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Draw Creator - Concepts

A fixture type defines a template used for creating a draw of matches according to the defined pattern. To view the pattern or fixture template that will be followed for a given Fixture Type you can click on the "More Information" link next to the Fixture Type drop down box

The most common pattern to follow in team based fixtures is a simple round robin or what's called a "Standard Round Robin" fixture template within the Draw Creator. This is basically where every team plays other teams in the grade once before playing them again and where possible a team alternates between being the home team or away team for each match. The fixture template for this looks like this:

The numbers above will correspond to the seeds of the teams as set in the Draw Creator Seed page or Team Settings page

A fixture template will be defined for differing numbers of teams within a grade, i.e. 8 Team Grade, 10 Team Grade etc. The draw creator will choose the correct template automatically based on the number of teams in the grade (teams with an odd number of teams and hence a BYE will be rounded up to the next even number). If the grade does not have the correct number of teams for the selected fixture template then the error below will be displayed: 

In more advanced fixture templates a "Pairs" table may be defined as below for the built in "Enhanced Round Robin" fixture type.

The pairs table defines what pairings of seeds can be used across grades to avoid venue shares. So if Team A and Team B in grades Grade A and Grade B share the same grade Team A could be given seed=1 in Grade A and Team B would be given seed=2 in Grade B and using the Enhanced Round Robin fixture template above the teams would not play at "Home" in the same round number.

For knockout fixtures the fixture template looks like this:

As you can see Seeds 1 & 2 are at the opposite ends of the draw so would meet in the Final if they won all their matches.

If you have your own fixture template that you would like to use you can contact support  and arrange for it to be loaded so that it appears in the "Fixture Type" drop down box on the Start page of the Draw Creator.

Match Types

A match type defines properties of the match, for example:

  • The overall duration of the match.
  • The number of periods of play and the length of each period.
  • The scoring format for the match.
  • Any limiting factors for how the match is played, such as the number of overs for cricket.



How to guide for your competition situation

Standard weekly fixture (round robin)

Most weekly team sports will follow this format where teams play each other (usually) once per season in a home and away style format. Typically they play at their home ground/venue for one week and then play at the oppositions ground/venue the following week.

To create a draw for this competition:

  1. Select the teams that are in the grade via the Allocate Teams to Grade screen.
  2. Go to the Team Settings page and define a default home ground for each of the teams (also set the default start time for teams that require it, and set the Draw Seed if you need to control the order of matches).
  3. Start the Draw Creator and select Round Robin as the Draw Type and select a fixture template from the Fixture Type dropdown box (Standard Round Robin will suffice for most situations).
  4. Set the Venue Allocation method to Use default home grounds.
  5. Set other settings as required on the Start page and pages that follow.
  6. Submit the draw.

Byes are automatically added to the fixture if an odd number of teams exist for the given grade.

 

Standard tournament (knockout)

Most tournaments will follow a knockout style of draw where the winner of a match progresses and the loser is knocked out of the competition and takes no further part. More often than not, the matches take place over the course of days or weeks at a central venue as opposed to playing matches at the home team default home venue.

To create a draw for this competition:

  1. Select the teams that are in the grade via the Allocate Teams to Grade screen.
  2. Go to the Team Settings page and define the seeds for each team. Using the Standard Knockout Fixture, seeds can be defined such that if matches go according to rank, the highest ranked teams will not meet each other until the latter stage of the tournament. 
    For example seeds 1 & 2 won't play each other until the FINAL. Seeds 1, 2, 3 or 4 won't meet each other until the SEMI-FINALS and so on. See Fixture Types above.
  3. Start the Draw Creator and select Knockout as the Draw Type and select a fixture template from the Fixture Type drop down box (Standard Knockout will suffice for most situations).
  4. Set the Venue Allocation method to Specify venues for all matches (or one of the other options if you are playing matches at a teams home venue).
  5. Set other settings as required on the Start page.
  6. On the venue selection page, choose the venues to be played at and the allocation method required.
  7. Submit the draw.

Byes will be added to the fixture to round up the number of teams to the highest power of 2 (16, 32, 64 etc).
For example, if you create a knockout fixture with 28 teams, then 4 byes will be added (to take the number to 32) and therefore 4 teams will have a bye through to the 2nd round.

The teams in the matches after round 1 of a knockout fixture are set to "TBA" as the teams in the matches after round 1 depend on who wins those matches. The system will automatically enter the winning teams into the next round of matches after the current round result has been entered and made official.

 

 

When the draw is submitted and accessible via the public pages, knockout fixture types will display extra options for viewing the page as below:

 

The Tournament View option will display the page layout as below, while the detail view displays the page more like a standard draw.

 

Tournament with group phase (grade pools)

Another common tournament or competition structure is where teams are grouped into "Pools" within a grade in such a way as they are ranked within their pool when displaying ladders as below. 

When creating a draw, the matches created will have teams playing each other within their own pool. The system can also facilitate matches between teams in different pools that can be created via the Edit Draw screen or via the use of the Manual Enter Matches feature of the Draw Creator.

Usually at the end of the Pool or Group phase of the competition, finals are played between the top ranked teams in each pool.

To create a draw for this competition:

  1. Select the teams that are in the grade via the Allocate Teams to Grade screen.

  2. Within the Grades/Ladders configuration, set up the pools for the applicable grade and season via the Pools tab.

    If Match Formats are in use, separate pool groups can be set up for each Match Format. In this case, it is assumed that each round of the fixture will only include matches that have the same Match Format (i.e. each round should not have more that one Match Format).

    The usual case is to set up one Pool Group that applies for all Match Formats within the fixture, in which case each round can have a mixture of Match Formats if required.

    Ladders have to be set up separately and configured to use the Pool Group(s) you have created in order to display pool information.

  3. Start the Draw Creator and select Round Robin as the Draw Type and select a fixture template from the Fixture Type drop down box (Standard Round Robin will suffice for most situations).
  4. Set the number of finals rounds according to how many playoff rounds there will be.
  5. Set other settings as required on the Start page and progress through the Draw Creator as required.
  6. Submit the draw and you are done.

Multiple grades at one time

A really powerful feature of the Draw Creator is its ability to create draws for multiple grades at the same time.

For example, if you have a competition structure that plays the same number of rounds on the same dates across multiple grades, even if there is a differing number of teams allocated to those grades, you can create draws for them all at one time.

In multiple grade mode, the Draw Creator will disable some screens such as the Seeding screen so that these will need to be set up before creating the draw via the Team Settings page.

To create draws for multiple grades, simply select multiple grades from the left-hand listbox and use the arrows to select them into the right-hand listbox.

Grades with the same teams and fixtures

Often an organisation will run a number of grades that comprise the same teams and same fixtures but where one of the grades has a slightly earlier start time or different venue. This procedure follows closely to that above in that you will be creating draws for multiple grades at once.

The same outcome here can be achieved by using the Copy Draw screen , and in some situations it will be easier and quicker to achieve as it will automatically copy the teams from the source grade to the new grade.

 

To create these draws:

  1. Select the teams of the first grades via the Allocate Teams to Grade screen.
  2. Go to the Team Settings page and enter the seed number, default home venue and default start time for teams that require it (it is very important here to set the Seed number for these teams to ensure the Seed is not randomly allocated by the draw creator).
  3. Go back to the Allocate Teams to Grade screen for the second and subsequent grades and use the Copy data from another grade or season at the bottom of this screen to copy the teams and settings from the first grade.

  4. Go to the Team Settings page for each of the grades and adjust the default home venue and default start time for teams that require it. 

    You will notice that the seed number will be set as the same as the first grade after the copy and it is important not to change this.

  5. Start the Draw Creator and click on the Select Multiple Grades link next to the grade drop down box and the page display will be changed to that above.
  6. Select the grades you wish to create draws for by holding down the CTRL key while clicking on the grade names.
  7. Set other settings as required on the Start page and progress through the Draw Creator as required (the Seeding page and Edit page will not display).
  8. On the Review/Submit page, the first listed grade is displayed so you can get an idea of what the draw will look like for all grades.
  9. Submit the draw.

Grades with the same teams but reverse fixtures

This is also a common competition format and is typical of where the basic fixtures will be the same but the home and away teams will be reversed for one or more selected grades.

For example, the Seniors may play at home in a given round and the Reserves play away in the same round to avoid a venue clash.

To create these draws the Copy Draw function must be used with the Reverse option selected for the draws to be copied. 

Grades with multiple team entries from the same organisation

Occasionally a grade will need to contain two teams from the same organisation (club). In this case, there needs to be a way to distinguish these teams wherever the draw, match or ladder is displayed. This is achieved by using the options in the Team Settings page to designate different display and media names for the teams.

Adding multiple teams from the same organisation is done via the Allocate Teams to Grade screen. On the left hand side of the screen, a list of organisations that can add teams to the grade is displayed. Simply add the same organisation as many times as required.

When adding the same organisation name, a message will be displayed at the bottom of the screen as follows:

 


You will then be required to change the Team (Display) Name and Team Media Name in the Team Settings page so that the teams from the same organisation have different names. Otherwise, on Update, the following error message will display:

 

In the example below there are two teams in this grade entered from Hampton and the user has named them "Hampton Blue" and "Hampton Black". The Team (Display) names must be unique. 

Fixtures with venue/ground shares

Where you have teams in the same grade or across multiple grades that share a home venue, you need to ensure that they are alternating match by match as either the home or away team to avoid scheduling at the same venue at the same time.

The Draw Creator can accommodate this via a built-in Fixture Type of Enhanced Round Robin. See Fixture Templates above for more information on this.

To create these draws:

  1. Select the teams that are in the grade(s) via the Allocate Teams to Grade screen.
  2. Go to the Team Settings screen and define a default home ground for each of the teams (also set the default start time for teams that require it, and set the Draw Seed if you need to control the order of matches).
  3. Start the Draw Creator and select Round Robin as the Draw Type and select a fixture template from the Fixture Type dropdown box (Enhanced Round Robin will suffice for most situations).
    Click on the More information link next to the fixture type dropdown box and select the Enhanced Round Robin fixture type. Take note of the "Pairs" table for each team entry situation.
  4. Set the Venue Allocation method to Use default home grounds.
  5. Set other settings as required on he Start page and pages that follow.
  6. Submit the draw.

Custom fixture templates

This is similar to topic Standard weekly fixture (round robin) or Standard tournament (knockout) but it is where you want to use your own custom fixture template to create the draw.

Simply contact support requesting the uploading of your template and then the next time you create a draw it will be listed in the Fixture Type list as either a Round Robin or Knockout type.