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.
The match defines properties of the match that may be used in different parts of the system at various times. For instance the following items may be defined as part of different match types:
Most weekly team sports will follow this format where teams play each other (usually) once per season in a home and away style format. Such that for one week they play at their home ground/venue and then the next they play at the oppositions ground/venue. To create a draw for this competition:
Byes are automatically added to the fixture if an odd number of teams exist for the given grade.
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 the the home team default home venue. To create a draw for this competition:
Byes will be added to the fixture to round up the number of teams to the highest power of 2 (16, 32, 64 etc). So that is you create a knockout fixture with 28 teams then 4 byes will be added and therefore 4 teams will have a bye through to the 2nd round.
Note: The teams in the matches after round 1 of a knockout fixture are set to "TBA" as of, or course, 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 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 lay the page out as below while the detail view displays the page more like a standard draw.
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 which 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:
Within the Grades/Ladders configuration, setup the pools for the applicable grade and season via the Pools tab.
Note: that if Match Formats are in use, separate pool groups can be setup 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 (ie each round should not have more that one Match Format).
The usual case is to setup 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.
Note: Ladders have to be set up separately and configured to use the Pool Group(s) you have created in order to display pool information.
A really powerful feature of the Draw Creator is its ability to create draws for multiple grades at the same time. For instance 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 then 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 setup before creating the draw via the Team Settings page.
To create draws for multiple grades simply select multiple grades from the left hand list box and use the arrows to select them into the right hand list box
Often an organisation will run a number of grades which consist of 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.
NOTE: 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:
This is also a common competition format and is typical of where the basic fixtures will be the same but for one of the grades the home and away teams will be reversed. This is where 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 Reserve option selected for the draws to be copied. Please see the help page for Copy Draw.
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 easy and is done via the "Allocate Teams to Grade" screen. On the left hand side for the screen will be a list of organisations that can add teams to the grade. Simply add the same organisation as many times as required.
When this happens 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 saving this screen you will see the error message below:
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 name can be whatever you like as long as they are different.
Where you have teams in the same grade or across multiple grades that share a home venue you therefore 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 its built in Fixture Type of "Enhanced Round Robin". See Draw Creator - Concepts - Fixtures TypesTemplates for more information on this.
To create these draws:
This is similar to topic one 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.