Live Results

[guedo499]

I've been offline for awhile, but seeing comments about live results; here's what I'm thinking:

When I was flagging on the barge at the last Wakefield Nationals, I watched as the head scorer, one of the Allen talents (sorry, can't remember who), was running an Excel spreadsheet which kept track of all of the heat participants as well as tracked their lap times/total times/points per heat, total points per class.

Being that it is an Excel file, and I'm assuming, has a Office 365 user signed in, I'm thinking that there is a way that you can publish the file, through 365 (or their online One Drive) as a read-only file, so anyone with a 365 user name (or Outlook or similar) can view the file as it is being published. This, of course, also assumes that there is a signal that can be connected. However, as the data being transferred is minimal, a simple data connect would suffice (think phone data plan), a traditional wifi wouldn't be needed.

There are other issues that play a part as i don't believe all scorers use the same platform across the clubs. If this is a viable option, this a way APBA could dictate what the scorers have to use, access the results first thing Monday morning, simplify the scorer's job and results will be immediate.

I know there is someone smart out there that does this stuff everyday (Dean?) that could say "go here", "do this"; anyone?

[guedo499]

https://podium.live/

https://podium.live/events/h1-unlimi...-heat/overview

The above links are, at the very least, interesting. The H1 information is not all there as I believe many of the boats didn't place the beacons on their rides.

I don't think this would work for the outboard KISS mentality, but neat to see another option.

[guedo499]

https://support.office.com/en-us/art...rs=en-US&ad=US

The above link seems to have the answer - OneDrive for Business. I suppose simple testing to ensure a read-only sharing is about all the work you'll need to do. Nice thing is the 365 platform is going to be around for a very long time and and we aren't creating anything new, just matching up programs. Again - anyone do something like this for a living?

Question: how many clubs use the scoring system that I am referring to in the above post? Name of it?

One think a definitely know: you don't piss off the lunch lady or janitor at school; in boating, you don't piss off the scorers. As long as this is a reasonable transition, allowing information to travel quickly and efficiently from clubs to corporate, I bet this would be an easy sell to the real people of power - the scorers.

[Graham 18ce]

It is doable with some work. Granted it has been a number of years since I saw there file they are scoring with. Mia built the.original. It was great for people who new excel well, but far from user friendly to the none user.
I was in the middle of rebuilding from scratch to be a user friendly version. Auto popuate Elims, finals, auto combine classes based on club imported data. Auto print heat results, auto tie breaking, and simple click disqualification for driving infraction and inspection.
Spent tonnes of hours and then ApBa started talking about new scoring and pont system.
I stopped working on it as the hours would be wasted. They never went ahead with point changed and out club went back to paperwork so i never had the drive to finish it off.
I'm not a scorer but I'm a report and analyst guy and I like swing results and want them between heats.
Simple things like jumpers and dsq should be info related to drivers before the next heat.

[Racerkyle20]

I love this. As someone who participants in a few private fantasy football leagues with members across the country participating, we simply use an online excel spreadsheet when drafting at the beginning of the season. Each player can make their pick and enter it in the online excel spreadsheet.

This seems like something similar, although needed to make it read only so changes cannot be made other than the scorer at the race entering results. Seems simple enough to get out rough results to those demanding it.

[guedo499]

Update:

I've successfully shared a link to a read-only file using Microsoft's OneDrive (using my personal account). This can be shared as a static link or embedded into site (Wordpress is one example, the platform I used to build SOA's website)

Next on the schedule is to test with the actual Excel File the Scorers use. Hopefully I get that soon and can run some mock races (I have a few requests out). I'm interested to see what the actual lag time on the Scorer updating their file to us viewers will be. On my test it's around 3-5 seconds.

IF, IF, IF, this all works, the only additional thing a scorer will need to do is publish the OneDrive link to a public spot: APBA's Site, HR, or probably the easiest, their Club's FB page.

This solution would not be a solution, more of a decent stop-gap. Minimal additional efforts would need make this happen week in a week out, but would get us going in the correct direction.

Hopefully this will work.

John Peeters

[Mrs blueskyracer]

HR would certainly host the OneDrive link in it's own forum so that instant results could be available. National wide how many ABPA clubs are there?

[csh-2z]

Good work, John. Do you think this would require another person on the judges stand? Getting volunteers is always a difficult issue. Most of our races we're trying to bang out as quickly as possible, and asking a chief scorer to take on more stuff is not always (or actually, EVER) a good idea.

[Racerkyle20]

I think John's current model would be using the same chief scorer excel spreadsheet she/he is currently working on. Example Monica Allen at Nationals was inputting all the heat info into an excel spreadsheet on the judges stand. If she could have this page online (read only to others) boom instant results to everyone checking into the page.No extra input needed by anyone other than the scorer themselves.Internet connection required, which as we know can be difficult in a lot of places we race.

[Ram4x4]

Excel spreadsheets at the scorer's stand would be OK for the scorer to use, but a better push technology and viewer platform would be ideal for publishing real-time, or near real-time results.

I'm the IT guy at our local high school and just yesterday we had a conference call with a company called Apptegy. It's really geared around the school's website, but what they do is offer a single-point input (the website) that is then automatically pushed out to various social media sites (Facebook, twitter, etc) and they also include a custom phone app that is designed to present the data in a very user friendly format.

The way this could potentially work: SO/MO gets their own page on APBA's website, or get one set up somewhere (the club site perhaps). The scoring sheet is hosted on the site. The scorer logs in to the site at the race and brings up the sheet. Scorer inputs their data. Every time they make an update a simple button click publishes the data to the site. The widgets embedded in the site automatically push the data out to the social sites and the phone app (all of which can be customized to look however you want).

If you could make a connection to Office 365, you could make the connection to the sheet on the home website. That way you get the excel sheet for the backend paperwork, but then also present the data in a different, better looking layout for viewers across multiple platforms.

They have various pricing models and I'm sure they'd be willing to work a package that would work for our sport.

The question though is having that data connection. Some race sites have no cell phone service at all. Worst case scenario, the sheet is scored and saved and someone would have to run up to a McDonald's or somewhere they can get a signal or wifi and upload the sheet to the site.

Another possibility for no-signal sites is a portable hot spot. Back in 2006 I worked IT at the power company in San Antonio. We built portable cell repeaters that were carried in the trucks. The guys could stick an antenna up on the truck and the repeater radio, the second radiating antenna, and power supply were mounted to a small board, they powered it from the 12v outlet of the truck. You could put the yagi style antenna on one of those long light bulb changing poles to raise it up and get a signal.

[Howie Nichols]

Seems like some great ideas here. Dane this is not to sound condescending at all so please dont take it that way as sometimes type written words are, Since you are a newby and have IT background you bring some great ideas forward. Have you looked at the scoring program that we use? I would suggest spending a set or 2 helping on the judges stand just so you can see it in action, this might help you even further with thoughts on how we can get things posted quicker. Keep the ideas flowing, good stuff can come out of it!

[Mrs blueskyracer]

HR would certainly host the OneDrive link in it's own forum so that instant (or near instant) results could be available. National wide how many ABPA clubs are there that hold races? I have the numbers for AOF and NBRA.

[adamallen]

Out of curiousity-Is using the current scoring program an option or requirement?

[Big Don]

This is a member driven organization not a dictatorship. Wait...maybe that is the problem???

[guedo499]

Out of curiousity-Is using the current scoring program an option or requirement?

An option. I've seen three different scoring systems used so far and I really have never paid attention - I'm sure there is more out there.