Help to get started

[Gordon Saxby]

Hi, I have just joined this group and this is my first post.

I am the Team Manager and webmaster (developer) of the club my children swim for (in the UK). We use Team Manager for gala entries, etc and also use Meet Manager for the open (soon to be multiple) that we run.

Currently, swimmers have to print off and fill in a paper entry form for all open galas we attend. The forms are given to the gala secretary who enters the information into Team Manager.

I would like to be able to provide a personalised entry form for each swimmer via the members area of our website. Ideally, it would be great to access the Team Manager database itself but I suspect that isn't possible as it is password protected. 

So, I need to be able to read a Hy-Tek gala events file and work out the events, age groups, upper / lower time limits (if any) and so on. I can then present an entry form per swimmer with the correct events listed. I assume I could then take all of the entries (stored in my own local database) and produce a Hy-Tek file which could be imported into Team Manager and/or sent to the gala organiser.

I am a web developer by trade and work with ASP.Net and C#.

I would appreciate pointers to basic information such as file types, file / data structures, etc and of course, to any freely available code that has already been produced.

This work is not to replace Team Manager or Meet Manager, but rather make the process of entering galas much easier for everyone in the club.

Thanks,

Gordon

[Mike Walsh]

Gordon -

Welcome to the group.  There is a lot of information stored in the archive that would help you out.  Troy Delano has done an amazing amount of work documenting the Hy-tek file formats.  Links to the documents and source code for generating Hy-tek files in various languages, notably PHP and Java, can be found.

I wrote a WordPress plugin which does much of what you outlined (swimmer registration, event entry, Hy-tek file generation, etc.) that you may be able to reference what you want to do.

Do a quick search of the archive and you should find plenty of reading to keep you busy for a few days!

Mike

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[Gordon Saxby]

I have tried searching for documentation and have only found one for the .st2 file? Sorry, don't use Google Groups very much so may be doing it wrong! When you say search "the archive" is that somewhere different to here?

I have downloaded a copy of the code for your WP plugin ... lots of code! And in PHP! Is there code / scripts to create a database in there somewhere?

Step 1 for me is to be able to read the data from a Meet Events file (.ev3?), so it would be great to find either a file format spec or some example code.

Gordon

[andre...@btinternet.com]

Hi,
I am new to the forum and was hoping if anyone can help me with the detailed specifications for the hy-tek .ev3 file. We are building an on-line entry function for our club website and the 1st step is to import the events file.

I searched all the archives and can find all the detailed specs on all the other hy-tek files but nothing on the .ev3 one. I don't want to create a new one so need for checksum just a spec on the fields to make sure we import all the correct fields.

Regards
Andre

[gaetano...@comcast.net]

Hi Andre,

Are you looking for PHP to read in the event file?

Gaetano

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From: "andre nel10" <andre...@btinternet.com>
To: "SDIF Forum" <sdif-...@googlegroups.com>
Sent: Friday, March 18, 2016 1:30:08 PM
Subject: Re: [SDIF Forum] Help to get started

[wayne]

Hi I've been following the group for about 14 months now.

I've got our clubs website to the point of generating a CSV file of this form:
Y-m-d-H-i-s,
fam_name,
giv_name,
mid_name,
email,
free-distance,
back-distance,
breast-distance,
fly-distance,
im-distance,
end-of-line

Someone else is manually entering data from the CSV file and also hand written data into MM and TM.
I promised that if we push people away from paper then I'll generate the files fro TM and MM.
We have some other rules which I can use an online sql data base to validate but any code up for share under a gnu like licence would be appreciated.


thanx


wayne

[Evan]

Hi Gordon (and Andre?) - we've been running paperless online entries for going

on 2 years now, so my input might be useful. I spent a couple of years before

this collecting paper forms, fixing them, entering everything into TM or

SportSys Entry Manager, and dealing with complaints/missed entries/etc.

First off - no-one seems to really know or care what the ev3 file format is,

and even the older obsolete hyv files were not, I think, ever fully decoded.

Second, the file is very much oriented towards US swimming. When you actually

create a meet in MM you don't enter the important stuff you need for UK

swimming, so it can't be present in the ev3 file (disclaimer: we're on MM3, so

maybe some of this can be entered in later versions). So, basically, even if

you knew how to decode an ev3, you'd only get the ages, events, and costs.

The other stuff you need for UK online entry includes:

1 - whether licensed times are required

2 - if so, *which* licensed times are valid (L4+, L3+, even L2+)

3 - whether conversions are allowed

4 - whether estimated times are allowed (ie. new swimmers with no times)

5 - what the qualifying window is

6 - whether entry times must be SC or LC times (not the same as the pool

    length)

You would then face exactly the same problem when entering SportSys meets

(over 50% of UK meets?), which is that you've got to decode a (completely

different) proprietary binary file.

So, my advice is:

(a) forget it

(b) although it would be nice, it's not necessary anyway, and 

(c) the rest of the front-to-back procedure for online gala entries is *much*

more complex than knowing what the events and age groups are, so this is the

wrong place to start anyway.

On our system you create a gala on a web form by specifying the information

above, but the cut-off and qualifying times have to be uploaded as

spreadsheets, so we don't actually do an event file import at all. It

generally takes me an hour, or 2 at the most, to manually cut-and-paste a

spreadsheet from the entry pack, for either Hy-Tek or SportSys, but the

spreadsheet can be shared and re-used.

There's a lot of work in between the event and age-group entry and the final 

sd3 generation. Note in particular that you need a database with all the kid's 

times in it (*not* just their 'PB', but all times since a given date at a given 

licence level and course length). The final SDIF/sd3 output file generation 

is straightforward.

If you do get as far as generating sd3 files, you'll find that almost

everybody who runs MM can read your file, but there may be occasional

problems. If they've got an old MM version (very old?) and they haven't done

the free online upgrade then they can't read sd3. I've seen this once, but

they upgraded. I think I've got a second one at the moment, but I'm not sure

yet. For SportSys, everyone can read the ('Consolidated Entry') files we

generate, but some people aren't familiar with them. Currently, the people who

organise our local Regionals also insist that entries must be made on SportSys

Entry Manager, so we can't use auto-generated files for Regionals.

And, once you've got to the point where you can enter galas, the next step is

to load result files, and it just goes on from there - club records,

qualifying checks, PB tables, flashes, rankings, synchronising to

swimmingresults.org, everything. If I was you, I'd start with the database,

not the event file.

Disclaimer: our system has just gone commercial (swimadmin.co.uk). I couldn't

find any free online code when I was looking, a couple of years ago. If you

roll your own, creating the final sd3 file is the easy part and I or others

here can help with that. My first attempt at this 2 or 3 years ago was to use

Google sheets to let the kids enter, and then to download the final

spreadsheet and turn it into sd3, but the spreadsheet front-end turned out to

be a can of worms.

[gaetano...@comcast.net]

Hi Evan,

You are correct about needing a database. This was the first step and is complete. I have a database with all athletes, times, and clubs. The ability to store individuals and relays. This database is used to show the parents the times and the ability to download by season or all seasons.

Once this was completed, I uploaded the EV3 file to store the upcoming meets and the valid entries for the meet. This allowed parents to sign on and use a mobile app to choose the meet and the events for that child and age group. It makes the job easier for the parents on the FLY, and it give the club an electronic file to submit. I can also create a roster file if needed.

The question Andre asked if the EV3 had some layout and I supplied it to the best of my knowledge. If they are looking to create a website with the ability to enter / gather the meets for a seasonal or recreational club, then this can support the club's intention and make it easier for parents to submit entries for the team without the paper work. Once deadline is reach, submit the file electronic to the HOST club. Any last minute changes can be done around the deck.

If TM or MM change the layouts then it will need to be fixed moving forward.

I hope this helps.

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From: "Evan" <sdif....@gmail.com>
To: "SDIF Forum" <sdif-...@googlegroups.com>
Sent: Sunday, March 27, 2016 5:18:56 PM
Subject: [SDIF Forum] Re: Help to get started

[Gordon Saxby]

I use the current / latest version of Team Manager and it seems to default to importing .ev3 files when you select a zip file, so I assume that is the latest file type preferred by Team Manger?

Gaetano - if you have some information on the structure of the .ev3 file, I would really appreciate seeing that. I can see some similarities between the two files, but can't see all items from the .hyv file in the .ev3 file! For example, where is the event code in the .ev3 file (item 8 in .hyv) and sponsor (11 in .hyv) does not appear in the .ev3 file.

[gaetano...@comcast.net]

Hi Gordon,

See attached Layout of EV3 - word document.

See comments below.

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From: "Gordon Saxby" <gor...@gmail.com>
To: "SDIF Forum" <sdif-...@googlegroups.com>
Sent: Tuesday, April 19, 2016 6:40:00 PM
Subject: Re: [SDIF Forum] Re: Help to get started

I use the current / latest version of Team Manager and it seems to default to importing .ev3 files when you select a zip file, so I assume that is the latest file type preferred by Team Manger? (GD) Yes, the bulk of information is stored on EV3, the HYV is unknown as it has little information for loading into a custom database. The custom database assists me in getting other HOST event files and loading them so parents can sign up for the events at their meet. Or of course our meet too.

If you are looking to create an EV3 and HYV and zip them together and then load into TM, that may present a challenge. If you want to just create the EV3 as this is the default to load into TM - well it could be done but you need to make sure that all the fields that are required are used in the creation. Otherwise the file EV3 that you "Custom" create cannot be used in TM for loading.

Gaetano - if you have some information on the structure of the .ev3 file, I would really appreciate seeing that. I can see some similarities between the two files, but can't see all items from the .hyv file in the .ev3 file! For example, where is the event code in the .ev3 file (item 8 in .hyv) and sponsor (11 in .hyv) does not appear in the .ev3 file. Attached as word document - the Item 8 and item 11 is not in this document as this is HYV information that I do not have.

I hope this helps you.

Regards,

Gaetano

[Gordon Saxby]

Sorry, I don't seem to have an attachment?

Cheers,

Gordon

[gaetano...@comcast.net]

Sorry. Attach now.

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From: "Gordon Saxby" <gor...@gmail.com>
To: sdif-...@googlegroups.com
Sent: Wednesday, April 20, 2016 2:19:49 PM