Automated Tabbing, Pairing, and Awards System

Hi, all. We (GW Mock Trial) just finished running our invitational and wanted to see if anyone would be interested in using the tab system we developed for it. The system is wildly efficient: Using it, we were able to run a sixty-four team tournament with a total staff of six. Despite being understaffed, closings and the majority of our rounds started on time, with no round starting more than 10 minutes behind schedule. Even those delays were related to judge assignments and would have been solved had each division had a second person. The tabbing system is largely responsible for this punctuality, as it requires very little from tournament hosts. Seriously, it does just about everything: it automatically tabs; automatically distributes ballots; automatically performs awards/rank calculations; automatically fills out the tab summary with results, awards, and top teams; and it automatically pairs the rounds.  Other features include warnings that display if you get duplicate ballots, single ballots, duplicate award rankings, and ballots with 0's. We also have a system for tracking judge conflicts built in.

All of those features worked without a hitch this weekend with the exception of the pairing software, and even that worked flawlessly for eleven of our twelve paired rounds.  The only failure occurred because we set it up to handle a maximum of 14 swaps per round and we had one round in one division that needed 15 swaps. We updated the system later that night and it correctly handled the 15th swap and produced the correct pairings on the first attempt. We will continue to improve the system based on the comments we're still getting from our invitational and based on any other ideas we come by.

Anyway, email us at GWU.Invitational@gmail.com if you're interested and we'll set up a demonstration. Everything is in google sheets/forms so it should be easy to access and pick up. My thinking is that we'll train you on the system, give you our written guide, and then give you access to one of the four folders that holds everything we used this past weekend (with prior results and ballots irretrievably deleted). You'll just have to add team names (for the tab summary), collect and add competitor names (for awards), and distribute ballot links to your teams and you should be good to go! Seriously, the only tab stuff you should have to do is (1) check in ballots based on whether or not the system gave you any warnings and then (2) post the eventual pairings. It's super simple.

We haven't decided yet if there will be a charge--we're thinking that will depend on interest. As hinted at above, we're only going to have four spots available per weekend so let us know sooner rather than later if you're interested.

*Just so we don't get in any feuds with y'all, we're not going to guarantee the pairing system and recommend that you be prepared to hand pair if necessary. However, with the update, it's handled all the tests we've thrown at it plus all 12 rounds (first round doesn't require pairing, that's why it isn't 16) from our four division tournament--one of which was a particularly tricky 15 swap situation. So take from that what you will.

**Also, so everyone knows, the pairing system currently cannot handle teams showing up or leaving in the middle of the tournament. So, if either of those things occur you’ll need to pair by hand. Finally, we'll mention that the system is capped out at 24 teams though it can handle fewer.

Quick update on our system. We've edited the post above to reflect some improvements we've added over the past few days:

1. The pairing feature can now handle bye teams.
2. We've upgraded the system to handle up to 20 swaps per round for round 2 and 3 pairings and up to 25 swaps for round 4 pairings. Again, none of us are personally aware of a round needing more than 15 swaps, but if someone has other information we can add more.