Feature Requests

[Brian Agee]

Many of the great features in the software can be credited to ideas presented by users of the system. I'm always happy to make modifications or add features that I feel that everyone would benefit from. This post will allow everyone to discuss (and vote up) the changes they would like to see in the next update.

I often get asked to add all kind of features that would make the system better suited for other types of events (roller blade races, horse races, RC car races, cycling events, aquatic races, and many other types of events). When making a request it's important to keep the following in mind:

• Majority rules.
• Enhancements that benefit the greatest number of people are obviously a higher priority.

• I'm very careful about what I add to the system.
• The vast majority of customers use the system only for running events. I'm very careful about making changes that might add confusion or get in the way for those that use it only for running events. Keeping the system simple and easy to use is the only way I avoid getting swamped with support as the number of customers grow. Since I don't charge any kind of yearly fees, keeping the support down is essential for continued development.

• Just because you can easily explain it, doesn't mean it's easy to program.
• Even though a request may seem small, it may not be easy to develop. I have to carefully consider where (and how) to add the new feature, how it should work, and I have to make sure I handle every possible scenario that someone might try to use that new feature. So even though a request might seem small, it might require a complete re-write of major sections of code and changes to one or more reports. I have to think about your request on a much broader scale than just how you need it to work for your races.

Please reply to this question if you have a request that you feel others would benefit from. I'll keep an eye on which request receives the greatest number of votes and I'll see what I can do to get that feature included in the next update. Thanks!

[nicholas.r...@gmail.com]

I would like it if you could have the Results Kiosk window work on a separate (touchscreen) monitor on the same computer as the timing is running on, if thats possible.  I see people talking about all sorts of ways to shuttle the data from their timing computer over to a results computer.

[Kevin]

XPost from another post but please ignore that one. This thread is a better place for it.

I've been playing with Runsignup quite a bit this week and it really seems to greatly enhance our capabilities overall. The one aspect that's really neat but still somewhat under serves our events is the live scoring capability. I think it's a pretty easy fix though.

For multiple lap events live scoring doesn't show anything until all laps are completed. We really could use an interim/ongoing live results available on the web (as well as on site reports). My request is an option to show/upload/utilize "Last Seen" data instead of "Finish Time" in that export group. Also including completed laps would be nice but I think that would be a Runsignup issue for the web posting as well where Last Seen is just handled on the Agee side.

[rprout]

In some of the XC meets I have been timing this year I am getting 5th and 6th grade runners. Would it be possible to add that to the list or change the Class to 5-12 numerically or have an option for either/or.

[Peak Performance Timing]

I also like that idea, but there needs to be a provision for College years too. So maybe 5-12 and also fresh, soph, Jr, Sr.

[Ohio Race Day]

Here is a recent post by Brian Agee regarding the same topic.  Update your software and see if it may have already been fixed.

I just pushed a new update out that allows you to select grades K - 8th grade and of course "FR - SR" (which can be used for HS or College events).

I also added some text at the top of the Roster that explains what the "*" next to each person's name.

[rtspt.usa]

i always try to avoid other tasks being done on the primary timing machine.. too condition critical.

Using Dropbox as a shared backup is one of the safest.

[reece.bell]

I would love to have 2 things

1. When in team mode the reports put all of the athletes mixed and if you want them by team you have to do 1 team at a time. Would be nice to have a report that prints all team rosters on a separate page. I'm timing a race on Tuesday with 20 high school teams. I have to go through 1 by 1 to print each teams roster.

2. The software to score double duals. The meet I am doing is 1 big dual meet. The team wanted to focus on invitationals and training so on Tuesday they run 1 race. I score it out as separate dual meets, but I have to use another software product.

[Ohio Race Day]

See the screen shot.  The roster will sort by team.  But, you are right.  You have to print each team separately.

[rprout]

One way to do it in Agee's software is after the race is run and you have all the times go back to the race screen where you set it up. Duplicate the race multiple times and go into the athletes screen and delete athletes so you have 2 teams left, then score it. Do the same with the other copies till you have all the duals you want and the entire meet.

[Run Roanoke]

Would it be possible to just print overall and age group results with just runners, walkers, and wheelchair and not have them mixed in. Also would be it possible to rename instead of walker runner or WC to what ever group we want to call them.

[rtspt.usa]

hmmm. been thinking how cool would it be to have one of Thinkify's dongle readers being used at the end or mid way in the corral to keep track of all finish reads (instead of having someone writing them down) and have it synced with the database so if there is a missed read at the finish the handheld device displays it as red or some other notation so you know who to look for if you are running a back up video?

[Scovel Racing]

1) In reports: It would be nice to be able to hit one button to print rosters for all teams in a race, it was time consuming printing lists for all the xc teams
2) Would it be possible to have an option to remove the "Laps 1"....."Line through = Disqualified" on the reports, seems like the majority of the races I wont be needing to display this information.

Best Regards,

[ActiveIndy Events]

When using the system manually (hitting spacebar to record times and then typing in bib numbers to assign athletes to their times), the system makes an audible "ding" each time you hit enter to assign the bib # to the time.  If you accidentally enter a bib that has already been recorded, it makes the same "ding."  Any way to have it make a different sound so it is more obvious there is an issue that needs a closer look?

Small thing - but when i get into a rhythm typing in bib numbers and not always looking right at the screen when I'm doing so it would be helpful.

[Peak Performance Timing]

I have thought the same thing.

[Ohio Race Day]

I voted up ActiveIndy because I noticed this too.  Also, I'm not a fan of the double-bling sound of the finisher chime.  They start to run together too easily with multiple space bar taps or multiple finishers.  I'd like a simple clear, single, bell or beep.

I'd also like to drive Brian nuts with these types of requests.  LOL.  Kidding.

[rtspt.usa]

would like the ability to send data via tcp/ip. either live stream of manual keystroke.

this would allow many outside things to be done especially a scoreboard out put.

[Brian Agee]

rtspt.usa is correct, it's best to have your finish line computer completely focused on the mission critical tasks at the finish line and nothing else. I've taken special care to 

make sure the Public Display, the automatic photo capture, and the quick-print features don't interfere with timing the race. It sure would stink if you had some non-essential 

task running on the primary computer that caused it to crash during the race. This is why I recommend that you disable Windows Updates, JAVA Updates, Anti-viruses, or 

anything else that could pop up during your race.

Additionally, the Results Kiosk feature will automatically try to connect to any attached RFID reader it can so that it can display the participants information as soon as they 

walk up. Only one thing can connect to the reader at a time, so if you opened the Clock screen after opening the Results Kiosk you'll find that the readers wont connect on 

the Clock screen because the Results Kiosk is currently using the reader(s).

[Brian Agee]

I love the idea, it would be fairly easy for me to impliment, but I'll need to check and see if RunSigUp has a method for deleting all finishing times for a race (or just for certain athletes). Here is why:

I'm pretty sure RunSignUp only accepts a finishing time for each athlete, if you re-submit an athletes time it will update it on RunSignUp, however whatever the last time you sent for an athlete is what is shown on RunSignUp. So the problem arises when you submit a split time for someone that drops out of the race before the finish. The person that dropped out would probably show as first place on RunSignUp since their first split time was not deleted or updated since the person never finished the race. I'll look into this some more and see what we can do. I bet we can get it working. :)

[Kevin]

I think laps completed tied into a "finishing time" would take care of it on Runsignup but I haven't found  a laps data field yet.

[pbti...@gmail.com]

Like the forum very informative. One request I have & it's been driving me nuts! Is there anyway we could have a European setting (I'm in Scotland) for entering the date & month, the convention here is dd/mm/yy

no matter how many times I tell the person entering the information it's American format they tend to forget under the pressure of the moment-which has led to some interesting ages when they get the convention mixed up!

Cheers Tony

[Kevin]

Tony, I avoid entering date of birth whenever possible. I just enter age and it auto populates a 1/1 date of birth for the appropriate year. DOB takes too long to enter day of.

[ActiveIndy Events]

I noticed the other day that downloading your pre-loaded results reports after a race has been completed - it shows the finishing times out to the thousands of a second.  I don't think that digit is significant, but short of reconfiguring the report in Excel I don't see any way to only show the finishing time to the tenth or hundreth.  Any reason why you have the report set up to show thousanths?  If not, any chance you'd be willing to adjust it back to tenths or hundreths?

[PCRT Tech]

I notice that you can now add and/or modify the athletes' information in the add athlete dashboard window while the window for the Time Race! clock is displayed. Yet, once you activate the any of the fields (last name, first name, gender, age) to begin typing, you can no longer assign times in the race. Can you make it so that you still assign times in the Time Race! window while simultaneously adding/modifying an athlete? Hope my feature request makes sense.

[Peak Performance Timing]

I agree with this. I think the times should show hundredths but not thousandths in reports... I would still like to see the times to thousandths in the timing window, to add in close finishes for order, maybe a option could be added to allow us to choose to round to the decimal that we chose.

[Brian Agee]

A lot of good ideas in here. 

I've already got the Team Rosters report done, but I'm going to try and add in some of the other things mentioned in this thread before I make it available to download. I've got three races to time tomorrow, but I think I can finish everything up after church on Sunday and have it available to download Sunday evening or Monday morning. Of course I'll let everyone know what all is included in the update. Thanks!

[Scovel Racing]

A couple ideas/requests

1) Minor Request: It would be nice if the Race selection menu in the athlete information screen was roughly 50% longer (or have it based on the race title length). Reasononing: The distance and/or sex seems to always be hidden and when doing multiple event races it would be nice to see that the athlete hasn't accidentally been changed without having to hit the drop down to check. There seems to be plenty of room, even minimizing the screen down to a small size the last name field has plenty of room.

2) Assigning bibs: This might be a bit of programming, but a nice feature. Have the assign chips load in that same screen(temporarily replacing the OPTIONAL FIELDS area until its turned off/unchecked, instead of a popup window), then instead of automatically going to the next consecutive number, have it auto scroll through the list of athletes because bib numbers might not be consecutive. People assigning chips would now have all the info about who the bib goes to right in front of them without having to back out and scroll down if they need to know something. Then if they switch races, have it automatically switch race ID so that one can program an entire multi event race in one sitting.

[Brian Agee]

I haven't pushed it out to the website, but here is what I've added so far:

1. I like the idea of using different sounds to indicate possible problems. So I made it where you'll hear one sound every time the space bar is pressed, another sound when a number is successfully entered (or a successful tag read), and a different sound when you try to enter a bib number that already exists (or if a tag is read that shows up as "Unassigned").

2. Thinkify released a new TR200 recently. The good news it appears to automatically install it's device drivers now. The bad news is that the software didn't auto-discover it. So I had to make some changes in the code so that it will continue to auto-discover the old TR200 and the new TR200. That is now complete and working perfectly. I'm waiting on word back from them to see if anything else significant has been improved. As I'm writing this I just did a very basic quick test and it appears the read distance is about the same as the 'older' TR200.

3. I increased the size of the Race Name field on the Open Race screen.

4. I added a "Team Rosters" option under the list of available Roster types.

I'm working on a change to the RunSignUp interface that will allow the software to request that all finishing times on the event page be wiped out before uploading new finishing times. This will help ensure the website always matches what's in the software and it should give you basic functionality of publishing results periodically throughout the race from different split points on the course without worrying about a time getting left on the website if the participant didn't finish the race.

Finally, this weekend there seems to have been a few of you that had poor read rates. I plan on going through each of the messages and explaining what the culprit(s) could have been. Our crews timed three races this past weekend. We had around 95 participants in the first race (5K), around 400 in the second race (5K), and around 200 in the third race (2 mile). A new customer from (who's a member of this forum) stayed the weekend in Jonesboro and watched us time two of the races (the 95 participant and the 200 participant races because they were closest). Here is how it went:

It was very humid (occasional light mist) in the first race and we easily got 100% read rate.

The second race was in Horn Lake Mississippi and my head timer reported that there was a couple of people who didn't wear their tags, but for those that did wear the tags we got 100%.

The third race got 100% read rates also, however we had two very minor hiccups that occurred that I wanted to share so that you know how to handle them:

1. When registering one girl the system told me that she was already in the system, but with a different bib number. So I simply entered her information in, but I put a "2" after her last name. This way it wouldn't matter which bib she came across the finish line with.

2. The race director had sent us a file where ~15 people didn't have an age or DOB entered. I guess my head timer didn't notice this. She says that she sent us an updated one, so either my head timer didn't import it or she never sent it to us. Thankfully this was caught before the awards were announced and she helped us quickly enter their correct ages and we printed results right away.

[Brian Agee]

I decided to go ahead and push the update out with the features I listed a few minutes ago in case some of you want to go ahead and try them out. You can get it by using the "Free Trial" link on my website. You do not have have to click on the "Upgrade Your Software" button in the Options screen (this removes your temporary license key), simply download and run the installer using the "Free Trial" link.

I also heard back about the new TR200. It looks like it is now "plug and play" and here is what they said about any performance improvements:

"As far as the new version of the TR200, I think you'll find it's more sensitive reader with faster read rates.  The older TR200 pretty much maxed out at 190 tags per second with the new reader in the high 200's per second (about 30% faster), and where as before we were getting about 1.5 meters of read rang with the original version, we're seeing as much as two to three meters with the new readers."

I'll test it out quiet a bit and let you know if I see any noticeable difference over the older models. I LOVE the older model, so as long as it performs just as well then I'll be happy.

I mentioned before that a new customer stayed in Jonesboro and joined us in timing some the events we had. He did most of the work during registration at the first race and at the second race he set up most of the hardware. So I wanted to make it clear that anyone is more than welcome to joins us at any of our races. I'll make sure you're well fed, well trained, and hopefully while you're here we can get a run in together. Just let me know what weekends you'd like to come down and I'll let you know what our race calendar looks like.

[pinhoti100]

 I was the guy that had the awesome opportunity to hang out in AR this past weekend!!. Everything Brian said is true: First things first- we got in a run Friday evening on some local trails which I was looking forward to all day after driving 6+ hours :-) He fed me multiple times till my gut was more than content!! Thank you for the hospitality Brian.

Most importantly the hands on training was worth trip. Being present from the beginning from Race Day Registration process to the start and all throughout the race till the end I believe will play a huge benefit to my success in the timing business. Being on site to see the 100% read rates was spectacular. Not that I doubted for a second I was going to see 100% read rates but it was great seeing 100s of runners getting all their chips read. I have personally only had the opportunity before the visit to AR to time nightly group runs with less than 20 runners getting 100% read rates of course. So seeing many many more runners was very cool indeed!

This is my passion as a runner, race director and timer and that’s why I took the initiative to head up and see Brian. Huge benefit! So I would urge anyone that is having any difficulty to do the same because I guarantee you - there is a solution. :-)

My best wishes to everyone here on the group

[Brian Agee]

I just pushed a new update out that has some bug fixes that were reported (see the Bug Report thread) and it has two other significant changes:

1. When you click "Publish Results" (F9) on the Clock screen it will now wipe out all previously submitted times on RunSignUp for that race before submitting all of the finishing times again. This will help ensure that the results on RunSignUp match what is in the software. Prior to this update, if you submitted a finishing time for an athlete and you later needed to remove that time there was no way to do this in the software.

2. While testing the software today I found a bug that I hope nobody has triggered on race day. It's something that looks like it's always been in the code because of what I believe is a glitch in the Microsoft .net Framework. This is what I found:

If you open the Clock screen, click on "Start Listening", minimize the Clock screen, and then close the Open Race screen (which in turn closes the Clock screen since it's a MDI child of the Open race sreen) then the "Closing" event of the Clock screen (which tells the readers to disconnect) was not being called for some reason. This causes the readers to remain in a "listening" state with no way for the software to re-establish a connection to the reader until you reboot the reader(s) attached to the computer.

This of course has been fixed and is available on the website now. 

[tiberiu.gindu]

I would like to flag somehow the manually input records.

For example: if I am timing a race and notice an athlete was not read, I am adding him manually (space bar + number). At the end of the race I'd like to be able to rapidly identify who were the manually inserted records/athletes.

[tiberiu.gindu]

Hi Brian,

I've been in the situation you described above: "...This causes the readers to remain in a "listening" state with no way for the software to re-establish a connection to the reader until you reboot the reader(s) attached to the computer."

I realized the system was frozen - even though athletes were crossing the finish line (and the 4 connection indicators were green) - no readings were recorded. At that time I suggested you to make the software proactively test the connection each few minutes (if possible).

Tibi

[Lamont Hayes]

Is there a way to make the software read certain tags for certain races without having to program each tag for that race? I know that Jaguar will allow you to read a certain range of tags per race. That would allow you to program them once when you buy them and be done.

[Ohio Race Day]

@Lamont Hayes,
Once you program your tags for any race they can be used for any future races.  Let's say you program 100 tags from 1-100.  Those tags can be used for any race that uses that series of bib numbers 1-100.  You would just need to keep track of the tags when you collect them after a race.  If you want those tags to only be used for a "specific" race then you can program them that way too but they won't read for any future race without being re-programmed.  But having the software manage that would be nice.

[Lamont Hayes]

That is what I do. Running 4 XC races Thursday and programmed 4 sets of tags. Our course is not viewer friendly so we have a ton of runners hanging out around the finish line. Not to mention coaches with tags in their pockets. It took us a minute to figure out why we had 9:00 5k finishers a few weeks ago!

[rtspt.usa]

Lamont, i just had a 4 race xc meet today...similar to yours on Thursday.. start finish area is crazy...kids all over the place..

in excel i just numbered everybody as i normally do (by affil, gender, last) then sorted by event and created 4 different excel files to be imported individually in their respective events...

any changes can be handled very easily in the software.. just be aware that when you go to edit an athlete that their affiliation will default to the first school listed alphabetically.. so you will need to change that back as well.

[Scovel Racing]

Our first meet kids were constantly coming into the tent asking for their times, not a good thing when you need to be focused on the runners coming through. Yesterdays meet we roped it off and things ran a lot smoother. I'm still trying to figure out what to do with coaches and hot tags, it happens, but usually I catch it and just put a temp DQ on the runner until I check the pull tags at the end of the race.

The next meet I plan on having the coaches come to a manditory meeting before the race and instruct them in the packets to bring their extra bibs/chips. Then you can mark them all as DNS before the start of the races.

[Scovel Racing]

I just noticed this is in the Feature Request thread...
@ Myself and everyone else: Lets try to keep conversations in the appropriate topics.

[Crystal McCullough]

Email Content feature request (minor):

I like that I can email everyone from within ART, but it forces me to use my gmail account rather than my business account. Is there a way to allow me to use my business email account, or at least have a 'reply to' field in which I can put my business email rather than gmail? I really only started this gmail account for ART and for this forum; I don't need it for anything else and would rather not have to have yet another account to check.

Thanks, Brian!

Crystal

[Todd Gould]

The ability to set the number of tags to program with each bib number when using auto increment.  I generally use 2 tags for every race.  Bikes:  One on the helmet and 1 on the front fork.  Running: one on each shoe or hip.

Implement it on the checkbox:  Auto Increment Bib # after Successful Write
Change to checkbox: Auto Increment Bib # after X Successful Write(s)
Where x is a scroll box of numbers from 1 to 9.

I have to turn off the auto increment feature and program 2 tags, then type the next number in manually then program 2 tags.  Makes for a long day when programming 800 tags.

Thanks,

[tiberiu.gindu]

One vote for Todd's feature request! I fet the need for such, too.

[Peak Performance Timing]

Another vote for that from me :)

[Ohio Race Day]

As a workaround for now, can't you just program 1-500 tags (for example) and then reset the number to 1 and program 1-500 again on the second set of tags?

[geff.p...@gmail.com]

I vote for this also.  We setup tags for over 500 runners for a cross country meet this weekend and being able to change the auto increment after 2 writes would be great and save much time.

[Todd Gould]

So go through a stack of 800 numbers once attaching 1 tag to each number and then starting over and going through the stack a second time?  Pretty sure this will cost time, not save it.  However, I have not tried this so I am unsure.  We set up an assembly line of multiple people that are putting together race packets.  Number, 2 tags, 4 zip ties, goodies and advertisements. 

Ohio Race Day: do you have a better way of streamlining this process.  I am open to anything that will save time. 

[Brian Agee]

I like that idea!  Shouldn't be too hard to add too. I'll try to get that in today.

This last weekend we timed a race in Jonesboro Arkansas on Saturday morning, a 5K in Springfield IL on Saturday evening, and a Marathon, Half Marathon, 10K, and Marathon Relay on Sunday morning. As always I'm looking for ways to improve things. I'll give a full recap (with photos and videos) of the weekend soon, but I thought I'd share a couple of the features that I plan on adding in today to help ensure everything goes smoothly. 

1. The results kiosk allows you to scan a tag and it displays their information immediately. So you could have your bumblebee antenna pointing straight up so that it picks them up when they get within a few feet of the kiosk or you can do like I did and point the antenna parallel with the ground so that they have to wave the tags over the TR200 to get picked up. Functionally, this worked perfectly, however I noticed many people didn't know what to do after scanning their tags. So I plan on making it so that as soon as the tag is seen it sends their information straight to the printer without having to touch the "Print" button.

2. For those that didn't have their tags, I watched many of them type their number in, and then go down and touch "Print" without touching the "Search" button first. So I plan on removing the "Search" button and replacing it with the Print button. This make it a 2-step process instead of a 3-step process.

3. It's something I'll cover in the race recap, however I messed up capturing the chip start at the race because I closed the clock screen out before I unchecked the "Capture Chip Start" check box. As soon as the last participant passed by, all I was thinking about was turning the reader off and carrying everything back to the finish as fast as possible. I knew that when I closed the clock screen it would close the session with the reader so, in the rush that is what I did, and immediately I realized that since I didn't tell the software to store all of those starting times (by unchecking the Capture Chip Start check box) and that all of those 'last seen times' that were held in memory were gone. Capturing the chip start for this race was something we definitely wanted to do, but luckily having the results on gun start was perfectly fine with the race director. The point is, I realized that I need to have the software store those times for you if you try to close the clock screen out even if you forget to uncheck the "Capture Chip Start" check box.

I'll let everyone know as soon as these features are available to download.

[Crystal McCullough]

Bib capture sheet request.

I like that there's a slider, but I'd also like to be able to just type in a number if I know exactly how many spaces I want. Yesterday I wanted just 66 spaces in each bib capture sheet (two columns), and I was having a heck of a time getting the slider to 66 (kept going to 65, then 67, etc). 

[mstompro]

I noticed yesterday that anytime I print something from the timing software, e.g. bib capture sheet or results, it doesn't print full size on the page.  Instead it shrinks it down a bit.  See attached.  Any settings I can change to get it to bring on the full page?

[Ohio Race Day]

There are Print Layout and Page Setup settings on the "View Reports" screen.  See the screen shot.  Maybe play with those and see what changes.  If not and if you have Word or Excel, then see what your last print setting was there.  Those are the only place that I can think of to look.

[reece.bell]

Live update capability would be nice. This would allow results to be posted via FTP to a certain location automatically - say after every 10 finishers or every 2 minutes.

As of now, I have been using my internet hotspot and uploading a new pdf every 5 minutes or so. What this allows is for everyone to go to my website for the live results. This does 2 things

1. Keeps everyone away from my timing crew asking for results

2. Keeps rogue chips away from the finish line

[Kevin]

Runsignup's live results are really good for live updates. Not sure if I want auto updates on them or not...it's easy enough to publish results every few seconds if needed. I'm definitely looking forward to when/if multi lap interim results are available. That should really help with the spectator aspect of our events.

[mstompro]

Since I normally get more women than men at nearly every race, I always get shirts in both men's and women's styles/sizes.  That has been a big hit for my races.  I wish I could define my own shirt size list.  When importing my excel file to Agee I normally just list the shirt size under NOTES and leave the tshirt area as NA.  Sucky part is Notes AREN'T included in the ROSTER list for race Check-In nor is that information included on the bib labels. 

[PCRT Tech]

Is it possible for your program to import .csv files, since the majority of the third party websites allow the Race Directors to export the registration data as (dominantly) a .csv file? This would prove useful to individuals who do not have Office [or Open Office/ freeware software for that matter] or cannot get to that program in a timely fashion.

[hubbard47630]

I would love to have the option to flip the finishers list on the clock screen. That way I don't follow to scroll down to see who just crossed the line.

[PCRT Tech]

Is it possible to modify the dimensions of the window(s) in the results kiosk? In particular, to modify the window that holds the search numeric keypad so that only that window is in view full screen? See both images below:

or

I hope to have just that search window up so that participants can just walk up, scan their shoe tag, see their results, then the next participant can easily be next. Think of how efficient viewing their results will be! Hope my images make sense.

[rtspt.usa]

in regards to the csv file import, i would like it a step further and on the import have ART ask which field needs to be imported into which field..

this would make it a little easier than dragging the fields around --which usually takes me a couple of tries for a xc meet type of data import.

[mstompro]

Although I really like how the results print, I would really like to see a version of the results that includes pace.  Also, I was wondering why the gender-specific results remove the top three finishers (women's and men's) from their respective age group divisions.  I can work around this, but wasn't sure why it does it that way.  

[Brian Coon]

The door prize generator generates random names but not bib numbers.  Any way to tweak the feature so it not only includes the bib numbers but also allows the list to be printed ?  We don't get too many requests to use it but when we do someone has to physically write down the names and look up their bibs.  We timed an event today that had 80 door prizes to give away.

[Brian Agee]

Quick Update: When you get a chance, download the newest update from my website and try the new features out. Here is what was included:

1. The Assign RFID Tags screen now lets you specify the number of successful writes before it increments the bib number for you.

2. The Results Kiosk will now send the personalized results straight to the printer when a tags is picked up.

3. The Results Kiosk "Search" button automatically changes to "Print" after the user clicks Search.

4. The Results Kiosk now allows you to establish a connection to your reader(s) without having to close the screen out and bring it back up. Just click on the label above the number pad and click on the "Refresh Readers" button that appears.

5. The Door Prize Machine now shows Bib Number along with the athletes Name

6. The Bib Number Capture Sheet now allows you to increment by 1's by using you left or right arrow key.

7. When using the software to import races from RunSignUp the software will now "Append" the Runner/Walker question without overwriting any existing questions that were there.

8. I've made it so that if you are capturing the chip start at a race and you accidentally close the clock screen out before unchecking the "Capture Chip Start" check box then the software will go ahead and store all of those chip start times for you.

I'm still working on some additional features that should be available soon, but I wanted to let people know that these features are now available if anyone like to test them out.

[mstompro]

Any chance you can adapt the software to make it compatible with Nikon DSLRs?  I'm a Nikon guy with numerous Nikon DSLR's and lenses.  I can't seem to bring myself to spend $400 on a Canon DSLR just cause it's a Canon.  

[Scovel Racing]

Nikon SDK (http://sourceforge.net/projects/nikoncswrapper/), someone might need to send Brian a camera for development ;) .. oh yeah.. and I could use one too! :D

[Kevin]

I have an ongoing issue that I'm looking for help with.

When timing several multi lap races at once it gets very difficult to announce last rider across the line because the display jumps around between the different races and splits. The TV display doesn't help because we can have 5-10 riders come through in the span of a couple of seconds so the the lag on that display is too great and that display can get confusing with multiple races going at once.

What I would like is access to a continuous list of riders crossing the line in order regardless of which race/category they are in or which lap they are on.

[hubbard47630]

That's also what I asked for. From the clock screen the last finisher should be at the top of the column, not the bottom so we don't have to consistently scroll down through hundreds of finishers. 

[Kevin]

I don't have to scroll to see the last finisher in a single wave, single lap race. That one always auto scrolls to the most recent finisher and it's easy enough to read off a bunch that finish together. My issues is multiple races at the same time and/or multiple laps races. If 2 or 3 come across at the same time but on different laps/categories you can only keep track of the last one.

[Brian Agee]

Over time the program is getting more flexible, however for now if you need a totall separate set of results for each category then you should create a separate race for each category. For example "Sample Race - Runners", "Sample Race - Walkers", "Sample Race - Any other description you want". Swapping people from one race to another and timing multiple races at the same time is very easy with the software. So this should 

On Monday, October 6, 2014 1:58:51 PM UTC-5, Run Roanoke wrote:

Would it be possible to just print overall and age group results with just runners, walkers, and wheelchair and not have them mixed in. Also would be it possible to rename instead of walker runner or WC to what ever group we want to call them.

[Brian Agee]

If you minimize the clock screen the RFID system will of course continue to feed data to the system and time the race. There have been many times in the past where I will minimize the clock screen to make some change the athlete list while people are finishing. I simply listen for the camera as people run by to know the RFID system picked them up. You can also turn your speakers all the way up and you will hear the "Ding" that occurs when a finisher is recorded.

I'm sure you're referring to manually capturing times even if you minimize the clock screen. I wouldn't want the system to be capturing times every time I press the space bar in the fields that are available when you're editing an athlete because I might find mysefl really needing to add a space in one of those fields without capturing a time, so I'm assuming you'd like a button and a text box that would allow you to capture a time and enter a bib number from the Open Race screen. The problem with this is that it's just as easy to go down and click the "Time Race" button to maximize the clock screen again or you can use ALT+TAB to quickly switch back to the clock screen or WINDOWS+TAB to quickly get back to the clock screen. So there wouldn't be any real time savings in adding something on the Open race screen.

On Thursday, October 9, 2014 9:25:45 AM UTC-5, PCRT Tech wrote:

I notice that you can now add and/or modify the athletes' information in the add athlete dashboard window while the window for the Time Race! clock is displayed. Yet, once you activate the any of the fields (last name, first name, gender, age) to begin typing, you can no longer assign times in the race. Can you make it so that you still assign times in the Time Race! window while simultaneously adding/modifying an athlete? Hope my feature request makes sense.

[Brian Agee]

Yeah, I'm more than happy to drop that last digit as long as the majority of people agree. As discussed in another thread the last digit is rounded by Microsoft SQL compact anyways (see here: https://groups.google.com/d/msg/agee-race-timing/2e_saEVUvOI/XLdhjiwf6SMJ) so I can either drop that digit or I will have to store that digit in a separate field and constantly append it everywhere that the time is shown in the program. If nobody cares to see it, then I'll just remove it.

On Thursday, October 9, 2014 7:26:23 AM UTC-5, ActiveIndy Events wrote:

I noticed the other day that downloading your pre-loaded results reports after a race has been completed - it shows the finishing times out to the thousands of a second.  I don't think that digit is significant, but short of reconfiguring the report in Excel I don't see any way to only show the finishing time to the tenth or hundreth.  Any reason why you have the report set up to show thousanths?  If not, any chance you'd be willing to adjust it back to tenths or hundreths?

[Brian Agee]

Over a year ago I spent some time time trying to make it so that the software can work with every different date format used in all of the countries around the world. If I'm not mistaken the universal format is supposed to be "yyyy-MM-dd". I can easily make the user controls where you enter dates require this format, but the problem is as soon as that date value is pushed into variables in the code - Windows will automatically convert it to whatever you have set up as the date format for the computer. There are some parts of the code where I take parse or build date values (to do stuff like calculate age and show split or finishing times by comparing two DateTime stamps) and having different date formats and having windows auto-format dates makes it tricky. Now that I'm getting more international customers I'll try to spend some more time on this and see if I can come up with a good solution.

On Wednesday, October 8, 2014 7:37:30 AM UTC-5, pbti...@gmail.com wrote:

Like the forum very informative. One request I have & it's been driving me nuts! Is there anyway we could have a European setting (I'm in Scotland) for entering the date & month, the convention here is dd/mm/yy

no matter how many times I tell the person entering the information it's American format they tend to forget under the pressure of the moment-which has led to some interesting ages when they get the convention mixed up!

Cheers Tony

[Brian Agee]

I believe it would be possible for the software to allow you to use any email provider you wanted, however I would have to make it so that the user can enter the SMTP server address and the port number for their email provider. I wouldn't expect most people to know that information. I think this info can be found without too much trouble by searching online, however when I built the Email feature I wanted to keep it as simple as possible.

If working with something other than Gmail becomes a popular request, then I'll add a list of email providers in the Options screen. By default I can add Gmail, Yahoo, Hotmail, and some of the other well known email providers and of course each user can add whatever they want to their list.

On Thursday, October 16, 2014 3:36:24 PM UTC-5, Crystal McCullough wrote:

Email Content feature request (minor):

I like that I can email everyone from within ART, but it forces me to use my gmail account rather than my business account. Is there a way to allow me to use my business email account, or at least have a 'reply to' field in which I can put my business email rather than gmail? I really only started this gmail account for ART and for this forum; I don't need it for anything else and would rather not have to have yet another account to check.

Thanks, Brian!

Crystal

[Brian Agee]

A couple of years ago I looked into a Nikon interface and at the time it would have been very difficult. This wrapper looks newer than one I had tried in the past. I'll check out this new one and let you know how it works. It might be a few weeks before I can really test it though. Thanks!

[pbti...@gmail.com]

Thanks Brian

[Peak Performance Timing]

Brian,

I like the fact that the system reads times to the thousandth of a second (kind of to the thousandths, anyway) and I would prefer the reports not list results to the thousandths, but I would prefer not to totally do away eith that digit, but use it to round to the appropriate hundredth for the results. Is that possible instead of just doing away with it completely?

[Todd Gould]

I personally need the third digit even though it is not accurate.  As you all have seen I sometimes have multiple (3 to 5) finishers within a tenth of a second.  Therefore it is a necessity for timing any event where the finishing speeds are high and there are pack finishes.  The work that needs to be done here is to make the system more accurate when timing events like the above not fix the problem by eliminating the feature all together. When the reader gets confused on 2 finishers (can not decide which one finished first) they both (or all 3) show up with the same exact time to the 1/1000 of a sec.  This is how I spot the close calls.  I have 2 feature requests around this issue:

1: Any time the timing screen results window has 2 finishers with the same time, they should be highlighted in some manner.  Bold, different background, whatever.  This way I can see that they need manual attention.  (Video review to resolve the finishing order).

I think this issue is related to the one Brian found when capturing 100's of starters start times all very quickly.  He turned off the beep and visual indication to fix this issue.  Perhaps this situation is the same. 

2. Second feature request from me should be to have a check box that enables or disables the beep and green flash when reading finishers.  That way when I see a big pack coming into the finish I can uncheck it and then after the pack finishes, check it back on.  (Brian, a real time check to decide to either beep or not beep is probably too much and probably has nearly the same penalty as playing the beep, so perhaps having this on or off flag checked or not before opening the timing screen may be the way to solve it.)  Up to you and what you know is best.

[Chain Gang Events]

Hi Brian,

Thank you for all your help so far and I very pleased with the software. As you know I am timing all kinds of events and not just running. Currently I am using the "Other" option in "Athlete Type" when adding for instance a cyclist for a MTB race or a canoeist for a Canoe race. My only problem is that when I us to ed the Results reports, it defaults to "WChair" which then forces me to export it to excel/word before I can print the results. Is it possible to let it remain as "Other" as it has been selected or program additional "Athlete Types" like: Rider, Paddler?

Regards

Juan

[Anders]

About the date format, we in Sweden use yy-mm-dd. It would be very nice to be able to use that format...

[Brian Agee]

I just pushed a new update out today that has the following enhancements:

1. When you export the athlete list to Excel it will now place the columns in the same order that the Import from Excel accepts.

2. When you open the Results Kiosk the software will now ask you which races you want to display instead of automatically throwing in every race for that day. 

Also, in case you didn't know, if you're timing a XC meet and you do not want the Results Kiosk to display the "Male Age Division Results" or "Female Age Division Results" then don't add age divisions for the race. When there is no age divisions it should skip those displays and only show the Overall Results and Team Results.

3. I made a few more minor alterations on how the results kiosk to make it easier for the user.

4. I added a "Send Test Email" button in the Email screen too. This way you can make sure the username and password that you entered will work.

5. I made some small changes the the Packet Label report to help ensure the labels fit properly on the Avery 5195 labels.

All of these changes are fairly minor. I expect that I'll wait to tackle the bigger stuff when racing season slows down some in the winter months.

[Peak Performance Timing]

Is it possible to make the Results Kiosk 'fixed maximized' so people can't minimize it without "backdoor" knowledge like the photo booth has? Or is that already possible and I am unaware?

[Peak Performance Timing]

Brian,

I noticed during an event where I had a marathon and half marathon starting 1 hour and 30 minutes apart, that the chip start times are not limited to the race being started even when the all the  tags for both races are programmed race specific.To further explain......... ALL the Chips were programmed to be SPECIFIC races. We used the same bib number Ranges, but in different colors for the races. The marathon started at 7:30, the half started at 9:00. Now when I captured the chip start for the marathon someone with a half marathon bib was at the start of the marathon, they never left the start while I was collecting chip starts for the marathon, so the person who was running the marathon with the same number as the half marathon runner hanging out, got a HUGE advantage because the last seen time for that number was collected when I stopped the chip start for the marathon. 

When I started the half marathon, the person who had been lingering at the marathon start, again got a chip start (this time the correct one for them), but the marathon runner was not given the correct chip correction because this runner was hanging out at the marathon start. This was not an isolated incident. I thought I would be OK, since the tags were programmed to be race specific.

Can you make it so the chip start times are ignored for tags that are not programmed to the specific race(s) being started?

[reece.bell]

Not sure if this was posted - I would like the excel report to not have all of the dummy rows. It is hard for me to copy out the data for certain sites that race directors want. Milesplit for instance is used in NJ for seeding purposes and a time has to be posted there.

[rtspt.usa]

just create a macro in excel to do that for you..

[John Kirby]

Brian,

Not sure if I am overlooking this, but the ability to list/print a participant's pace in the results would be nice.

Thank you

[Steve Swindall]

I agree.  Would like to have participant's pace printed with results.  

[PCRT Tech]

Ditto: pace printed with results.

Also, to numerically list the winners in respect to their age divisions for the age division results.

[Scovel Racing]

I agree with last 3 posts, pace should be part of the results. At least in Oregon, it's an "industry standard", I've seen it at the last 40 some races I've attended in the last 2 years. Also most online result sites ( Athlinks.com etc) show pace as part of results.

Also it would be nice to have the option to remove "Speed" on the kiosk result printouts, I've never seen this before and think it would confuse some people (is this MPH?)

Brian, we really appreciate all that you do!

[Peak Performance Timing]

Manipulating what is on your results is pretty easily handled using Excel if you have it installed on your computer. 

[PCRT Tech]

True. Yet this is Featured Requests, not "Work-arounds." We shouldn't have to do that, it should be expected with the software.

[Brian Agee]

I've been thinking about adding another report option that looks more like a generic one-column 8/5 X 11" report (sample below). I haven't thought about what all fields it'll have, but I'll throw on as many as I can. I hope to have it available before the weekend is over. 

Place     Div Rank     Bib #     Name     Type     Age     Sex     City          State     Time     Pace    Speed

---------    -------------     --------     ---------     ----------  ------     -----     --------------  --------     ---------   --------    ---------

Peak Performance is correct, you can easily get every piece of data you'd like in Excel by opening the race and right clicking on the athlete list and selecting Export to Excel. With the file provided you can add your company logo in a header/footer and add, edit, or remove any of the columns and make it look any way you want. As you can expect, everyone wants the results formatted in a different way, so that's why I've tried to make it fairly easy to get everything the system can offer for each athlete into Excel so that you can build your own results. The default ones provided (team results, overall results, and age division results) should be great for getting something quick for calling out awards right after the race. If you want 

Adding Pace to the 2-column report that is currently in the system is not possible unless I remove some other piece of information from the report or drop the font size down quiet a bit. You can see how crowded it is in that file I have attached. I made it two columns in an attempt to save paper. Obviously with a one column report you're it'll take a little longer to print and use twice as much paper. I'll see if dropping the font size down some will allow me to get Pace in there and still keep it a two column report.

As soon as I have the new report available I'll post a reply here so that you guys can download the update and take a look at it. :)

[Ohio Race Day]

Here is an example of a pared down results page that gives overall numbers and includes pace.  Nothing about Run/Walk.

[Twisted Pines]

Would like the option not to pull overall winners from the age division results.

[Scovel Racing]

I just found this photo and thought I should share, I believe this company uses mylaps.

The results are printed landscape
After Chip Time and Chip Pace they have Division Place, Gun Time, and Gun Pace.

[John Kirby]

Peak Performance is correct, you can easily get every piece of data you'd like in Excel by opening the race and right clicking on the athlete list and selecting Export to Excel. With the file provided you can add your company logo in a header/footer and add, edit, or remove any of the columns and make it look any way you want. As you can expect, everyone wants the results formatted in a different way, so that's why I've tried to make it fairly easy to get everything the system can offer for each athlete into Excel so that you can build your own results. The default ones provided (team results, overall results, and age division results) should be great for getting something quick for calling out awards right after the race. If you want 

Hey Brian, Thanks for the explanation that this is available through Excel. Totally agree that the default results are quick and excellent for the awards.

With all the discussions involving Excel, it is pretty apparent that I am going to have to get more familiar with it than I currently am.(never really had to use it prior to race timing) I understand your directions above with right clicking and exporting to excel but not sure what to do/format  to show pace.

I realize that this may be a very basic and simple task for many of you, but I need a an assist on this if anyone is willing.

Thanks

[hubbard47630]

Made a separate post just on this John. https://groups.google.com/forum/?hl=en#!topic/agee-race-timing/Cjxk5RccyIQ

[Todd Gould]

I disagree that the existing reports are Excellent for race day.  (They are good for race day when doing running events.)  They are not good at all for other events.

The Field Type:  Run, Walk or Wheelchair being hard coded as the only values is not Excellent when posting race day results immediately after a race.  If I could just get it off the report it would help.  I get this question at every bike event I time on this one. Even if you set all 3 hard coded types to 0, it shows up on the report as type Run. 

Division:  This can only be used for age groups.  It can not be used for Race category or other divisions you may encounter timing.  When you are not timing a team Evetnt (AKA XC race), then it shows up on the report with 1 age division 0-99 as you are forced to have at least 1. 

The Header:  This is really nit picky of me to say I admit, but it is hard to read and the old school outline font on a grey background.    The header should be Big, Bold and Prominent.    We should also be able to put a company logo in the header. 

In bike racing you have to post (tape up on the wall) the results for every category to allow time for protests.  Once the protest time expires or you have resolved all the protests then you can do awards for that given category.  On race day, I am timing 8+ races.  When race 1 is over and I have results, the last thing I have time to do is format my own report in excel.  I have to print it and be paying attention to race 2, 3, 4......  All day. 

This is an area I would really like to see improved with the ability to create our own reports that we can save in the system and re-use.  I realize the current reporting library is very complex and accesses raw data in the tables.  It may require creating new views of the data in the DB to then be used by the reporting system.  I am willing to help, provide feedback, examples, etc.  I'm sure others could chime in.  This is not something that can be added in a dot release.  It is a major release kind of thing that I expect to take some time.  But it will make a product that is better than the competition out there.  Everyone needs reports in a different format.  Allowing us to setup our own would be a large improvement. 

[hubbard47630]

Brian,

I agree with Todd. As stated before, I'd even pay extra for a 'Bike Race Timing' package or add-on to offset your time to make these changes. If a user could go to options and then check with boxes you wanted to display on the results that'd be sweet. Also, the ability to add your own sections in the registration area would be helpful. We need to be able to add their 'Team' and 'USA Cycling #' at a minimum. 

[John Kirby]

Thank you Professor Hubbard :)

Chris, Fantastic!

Seriously, thank you very much for taking the time to explain and post the screen shots.

 Very kind of you and greatly appreciated.

[Kevin]

Since I also time primarily cycling events I definitely agree with Todd. There is no time to format results into Excel between events so I have to go with the default results for preliminary results/protest period. I also greatly need DNF's to show up as well as Ad hoc team names which I've discussed numerous times with Brian.

[Todd Gould]

I agree also on DNF's, Team Names and USA Cycling number and have also spoken to Brian about these.  Thanks Kevin and Chris.

I propose we start a Cycling thread on the Group.  Perhaps the best way to attack this is to find the common items needed from all of us timing cycling and take that limited set of very specific requirements to Brian.  We need to make his job very easy to implement what we need.  Thoughts?