I have been away from be a TD for awhile. There are many improvements such as the ability to enter tournament results online and pay the processing cost. That is where I am missing something, how do I find where to pay online?
Welcome back, and thanks for running tournaments again!
You can catch up on many of the new TD tools here. You can read the “Need help getting started?” section at the bottom of the linked page for some basic information.
Of course, the Forums are available as a resource as well (though some may debate how useful they are 
).
I created a video or two about the process some time ago (http://the80-20td.com/) that is a bit dated but still manages to convey the right idea (the video needs updating to reflect the current USCF screen used for entering additional info).
Condensed version: Basically you upload your file and then edit the info (or enter the tournament info by hand on-line remembering to “save” often). When you pass verification a button will appear at the top of the page to allow you “submit” the event. To “submit” the event you will need to fill in the standard CC info.
Welcome back Jack.
Entering the tournament results on line (usually using tournament pairing software to create an upload file) and paying the rating fee (by credit card) at the same time are not actually required, but most players expect it nowadays. As of the start of 2012 the upload can even include the colors that each player had each round (the older upload version without that information is still supported).
The frequently asked questions that Boyd referred to and Tim’s videos are both good (the videos are more helpful for the first-timer). You can e-mail questions to the office but that is most effective only during business hours.
Remember to pay attention to the warnings. The easy way to handle them is to simply mark them all as okay, but the effective way to handle them is to actually look at them and see if there was a problem. For scholastic sections they’ve helped me catch things like two players with the same name where the wrong ID was selected, siblings playing with the IDs swapped, typos made when entering IDs, etc…
Personally, I print out a wall chart (by score and rating) and then compare that to the uploaded information. Even for open, non-scholastic, tournaments (where the age-based warnings are less likely to come up) you can compare the printed names versus the on-line names to make sure you didn’t have any typos. That printout helps when you’ve accidentally missed a digit in the ID number and the on-line report doesn’t even show a name to help you figure out who a player is.
If you have time during the event (such as the first night of a two-day event) you can do a trial upload of the partial event and validate all of the IDs and memberships while the players are still available to resolve any problems. Then you simply delete your trial upload without actually rating it.
You can also pay memberships on-line via the TD/Affiliate area. When you do that you have the option of printing a temporary membership card that you can give to the player. Such a card has the player’s name, ID and expiration date, and can be used as a valid membership card while the player is waiting for the nice plastic one that the USCF will be mailing.
Club-level and Local-level TDs do not need to have submitted any tournaments on-line (I’d still highly recommend it) but now you have to have done at least three such submissions before you can get the Senior-level TD test. Before Tim’s video was available it was common for many of the first-time submitters to need phone support from experienced submitters to get through that first submission, and even with that video people can still get temporarily stymied. Once you have it down it is likely that you will find it nice and will never want to go back to mailing in any rating reports.
Updated TD certification rules are found here in case you want to move to a higher level.
uschess.org/docs/forms/TDCer … nRules.pdf
One rule of thumb when upgrading is to first take the open-book exam with the book closed, and then (once you think you have all the answers right) go back and find the rule(s) that apply to each question and correct those you have wrong (30-60% correction rates are common). That helps give you a review of the rulebook and, more importantly in my mind, shows you why even National-level TDs continue to carry the rulebook and double-check it when making less common rulings (for a first-time TD pretty much every ruling is a less common ruling).
Jack, it appears you haven’t directed any events since 1996.
In addition to the submission process, you will need to get caught up on the rules.
As you are a currently certified TD again, I assume you have a copy of the 5th edition of the rulebook, the update to the rulebook is at uschess.org/docs/gov/reports … hanges.pdf
(Note that this document will be changing in the next few days as there were additional rules changes passed by the Delegates that take effect on Tuesday, January 1, 2013.)
Regarding the online submission process, both you and the affiliate you will be directing events for need to have logins to the TD/Affiliate Support Area. The affiliate needs a login to authorize you to direct events on their behalf, you will need one to upload, validate and submit rating reports and to submit memberships.
Both WinTD and SwisSys can create the old format upload files. WinTD can also create a newer upload format that includes color information. We plan to have a new upload format file available some time in 2013, hopefully both of the pairing programs mentioned above will be updated in 2013 to support that format.
You can also enter all the needed information online. (I know several TDs who use this method for all their events.)
How easy (or possible) is it, when using SwisSys or an older version of WinTD, to create the old-format upload files, then modify them online to add the color information?
Bill Smythe
I guess I should have said the newer versions of WinTD. Some people still use older versions from before the support of the newer upload format.
The online editor can handle all data fields, including color allocation and schedule assignment (for multi-schedule events.)
I don’t know how you measure easy, I probably wouldn’t want to use it to enter colors for a large event (say, 100 players.)
I was just wondering whether, after you’ve uploaded the crosstable from SwisSys or an older version of WinTD, you could go back in and use the online editor to add the colors by hand, without having to re-enter any of the other information.
Apparently the answer is “yes, of course”.
Bill Smythe