Dealing with all of the changes really played havoc with our meet preparation.  Even though I’ve made it really easy for parents to scratch their swimmers (e-mail, web site, and text message), we still have a fair number of no-shows.  It was bad enough the last couple weeks that I’ve decided I want to track it.

I plan to add an option to the Opt-In/Opt-Out system which will allow a user with the proper permissions to go back and mark swimmers as No-Shows.  This will show up on the Opt-In/Opt-Out reports as a new section.  I’ll probably put it right at the top.  I am hoping this will help us track our repeat offenders and they will make a better effort to let us know when they are not swimming.

The time stamp for opt-in/opt-out is now included when generating a swim meet report.  The time stamp can also be displayed via the short code by adding “timestamp=’y'” to the short code.  Reporting the time stamp will allow you to easily see exactly when users submitted their request.

1. It is now possible to export a single swimmer’s record to CSV of SDIF.  When a single swimmer is selected, the exported file will contain the information for just that swimmer.  When no swimmers are selected, the entire roster will be exported.  Single swimmer SDIF export is useful for importing late additions into WinSwim which is something I’ve had to do a few times this week.
2. The LSC Registration Pyramid (SDIF) can now be generated using the Age Group Age (computed base on cut off date) instead of the swimmer’s true age.  By default the real age is exported which is what wp-SwimTeam has done traditionally.  If you want to use the computed Age Group Age, change the setting on the SDIF Profile tab from the Options menu.

A new version, v0.2.486, of wp-SwimTeam is available for download from the Download page.

1. Open or Close the registration system. When the registration system is open, users can register their swimmers for the current season.  When the registration system is closed, only an Admin or Editor can register swimmers.  This setting appears on the Registration tab from the Options sub-menu.
2. Enable or disable user sign ups for jobs. When the job system is set for user sign ups, a user can sign up for any open job.  When the job system is set for admin sign up, users with either Admin or Editor roles can sign users up for jobs.  This second mode is good for teams where a paper or Excel list is used for job sign ups.  This setting appears on the Swim Team tab from the Options sub-menu.

Please let me know if you have any problems with this version.  I’ve done a fair amount of testing and I have it up and running on the MacDolphins web site.

The jobs module introduces two new short codes:

• wpst_job_descriptions
• wpst_meet_job_assignments

Example usage of these two new short codes can be found on the wp-SwimTeam demo site here and here.

There is also a new release of the phpHtmlLib plugin which wp-SwimTeam requires available.  This build addresses a minor issue exposed in Wordpress 3.0 beta testing.

Hopefully the new Jobs module will be helpful for your team, I know it will be helpful for mine!

I had a chance to show this to the woman who coordinates volunteers for the MacDolphins and she was pretty excited about it.  It should make her job much easier and it will also make it much easier for parents to know when they have signed up to volunteer.

I want to do a little more testing on it before I release it but I am pretty confident it is working pretty well.

1. Define a job – title, description, duration, etc.
2. Allocate a job to a season or to one or more swim meets.  This action connects a job to a specific season or meet and defines the number of positions required.
3. Assign job ownership.  This can be done by either the administrator or by end users themselves.  End users cannot assign themselves jobs which are already assigned to another user.  An administrator can change the assignment of a job from one person to another.  Job assignment can be performed in couple different ways:
• Full or Partial Season long jobs can be assigned from the Seasons tab.
• Full or Partial Meet long jobs can be assigned from the Swim Meets tab.
• A specific job can be assigned from the Jobs tab.

The Swim Meet Report has been enhanced to include a Job Assignment section and a new short code has been defined to allow a meet specific job report to be added to a page or post easily.  The wp-SwimTeam demo site will be updated shortly to show some of the new features.

While I may not care for Hy-Tek or their products, the fact is they have a dominant market share and a lot of teams use Team Manager, Meet Manager, or both.   I was  contacted this week by a high school coach who was looking for some SDIF assistance in getting his roster into Meet Manager.  Now I don’t have access to Meet Manager but I do have pretty good understanding of the SDIF specification so I was able to help him out with some example SDIF files.

In the process of helping him out I came across an old e-mail regarding importing a roster into Meet Manager.  At the time I was interested in Team Manager so didn’t give it a lot of thought.  Looking at the old e-mail I realized that if it worked, I could export the file format very easily from wp-SwimTeam.  I went ahead an implemented it, now I am looking for someone to try it out.

Sample Reports

The zip file above contains three versions of the same roster – CSV, SDIF (.sd3), and Meet Manager Registration (.re1).  Extract the Meet Manager Registration file from the zip file.  It is an ASCII file that contains swimmers records, one per line with the following fields delimited by semicolons:

1. Registration number
2. Last name
3. First name
4. Middle initial
5. Sex
6. Birthdate
7. Club abbreviation
8. Club name
9. Preferred first name
10. ?? – unknown what this last field is; it’s always “N” in the examples provided

To import the file into Meet Manager, follow these steps:

1. Set up a new meet database.  You only need to go through the first setup screen, the one where you put in the meet name, date, and length of course.  To make my particular file work, select “USA Swimming” for the ID format.  If you have something other than USA Swimming numbers for swimmer labels, select “Other”.  Normally, for a kids’ meet, you’d select “USA Swimming” for the ID format or “Other” if you are not using USA Swimmer numbers for simmer labels.
2. From the main Meet Manager menu, select “FILE”
3. Select “IMPORT”
4. Select “REGISTRATION FILE”
5. Locate and choose the .RE1 file that contains the roster.

After completing these steps, go to the “Athletes” screen in Meet Manager.  The swimmers contained int he RE1 file should bYou should see all of the athletes’ names that you saw in the RE1 file.

If this works for you, please leave a comment!

At this point I am able to define jobs, allocate a job and quantity required against a swim meet and make some refinements of the allocation. I also have the beginning of the assignment to a specific user GUI done but not the backend functionality. I am optimistic that I may finish a first pass this weekend.