Import competition data

If you have data about participants collected in another system, be it excel or some online apllication, you don’t want to copy all the data into your competition by hand. The import procedure helps you to transfer data by means CSV (comma separated values) files.

In this chapter we will explain in detail how to create such a file, and how to import it.

The import procedure can be used to import many kinds of data, such as: participant information (club, members, judges), team/group information (group name), participation information (category, bib, etc…), session information (session name, date) and starting order information (block, set, order)

Preparing a CSV file

A CSV file is a text based file format used to store table like data. This format is used in different variations (e.g. with tabs or semicolon as field separators.
You can easily export CSV files from programs such as Excel or Open Office Calc.

The ScoreExpress import routine will automatically detect the format used in your file. However, there are some details you need to take into account when preparing the import file(s).

Field names header

The first line of the file should contain field names. This will allow you to match the fields in your file with the import fields presented by the application.

Unicode

When saving the import file, make sure to select a character set that is Unicode (UTF-8 or UTF-16). This is to ensure that any special characters in the fields are preserved correctly.

In Open Office, you will be able to select the character set when you save a file as CSV. In MS Excel you will need to select the Unicode (*.txt) file format to save the file.

Fields in the file

The import treats data in related groups of fields. For each group, you can choose if you want to use it or not.
Below each group and the fields it includes are described in detail.

Several groups will contain an External ID. These fields can be used to add an ID which will enable you to link the data back to another data source. These fields have no use for the ScoreExpress application itself.

Club

The club fields are used to create or update the clubs in your event. Note that clubs a shared between the events disciplines, so clubs imported in one discipline will also be available for other disciplines.

The import will identify clubs by their name, to decide if a club already exist (and needs to be updated) or if a new club needs to be created. Make sure to carefully spell the names of the clubs in the same way for all club members.

Name (mandatory): the name of the club
External ID: An ID field you can use to link back to your source database
Country: IOC country code of the club, only needed if you want to use the country flags in the display graphics or if you want to assign a region to the club.
Region: If you want to assign clubs to specific regions, you can use this field. The assigned regio should correspond to a region of the country.

Member

A member is a person, who is linked a to a club. This can be either a gymnast or a judge (or both).

Members a identified by their name (last name + first name) and club. Fir the name, you either need to provide a last and first name combination or the full name in one field.

Last name (mandatory, if full name is not used): the persons last name
First name (mandatory if full name is not used): the persons first name
Full name: This field can be used to replace the last and first name fields. The name will be split at the last space found in the full name value (last name is the first past).
Gender (mandatory): gender of the person: use anything which starts with M for Male. Everything else will be taken for Female.
Date of Birth (mandatory): date of birth in text format: dd/mm/yyyy
Judge: field to mark judges. Omit if you are not importing judges, use a 0/1 field if you file contains judges.
External ID: id to link the person back to your data source.

Groups

If you competition has groups, us this section to import the group information.

Groups are identified by their name and club.

Name (mandatory): the name of the group.
External ID: id to link the group back to your data source.

Teams

If you competition has teams, us this section to import the team information.

Teams are identified by their name and club.

Name (mandatory): the name of the team.
External ID: id to link the team back to your data source.

Participations

Use this section to register gymnasts or groups as participants in the discipline

A participation is identified by the person or group.

BIB: participant number
Guest: 0/1 field to indicate which participants are guests.
External ID: id to link the participation back to your data source.
Subdivision: if you have categories with multiple subdivisions, use this field to assign participants to one of the subdivision (subdisvision are numbered from 1 up).

Team Participations

If your competition has team participations (i.e. on top of individual participations) use this section to assign the participation attributes of the team.

BIB: participant number
Guest: 0/1 field to indicate which participants are guests.
External ID: id to link the participation back to your data source.

Session

Use this section if you want the import to create sessions. The import will also add the categories to the sessions according to their appearance in the same line in the import file.

Sessions are identified by their name.

Name (mandatory): name of the session
Date (mandatory): date of the session (dd/mm/yyyy)

Starting Order

Use this section if you want the import to add participants to the starting order of the sessions.

Set/panel : the set or panel which the participation is assigned to (for mixed order type disciplines, the set for each exercise type needs to be assigned in the session configuration).
Rotation/block: for artistic gymnastics this determines the first event of the participant. For other disciplines this indicates in which rotation they will have to perform.
Block order index: this field determines the internal order of the participants in a block.
Exercise Type: for mixed order type disciplines, the schedule is prepared per exercise. This field will determine the exercise type for the pass.

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