System Requirements
- Access 2000 or above
- Word - to take advantage of Merged Certificates and Printed Program functions
- Processor - The function that builds the Time Table takes a lot of processing power, so a faster processor will greatly reduce the time needed to complete it.
- Memory - 128 mb minimum recommended. Again, more memory will help cut processing time.
Overview
The Time Scheduler Program enables you to automate the task of creating a time schedule for your event quickly and easily. You enter the performance categories, assign the rooms for the performances, enter contestant information, and then let the program build your time schedule and check for conflicting times for each contestant. Several different reports help you check your data, build a printed program for the event, and give you pre/post-event reports that you might need.
A scoring procedure is integrated into the program to allow you to tabulate scores from 3 judges for each contestant. You can also set up a second round for categories that have many contestants, so that you can determine an overall winner for that category. This procedure takes those qualifying for the second round and creates a second round time schedule.
To help you remember what each field contains, screen tips are used. On an entry screen, just put you mouse over a field and leave it stationary for a few seconds, and a box will appear telling what should be entered into that field.
To use this program you will need a basic understanding of how to use Microsoft Access. The standard features that make Access so powerful are used whenever possible. In addition, to use Microsoft Word for producing the program handout and MailMerge for the achievement certificates will require a basic knowledge of how to set up a Word or MailMerge document.
Note: In the description of various tasks, the word event is used to indicate your overall function - i.e. The Fine Arts Festival. It is also used to indicate an individual category that a contestant is performing in.
Order of Tasks
Here is the list of tasks in the order that you would perform them to set up your event:
Pre-Event tasks:
1. Enter all of your categories under Edit Event Categories
2. Enter all contestant information under Edit Contestants
3. Enter the room assignments for the categories under Edit Room Assignments
4. Run detail reports to check your data entry
5. Create the schedule under Build Time Schedule
6. Run scheduling reports to check the schedule
7. If necessary, make minor adjustments to the schedule under Swap Times
8. Set up second round room assignments if needed (this can be done during the event) under Second Round Room Set up
9. Run any other reports that you need prior to the event, such as reports to send to the churches and the program reports
10. IMPORTANT: Do a back-up of your data. This way if any unforeseen things happen, you can at least begin back at this point. Anything can happen with computers, so make it a priority to back up your data.
During the Event tasks:
11. Enter scores
12. Build a schedule for the second round under Build Second Round Schedule (if necessary)
13. Run Second Round Report if needed
14. Run Contestant Detail by Category with Ratings report
Post Event tasks:
15. Run Qualified for Nationals Report
Edit Contestants
This is where you enter/view information on each contestant.
I.D. - not editable
Last Name - the contestant’s last name.
First Name - the contestant’s first name. You can double click on this field to open a search box. In the search box, enter a full or partial last name. A list of matches will come up. Double click on a name to show the record for that contestant.
Church - The contestants church name. As you enter records, this field will build a list of previously entered names from which you can choose.
T-shirt Size - Click on the appropriate button.
Start Day - If this contestant cannot be present on the first day of the overall event, enter the day that they will be available. This should be in numeric format; i.e. If your event starts on a Friday, but this contestant cannot attend until Saturday, enter 2 here which would be the second day of the event. This field will default to 1.
The bottom portion of the screen allows you to build a list of individual events that this contestant has entered.
Category Code - select a category code for this event from the dropdown list. The list is created from your entry of the Event Categories.
Group - If the category is a solo event, the contestants name will be inserted here automatically - you should not alter it. If it is a group event, enter the name of the group. Each member of the group needs to be entered separately in each event using the same group name. As you enter group names a list is built for you to choose from previously entered names. This helps you keep groups organized.
Example: John Smith and Amy Jones from First Assembly are entering the Human Video Group category. You would then enter contestant information for John Smith in the top part of the screen and then in the event list section, you would select your code for the Human Video Group event. Then under Group, you might enter ‘Smith/Jones’ or ‘First Assembly #1’ or something else of your choosing. Scoring will be entered later. Now you will enter contestant information for Amy Jones. Again, you will select your code for the Human Video Group event. Now, under group, select from the dropdown list (or start to type) the name that you entered for this event for John Smith. Make sure that you give each group a unique name.
Score - After a person/group has completed an event, double-click this field to open up the Scoring Form.
Rating - This field will be filled in by the scoring routine.
Advance to Second Round - This field will be filled in by the scoring routine if this event has the second round box checked in the Event Categories Edit.
Edit Event Categories
Description - Name of the event category.
Code - A short code that will be used for this category
Length of Event - This is the amount of time allotted to each contestant in this event including setup/teardown time. i.e. If there are 5 minutes allowed for setup and teardown and 7 minutes allowed for the actual performance, then the length would be 0:12.
Solo Event - If this is a solo event, check this box.
Nonscheduled Event - If this is not an actual performance event, then check this box. I.e. if the event is a photography display.
Second Round - If this event has a second round associated with it, check this box.
Edit Room Assignments
This is where you will tell the program which room will hold which events on which days. You will enter break times as well as the times that events should start and end in this room. Note that the program will occasionally over-run the start of a break or the room end time as a normal part of the scheduling. At a maximum, the over-run will be the length of one event.
Name - Room description. This field builds a drop down list for you to choose from.
Day - You need a record for each room for each day of your event. Enter a number here corresponding to the day of your event. I.e. If your event runs on a Friday and Saturday and you have a room that is used both days, you would enter two records for that room. The first would have a 1 in the Day field to correspond to Friday, and the second record would have the same room name and 2 in the Day field to correspond to Saturday.
Start Time - What time do events start in this room on this day.
End Time - What time do events end in this room on this day.
Break Time - What time a break will start in this room. (You can have up to 3 per room)
Break Length - How long the break will last.
Keep Together - Normally, if you schedule more than one category in a room, they will be randomly mixed throughout the day. If you want to keep categories together, check this box. I.e. Check this box if you want to have Male Vocal Solos in the morning and Female Vocal Solos in the afternoon in the same room.
In the bottom part of the screen, you build a list of categories that will perform in this room on this day.
Category - Select a category code from the list.
Start Time - Only used if the Keep Together box is checked for this room on this day.
End Time - Only used if the Keep Together box is checked for this room on this day.
** Note: If you check the Keep Together box, you need to enter start/end times for all categories in this room on this day.
Build Time Schedule
** This function should not be performed until all contestant data is finalized. The table built here becomes the basis for all the rest of the functions for your event.
After you have entered all of your contestant data, you are ready to build the Time Table. This part of the program will take all of the contestants and place them randomly into time slots. Then it will check each event that a contestant is in against all the other events for that contestant, to make sure that there are no time conflicts. If it finds a conflict, it randomly swaps positions with another contestant. Then it recalculates the start times for the rooms that were affected by the swap. After clearing all conflicts for a particular contestant, it moves to the next. When it reaches the end of the contestants, it goes back and starts again. This will continue until it passes through all of the contestants without making a change. This can be a lengthy process. Remember, if a group of contestants is in a time slot and one of them has a time conflict with another event, ALL of them move to a new time slot when that time is swapped. Before you start this process, you will enter a Time Buffer. This is the amount of time that you would like to have between events for a particular contestant. If you make this a large number and have contestants that are in many events, this could cause the program to be unable to resolve the conflicts. The EventBreak field is used to help alleviate this problem. If a contestant has more than this many events and the program is having problems resolving the time conflicts, it will drop the between event buffer to the Secondary Buffer. When the process is done, you can print reports to check how the schedule looks. If for any reason you don’t like the schedule, you can re-run this process.
Start Date - This is the actual date in MM/DD/YYYY format that the event starts.
Buffer - The amount of time you would like each contestant to have between each of their individual events.
EventBreak - A threshold in the number of events that will cause the program to use the Secondary Buffer Number for the time between events for a contestant with many events.
Secondary Buffer - An amount of time smaller than Buffer for contestants to have between each event.
Break Overrun - This field is not editable. It will be filled in by the program and is the amount of time that the last event before a break could possibly overrun into the break time. The reason this happens is because of the random pattern of swapping the contestant events and the difference in the length of events.
Swap Times
If you need to make minor changes to the schedule, this is the place to do it. If you have major changes to make, you might want to consider re-running the Build Time Schedule process. Remember, when you swap times here, you will have to check for your own time conflicts.
First choose a category code. Next, click to select/deselect 2 different person/group records to swap time slots. Then click on the Swap Times button. You are only allowed to swap among a particular category to avoid having to recalculate the room affected by the swap.
Second Round Room Setup
Category - Choose a Category Code from the dropdown list.
Room - Choose a Room from the dropdown list.
Start Time - Enter the time that this Category will start in this Room.
Build Second Round Schedule
When you run this process, you are reminded to have done the following first:
Checked the second round box in any categories necessary.
Set up a room for each second round category.
Entered all scores for all contestants in the affected categories.
**Note that there is no time conflict resolution done for second rounds.
Second Round Report
This report shows the calculated schedule for the second round events.
Scheduling Reports
Contestant Detail Reports
These reports give various detailed data that is useful for different purposes. When the title says ‘by’ it means sorted by.
Contestant Detail by Church - Lists all contestants in each category sorted by church. As this one doesn't include times, it is a great report to send to each church for confirmation of who is in what event. If the times were also included, you might get a lot of calls asking for different time slots!
Contestant Detail by Church with Times
Contestant Detail by Category
Contestant Detail by Category with Ratings - A report of all contestants’ ratings.
Qualified for Nationals - This report gives you only those that qualify to advance.
Time Assignment by Room - no page breaks
Time Assignment by Room with page breaks
T-shirt Report - This report is sorted by church and gives a total for each size.
Program Reports
These reports help you to develop a program for your event. You are able to transfer them to Microsoft Word for further editing before having your programs printed. You need to have Word installed.
You will be in preview mode after selecting one of these reports. At the top of the screen, you will see a menu like the one below. Note where the cursor is. This is where you can send Access reports to other Microsoft Office products. Click on the Word link to open a new Word document with the report in it. Then you can add or subtract anything you need to give you the layout that you would like for your program.
Time Assignments by Room - This is the schedule of events. Note that the breaks are not listed, so you will need to add them.
Nonscheduled Events - This is a listing of contestants in the exhibition events.
Category List - The Time Assignments report uses the Category Codes, so this is a useful addition to the front of your program.
Achievement Certificates
This function opens a MailMerge document in Microsoft Word. Again, you will need to have Word installed to use this feature. You will also need to be familiar with how to use MailMerge. This function looks for a document named ‘Certificate’. That way if you use the program more than one time, you can reuse the same file - only the data associated with it will change. If it doesn't’t find a file by that name, it creates a new document. Using the MailMerge functions, you will be able to add First Name, Last Name, Church, Category ***************************** to your document to create certificates.
Maintenance Reports
These reports help you check your entry of all of your data.
Contestant Detail
Event Category
Room Assignment
Entering Scoring
Any time after a contestant completes an event you can enter a score. You accomplish this by double clicking the Score field in the appropriate event record.
At the top of the screen is listed the Person/Group, Category Code, and Category Description. These fields are not editable. Enter each Judge’s score for the appropriate category. If there was any Time Violation, click the appropriate button. If there was a rule violation, click that button. Click the Calculate button to show the Score and Rating. Click the Update button to save the Score - this is also done automatically when you click the Exit button. The update process will save the score and rating for each member of a group. This means, you only have to enter the score once for a group. If you need to change the scores for any reason, be sure to edit from the same contestant record that you originally used since the score was tied to that record.
Note: If two judges give a score that puts a contestant into a higher bracket than they would be with the third judges score averaged in, the higher bracket is awarded.
Special Situations
A group event that doesn't’t require individual registration.
When you have a group event such as Youth Choir in which would have maybe 12 members or maybe 20 or any other number depending on who came to the event, you won’t be entering the contestants individually in the category. In this case, you need to enter that group as a contestant record. I.e. The Rogers Township Church is entering a Youth Choir. You would create a contestant record as ‘The Rogers Township Church’. Then, under events, you would create an entry for the Youth Choir category.
Note: Since the names of the group members are not entered, there
can be no time conflict resolution for this type of category. This means
that in the above example, any contestant from
Installation notes
If you have trouble with the width of a report not fitting on the paper.
All the reports were designed to fit on 8 ½ x 11 inch paper. You may need to check your margin settings to make sure that they are set at ½ inch right, left, top, and bottom.