Can two different people edit a draft event for submission in the ratings portal? I can’t seem to find a way.
Background: I recently recruited an assistant TD for our club. I have WINTD on my computer, and that is a barrier for growth because running the tournament depends on the presence of a particular device. So we investigated various online platforms for pairing and rating report generation. Chessnut.club looked like a good option, but then I realized we would have to pay a premium in order to generate the rating report files.
So our present solution is to continue using chessnut.club for pairing, but we will manually enter the results of each round into the USCF rating portal. BUT, it seems that only one person has access to the event draft. If I create an event, my assistant TD will not have access to edit it.
SwissSys can give a second (complimentary) license for desktop use when purchasing a license (assumption is for a laptop).
I thought about whether we should install the desktop license onto an old all-in-one desktop and donate the desktop to the club, but never got a chance to write an email asking Thad whether that usage is acceptable
I’m pretty sure the answer to this is no. You really don’t want two people editing an event at the same time. Although I don’t think the option currently exists, it might be possible to allow the TD who creates/uploads the event to hand it off to another TD to complete, similar to how the TD can hand the event off to the affiliate to pay the ratings fees, but I don’t see that as a high-priority enhancement.
There must be a way to merge two independent sets of tournament files from either WinTD or SwissSys, because that’s how national scholastics, which have several computers handling the pairings for sections, are merged together to be reported as one multi-section event.
Both WinTD and SwissSys have the ability to import sections from another tournament file. For our smaller local events still large enough to require using multiple computers we copy the tournament files with the pairing TD’s name included in the file name. Then the active sections are imported from the multiple files to create a single all-inclusive file. Some of the larger mulitiple computer events have scripts set to do that import automatically every round (useful for a master pairing list that can be posted on line, especially when team codes are included for ease of searching by coaches with players in multiple sections)..
WinTD’s licensing allows it to be installed on any number of computers as long as only one user is using it at a time:
This is a single-user license. You may use the software on any compatible computer, provided you use it on only one computer at a time. For instance, you can install it on both a home computer and an office computer. Or you may use the software on a network or file server provided that access is limited to one user at a time.
And you can share tournament files between those computers through any number of shared filesystem options (such as Dropbox or Google Drive).
For the club tournaments that run multiple weeks, we use a shared Google Drive with the tournament file on it; then whoever is the TD present on a given week just uses their computer (with an installed copy of WinTD) to update the players, pairings and results for that week in the shared central location.
After the tournament is over, any of us can ultimately upload the results.
Rabbitfierce. . .have you found that the free version of Chessnut provides you with tie break points or have you not needed tie break points for your tournament?
Basically, with WINTD, I need to be at the event with my laptop in order to create pairings. i run 1 round per week, and we didn’t have a contingency if I am unable to be present for a round. I dont think I can use the same license for two different TDs laptops.
Rabbitfierce…I have been using Chessnut for 4 tournaments now. Two tournaments were rated. The $8 by the month charge that Chessnut has can be reimbursed if you charge sufficiently for your tournament. We charged $15 for 2 three round tournaments and there was enough to pay the $5 a head rental fee and to be reimbursed for the $8 that Chessnut required for the 3 files to be submitted to the USCF as well as paying 1st, 2nd, and 3rd place winners. The first tournament we had 17 players, but we only needed 8 players for the winners payout. The next tournament we had 29 players. The club leader/head TD has maybe 400 email addresses to send out to in order to advertise the Chessnut run tournament.
You can reach out to estima / to confirm if you like, but that’s literally what their email to me said, so long as both laptops are not used at the same time.