Upgrade Suggestion

Jon and Colin,

We've started to use Sailwave for scoring this year and notice a few
things that might be improved. [This is prompted, in part, by the
question on scoring a mini-series earlier today.]

Often, one wants to show different data or score using different
criteria during the course of a series (especially a series longer than
a regatta). This can be done using Sailwave but usually requires 4 or 5
settings to be changed and then changed back (or again) later.

Sailwave is very flexible, which is a great positive, but this
flexibility creates its biggest drawback - that it is very complicated,
often too complicated for a data entry person. We've found that we need
one person with a great knowledge of Sailwave to set up a event ahead of
time. Obviously, that person cannot do every event so often is
unavailable during many events. But, once set up a "scoring clerk" who
merely enters data and presses the scoring button is all that is really
needed. The problem arises when we need to change a bunch of settings to
display different data or scoring using different criteria. That is a
real challenge for the typical "data entry clerk."

What is needed is a function that would allow one to pre-set a number of
different scoring profiles for an event. For example, we score each race
on a separate webpage so generally we use different columns when
publishing race results than when publishing series results. One could
have a profile to use when publishing race results and another to use
when publishing series results.

I think this would mean that one person could set up a number of
profiles before an event and then the "data entry clerk - scorer" would
only need to switch between profiles when publishing (and possibly
rescoring). Items to include in a scoring profile would include, for
example, which columns to show and/or publish, column order, column
titles, discard profile (including things like "discard me first" or
"Don't discard" for individual starts in races), discard formatting,
etc. I'm sure others can think of good items to include in a scoring
profile. This would make setting up a "mini-series" relatively easy and
switching between mini-series scoring and regular series scoring when
then be a breeze.

Art

Hi Art,

To some extent this already exists as you can have multiple scoring systems as long as you enable it in the User UI.

What I’m intending to do is add an additional tab to the scoring system called (Sub Series) for the want of a better name. Here you can specify which races you want to use for the sub-series, and I hopefully intend to add the ability to set default publishing parameters, which come into effect when you select this scoring system.

Do you think this would satisfy your requirements

Jon

···

Jon Eskdale
Sailwave

03333 443377

07976 709777

On 20 July 2013 23:15, Art Engel artengel123@earthlink.net wrote:

Jon and Colin,

We’ve started to use Sailwave for scoring this year and notice a few
things that might be improved. [This is prompted, in part, by the
question on scoring a mini-series earlier today.]

Often, one wants to show different data or score using different
criteria during the course of a series (especially a series longer than
a regatta). This can be done using Sailwave but usually requires 4 or 5
settings to be changed and then changed back (or again) later.

Sailwave is very flexible, which is a great positive, but this
flexibility creates its biggest drawback - that it is very complicated,
often too complicated for a data entry person. We’ve found that we need
one person with a great knowledge of Sailwave to set up a event ahead of
time. Obviously, that person cannot do every event so often is
unavailable during many events. But, once set up a “scoring clerk” who
merely enters data and presses the scoring button is all that is really
needed. The problem arises when we need to change a bunch of settings to
display different data or scoring using different criteria. That is a
real challenge for the typical “data entry clerk.”

What is needed is a function that would allow one to pre-set a number of
different scoring profiles for an event. For example, we score each race
on a separate webpage so generally we use different columns when
publishing race results than when publishing series results. One could
have a profile to use when publishing race results and another to use
when publishing series results.

I think this would mean that one person could set up a number of
profiles before an event and then the “data entry clerk - scorer” would
only need to switch between profiles when publishing (and possibly
rescoring). Items to include in a scoring profile would include, for
example, which columns to show and/or publish, column order, column
titles, discard profile (including things like “discard me first” or
“Don’t discard” for individual starts in races), discard formatting,
etc. I’m sure others can think of good items to include in a scoring
profile. This would make setting up a “mini-series” relatively easy and
switching between mini-series scoring and regular series scoring when
then be a breeze.

Art

Jon,

Interesting topic this one, as publishing is, I believe, the trickiest element to simplify. Once setup correctly, scoring of even pretty complex regattas in Sailwave is normally quite simple, and can be handled by a reasonably inexperienced scorer. Publishing though, frequently needs ancillary bits of paper, multiple passes through CTRL-P, and the switching on and off of columns to publish (e.g. handicap/rating on for handicap classes, off for one design classes). I’m not sure what it would look like, or how to manage it, but some form of publishing profile would be very handy – e.g. CTRL-SHFT-P publishes multiple results according to a profile (which might be overalls to one file, individual races to individual files, and columns on or off depending on class/fleet profile). Hence when I score, say, 10 classes on 3 courses (=3 sets of finish sheets) with mixed handicap and one design fleets, rather that 20 passes of CTRL-P (one for each class overalls and once for last race as it gets published to a different file) and switching columns on and off as appropriate, I might just do CTRL-SHFT-P once!

Ian.

···

From: Jon Eskdale

Sent: Sunday, July 21, 2013 1:31 PM

To: sailwave@yahoogroups.com

Subject: Re: [sailwave] Fwd: Upgrade Suggestion

Hi Art,

To some extent this already exists as you can have multiple scoring systems as long as you enable it in the User UI.

What I’m intending to do is add an additional tab to the scoring system called (Sub Series) for the want of a better name. Here you can specify which races you want to use for the sub-series, and I hopefully intend to add the ability to set default publishing parameters, which come into effect when you select this scoring system.

Do you think this would satisfy your requirements

Jon

Jon Eskdale
Sailwave

03333 443377

07976 709777

On 20 July 2013 23:15, Art Engel artengel123@earthlink.net wrote:

Jon and Colin,

We’ve started to use Sailwave for scoring this year and notice a few
things that might be improved. [This is prompted, in part, by the
question on scoring a mini-series earlier today.]

Often, one wants to show different data or score using different
criteria during the course of a series (especially a series longer than
a regatta). This can be done using Sailwave but usually requires 4 or 5
settings to be changed and then changed back (or again) later.

Sailwave is very flexible, which is a great positive, but this
flexibility creates its biggest drawback - that it is very complicated,
often too complicated for a data entry person. We’ve found that we need
one person with a great knowledge of Sailwave to set up a event ahead of
time. Obviously, that person cannot do every event so often is
unavailable during many events. But, once set up a “scoring clerk” who
merely enters data and presses the scoring button is all that is really
needed. The problem arises when we need to change a bunch of settings to
display different data or scoring using different criteria. That is a
real challenge for the typical “data entry clerk.”

What is needed is a function that would allow one to pre-set a number of
different scoring profiles for an event. For example, we score each race
on a separate webpage so generally we use different columns when
publishing race results than when publishing series results. One could
have a profile to use when publishing race results and another to use
when publishing series results.

I think this would mean that one person could set up a number of
profiles before an event and then the “data entry clerk - scorer” would
only need to switch between profiles when publishing (and possibly
rescoring). Items to include in a scoring profile would include, for
example, which columns to show and/or publish, column order, column
titles, discard profile (including things like “discard me first” or
“Don’t discard” for individual starts in races), discard formatting,
etc. I’m sure others can think of good items to include in a scoring
profile. This would make setting up a “mini-series” relatively easy and
switching between mini-series scoring and regular series scoring when
then be a breeze.

Art