hosting payment on account) and does not require up front payment. Specifying a member will result in payments being transferred from the joiner's club account to this member's club account thus bypassing any need to account for it as a club sale. This is useful for small member-run events that are not revenue generating activities of the club.

Eligibility options

• Assessed - tick this if you want joiners to be aware that their entry is to be considered or assessed and may be rejected (for example for competitive team events).
• Eligibility based on user status (note that you should select only one of these. If you select none then any linked user may join):
  • Club officials only - Rarely used but this will restrict joiners to club officials only - for example if the event is a club committee meeting this would be applicable.
  • Event administrators only - Rarely used and will restrict joiners to the event administrators only thus making it a relatively "private" affair.
  • Requires membership with a participating club - Only those who have an active membership subscription with one of the clubs associated with the affiliate of this series will be eligible.
  • Non members only - Only non members can sign up. This is useful for Pay&Play type situations -  i.e. visitors can book matches (with other visitors or members) in the name of this event.
• Enter new members into each event automatically - this is typically set for the "friendly" events. Any match play can only happen in the context of an event and this applies to friendly games as well. Thus a friendly series (for each sport) is typically set up and ticking this box ensures that all members are included automatically without them having to specifically sign themselves up.
• Age restrictions
  • Compare according to - set the rule that establishes the date against which a joiners age is compared.
  • Male over/under - Set the age of a male joiner and whether he needs to be under the age given or over it. Set to Over 0 to be unrestricted or under 0 to exclude males altogether.
  • Female over/under - Set the age of a female joiner and whether she needs to be under the age given or over it. Set to Over 0 to be unrestricted or under 0 to exclude females altogether.
• Anything else - This is a free-format field that is presented to joiners which may be additional guidance as to who is eligible. The system does not act on this text in any way.

Work flow automation

• Manage event work flow automatically - Set this if you want the system to automatically move an event through the workflow stages at times appropriate to the date of the event. You can refine this with:
  • Number of days events should remain in 'Open' stage - The event will be automatically moved into the open stage this number of days before it starts (plus the preparation days - see below)
  • Number of days events should remain in 'In preparation' stage - The event will be moved into in preparation this number of days before it starts
• Automatically rollover single day event - With this ticked, the system will automatically create (and book) regular events based on the booking schedule that is set up in the Events tab of Manage clubs. Essentially this enables fully autonomous execution of regular events. Note that this only applies to single day, timed events (like a club night). If you have already selected to auto block book courts in the Block booking features section, then this option is not available. By default this will assume a weekly cycle, but you can make it monthly by specifying this:
  • If a monthly event, select closest date to host each - give a date anniversary (1-31) that will determine the date on each month that an event will be automatically created.

Individual event features

This section is concerned with how each individual draw can be prepared within the tournament or league. It does not appear it the draw type of the series is "none".

• Method used to auto-sequence draws - Draws are typically prepared from a ranked list of players. How those players are ranked prior to allocating the draws is determined by this setting. Most of the choices are relevant to a league system where the methodology identifies how the results of the previous league influence the promotion and demotion of players into the subsequent set of leagues.
• Default note attached to each draw - When a tournament organiser prepares a draw they can edit a note that all participants can see in My events. For example "Leagues close at 8pm at the end of the month". The default text of this note can be set up here and the organiser always has the option to change it for each draw they prepare.
• Restrict size of each draw - When preparing draws in a league or a segmented tournament this number will ensure a set of draws (e.g. leagues) will be created whereby each one is no larger than the given number of players.
• Average # matches a participant can expect - this is for guidance for the system, especially when it comes to planning and arranging matches in a number of events. If the system knows how many matches a player can generally expect to play by entering into the event it can adjust the appetite for other matches in the same time frame.
• Default name for draws - Used when the size of each draw is restricted. Each draw will be given a name with [n] replaced by the draw sequence number. Used for leagues so that we end up with, for example, League 1, League 2, League 3 etc for each box league (this would be achieved by entering "League [n]")
• Set up a default set of expected draw names - This is a more advanced version of the previous item, "Default name for draws". Here you can set up a series of different draw names with the additional facility to insert a sequenced letter as well as a sequenced number. For example: "Top league", "[x]. Next 3 leagues","Remaining leagues [n]" would yield draw names as follows:
  • Top League
  • A. Next 3 leagues
  • B. Next 3 leagues 
  • C. Next 3 leagues 
  • Remaining leagues 1
  • Remaining leagues 2

Match configuration

This section describes how each match is played. It only appears if the event involves match play with individual court booking (setting in General features panel). There is no high-level match-play setting such as "Tennis match" or "Squash match" and thus the choices are lower level and apply to any kind of sport - some of which may appear to be superfluous for certain sports.

Games

Defines how many games need to be won to complete a set. If you select no scoring method, then the other sections (Sets and Match) are not applicable. Essentially this means that matches are never created and the courts are booked for other purposes (such as coaching sessions)

• Method(s) available to score each game - Select the scoring method of each individual game
• Doubles matches - tick if all games are doubles play
• Require games to be scored - tick this box if you want to give players the opportunity to point score every game.
• Games - give the number of games that are needed to win the set
• One clear/Two clear - Indicate how many games clear of the loser the winner must be to take the set
• Method used to score tie-breaker - this choice is only given if "Two clear" is chosen above. It implies that gaining the games needed to win does not win the set if the opponent is just one game short. But if the opponent then levels then there is a tie breaker instead of continuing play until a 2 game lead is achieved. This tie breaker may have a different scoring methodology as specified here.

Sets

Defines how many sets need to be won to complete the match

• Sets - give the number of sets that are needed to win the match.
• One clear/Two clear - usually one clear. Requiring 2 sets clear would be unusual but setting this to Two clear will create a match tiebreaker option as below.
• Decide match with tie-breaker - Displayed if Two clear chosen above. This sets in place a special match tie-breaker if the sets are level with just one set to go. Instead of playing an extra set, only an extra match is played.
• Points - only shown when the above option is ticked in which case the match is decided by tie breaker game up to the points specified here.
• One clear/Two clear - only shown in conjunction with the above and indicates if the tie breaker needs to be won with 2 points clear or 1.

Match

This defines how the score of the overall match is established

• Maximum match score - give the maximum possible score for a match. Make sure this is consistent with the scoring methodology given below.
• Bonus points for winning team match - If this is a team event then each fixture is scored as an accumulation of the individual matches played in that fixture. However by specifying a number of points here that score is augmented by this amount for the team with the most points.
• Method used to score a match - select from the preset choices as to how the score of the match is achieved.
• Recommended match/session duration - Only set this if you want match bookings to automatically include more than one booking slot. This is typically used for Tennis matches that can last a long time, yet they are booked on, say, 30 minute booking slots. In this case, if matches are expected to last 2 hours, 4 booking slots would be allocated for a match booking. This over-rides the system's inbuilt expectation per sport. Additional booking slots are only enabled if selected in the club's booking rules and on the specific court schedule.