Race Series Scoring Detailed Walk Through
Here is a detailed walk through on the race Series Scoring with full size screen shots and descriptions as well as a video. Click here for Race Series Overview. (As a warning, once this is setup and you upload results, it will do the matching and series scoring very quickly as if by magic.)
TABLE OF CONTENTS
Public Facing Race Series:
The main page of a race series shows the top Male and Female:
You can also look at more detailed results:
And you can drill down on a specific Gender, Age Group, or Custom field (like Clydesdale/Athena) that you define.
And you can expand to show the Event Details:
You can also link directly to the races that make up a series:
Race Series Creation
You can set up your race series by going to RaceDay Tools >> Results >> Race Series Scoring or going directly to https://runsignup.com/RaceSeries/New
Race Series Setup
The first step is the basic information:
There are three areas of setup: Event, Age Group and Scoring.
Step 1: Event Setup – in this step, you set up:
The Year or Years if it might be a Winter Classic that spreads over 2017 and 2018.
Select an Age Calculation date since the races will take place on different dates and some runners will have birthdays during that period.
Select the Maximum number of races to score per participant. For example if your series has 8 races, this will chose the 5 highest scores for each participant.
Number of Results to Show per category. In this example, 5 results will show for the top Male and Female on the summary page.
Races Included. You must have RunSignup races and events set up that you tie to. This needs to be a special code (token) for security reasons. You get this token by going to the race Info Sharing page and finding the code. Note that you can create a “multiplier” for each event. This is convenient if you want to use a common scoring mechanism for each event, but one event might be worth Double Points – just put a 2 in the Multiplier column for that event.
Find your Token from the individual RunSignup Race Page:
Race > Secure Access/Info Sharing > Advanced Settings (show) > Event Sharing Tokens > Learn More > Copy Token
Step 2: Age Group Setup – You can set up each group individually or use the Quick Setup to automatically create a range.
Quick Age Group Setup:
Step 3: Scoring Setup
Custom Scoring - This is a field that you upload with your results and is something that you can define. We have it defaulted to Clydesdale/Athena, but you could make this for Military or a School, etc.
This will always be separated by Male and Female.
Master Scoring – this is where you set up scoring for up to 4 categories:
Gender
Age Group
Custom Field
Overall (regardless of gender or age)
It is called Master since it will be applied to all races unless you override it below for any events.
There are 3 methods of scoring (you must pick one) that you see in the drop down list in the upper left under Master Scoring:
Finishing Position (1st, 2nd, 3rd, etc.)
Clock/Gun Time
Chip Time
There are two methods of scoring – Simple Formulas and CSV (comma separated values). In the example below, the Gender is scored with a simple formula. Fill in the number of finishers and the system will auto-fill in the formula. In this case there will be 25 finishers scored and the formula is 26 – X. So the first place person would get 26 – 1 = 25 points. Second place would get 26 – 2 = 24. 25th place would get 26-25 = 1. Anything less is scored as 0. You can make the formula more complicated if you want since it will do basic algebra. For example, 2 * (26 – X) would yield a 2 point spread per finisher – so 1st would get 50, second would get 48, etc.
The CSV is also an interesting method as you can assign a specific point total to each place. In this example, we assigned 1st place to receive 10 points, 2nd to be 8, 3rd to be 5, 4th to be 2 and 5th to be 1.
Series Scoring also handles the various methods of doing “double scoring” (or not). In this setting below, the first female will get full points in both her gender and her age group:
If the Double Scoring is not checked, then there are two other options. If the first and second box is not checked as below, this means that the first female will score more points in gender (25 for a gender win vs. 5 for an age group win), and will not score in her age group. With the second box not checked, the next female in the age group wil get the full points for 1st in her age group since the first female would be removed from age group results.
And finally, if the second box is checked, then the second female in the winning female’s age group would receive 8 points and the winner would not receive the 10 points (no double counting).
Custom Scoring by Race - The final setting on this page is the ability to override the Master Scoring for a particular event:
Scoring
We are now ready to score the series. The first step in this will be uploading results into the series. It is important to note that you have to take specific action to update series results – they are not tied automatically to RunSignup Results. Series Results are kept in a separate set of database tables. This is to allow flexibility for scoring and editing within the series.
You will see a way to Upload (or Re-Upload) results, as well as delete results:
Option 1: Uploading Results from RunSignup Results
RunSignup will automatically show the results that are available, and this is a nice, simple approach. When results are uploaded a new “Series Participant ID” is created for each new participant, or if there is a match (we will cover this later) then the results for this uploaded race are tied to the existing Series Participant.
Option 2: Uploading CSV (Spreadsheet) Results
There are three things that need to be done when uploading a CSV (this stands for the format – Comma Separate Values, and is a common option for saving from Excel or Google Spreadsheet):
Upload Type – You can use race results to produce the scores – so if you are uploading Place and scoring the series on Place, then you will leave this option checked. You also have the option of uploading specific scores that you have coded within your own spreadsheet. This would override the Master Scoring that is set up in the previous step, but the Event Multiplier would still take effect.
Participant Matching Type – We do automatic matching based on your choice of what to match – RunSignup Registration, User or Series Participant ID. You can also code your own custom identifier (perhaps the bib number if using the same bib across multiple events, or if your timing system has a custom ID). We will also match on EXACT name and date of birth match. There will be a further explanation of participant matching below.
Field Import Matching – Your CSV will have headings for each column, and those can be aligned with the fields in RunSignup. For example below you will see the RunSignUp field is “E-mail” and the imported field is “EMAIL”. We do a best guess match, but you can select any of the fields, or you can ignore the column (except for the required fields like name and date of birth (since date of birth is being used in this example as the matching field)).
Participant Matching
Once you have uploaded a set of results, you will be taken the the page below to start matching. Most commonly, you will select Automatic Matching. This will do the matching algorithm you selected above depending on upload type. For example, if you are uploading RunSignup results, it will be checking Registration and User ID for matching.
It is useful to understand what is actually happening under the covers. When the first result set is uploaded, a Participant ID is created in the Series Scoring database and that participants Series score is calculated and stored. The actual results are no longer needed, so only the information about that participant and the way the points were calculated (place or time) and the points are stored. In the example above, Samantha finished 5th in the Haddonfield race and received 20 points. When the second race results are uploaded, she places 2nd and scored 24 points. Samantha was merged because she had signed up with RunSignup and had a common User ID that could be matched. So there is now one Samantha in the database with these two places and points. Hence, the trick is to match the participants in the Series Scoring database!
So clicking on the “Automatic Matching” below is important.
If you are extremely lucky or have a very small race, all participants will match automatically. However, we have some very nice mechanisms to help you with the manual matching!
When we can not do an EXACT match, we look for close matches. We check to see if the name is similar (we use the SOUNDEX database function in MySQL), so “Bickel” and “Bickle” will match. We also look for ages within a year of each other – so the Bob Bickel who is 80 and the Bob Bickel who is 57 will not be matched. We also look for similar City and State.
We will align the matches for you side by side as shown below. You can click on which information to keep. Remember that in one race my name might be “Bickel” and in the other it might be “Bickle” and you will have to decide on one of those for storing int he Series info (remember the Series data does not change the base Event Results data).
In the example below, it found the same name and age, but the city was different:
You should do matching for each new results set you upload so you are not trying to match 3 people at once. We have built in logic for this if you try, and we will call out the multiple ways to match people – but it will make your life very complex.
Magic – Your Series is Scored
Once you have completed that last matching step, you will probably not believe it, but your Series has been scored! Each time you upload results (or re-upload) and have some level of matching, the series will be scored (and quickly). Even if you do not match participants, the series will be scored. It will just show “Bob Bickel” and “Bob Bickle” as two different runners in the series until you match them.
The Series Results pages are explained above. But there are some things (besides re-uploading Results) that you may want to do:
Search & Edit Participants
We give you powerful ways to search for participants including exact match and Soundex match on names, min and max ages, etc. You can also edit participant information, including their personal information that appears to the public (like last name) and you have stored in private (like address or email). In addition, you can edit their score. This does NOT change other scores. So, using an earlier example, if we changed Samantha from 20 points for finishing 5th in the Haddonfield race to being 1st and 25 points – there would be two people with 1st Place and 25 points showing in the Series Scoring.
Finally, you can add and remove Directors for your Series. Note that the Event Token above is the method to give Series Directors access to the particular race information – both results as well as user information for matching purposes.
**If you ever need to get back to the series setup page, from any race, type in Series in the Menu Search and this will open up your Unique Series List.
As always, we welcome suggestions for improvements. We have studied a number of race series and think we have built a platform that can be used in a wide variety of situations – from small club race series to USATF Road Race Series Scoring.