Different clubs have different targets. But generally, you can adjust following main options, and test with Simulation to get the best Options for your club.
• "Encourage Match Variety" - This option specifies the social degree, or match variety when arranging matches. So, if you like BC4E to make as many "good" matches as possible, you can allow duplication by setting it to "Nope". If you like each match has different players, you can set it to "Strongly", which is default. It has four degrees: "Strongly", "Moderate", "Slightly", and "Nope".
• "Enforce Gender Options" - It is "No" by default. You can set this option to "Yes" to make Gender Balance as mandatory. BC4E will arrange matches with Gender Balance over Level Balance, which is opposite to the default.
• "Mix High & Low Levels" - Normally, BC4E arranges matches with smallest level difference. The highest player has hardly chance to play with the lowest player. This option is to make some matches with big level difference after that number of normal matches. If you don't like BC4E to make any "bad" match intentively, set this option to zero. It is desgined to ensure everyone has fair share of playing with beginners for some clubs where skill level range is from beginners to experts.
• "Policy of Two Divisions" - This option is for some special club requirement. You can divide all club users into two divisions by their User Type, and set the policy for them as "Compete" / "Seperate" / "Mix Up". Default is "Mix Up", which treats as one division. "Compete" is to arrange matches like tournment between two divisions of players. With that, each mach has one pair of players from one division. "Seperat" is to arrange matches as players of each division only plays with others within the same division.
• "Match Count Ratio" - This option is set the perference to High Level players. By default, Players of all levels have equal chance of playing. Some clubs like to favor to high-level players so that they can have more matches than low-level players. This option is to set the ratio of their match counts between level 12 and level 1.
BC4E has integrated the practice experience in various clubs in Badminton North Harbour association. It is proved to be able to meet different requirements. Just configure the BC4E Options, test with Simulation until the result is satisfactory for you. Simulation can be done within a few seconds to save a few hours club run. Check the match Reports, and see if they meet your goals.
Yes, BC4E has such feature, which can pair 2 ~ 4 players together so BC4E will arrange them to play together as much as possible. You can even specify the percentage of matches to play together for each binding group.
Yes, you just need to create multiple schedules for different time period with different court allocation. BC4E will automatically use the predefined schedules to allocate courts for the specified time period accordingly. No human operation is needed.
Yes, BC4E has an option called "Match Count Ratio", it is the match count ratio between the highest player and the lowest player. By default, it is "8:8", which means everyone has the equal chance to play. But in some instances, it doesn't mean everyone will player the same number of matches. It just means it does not favour certain group of players. Those players have 1 more match are sort of picked out randomly (actually related to the match history and composition of players). But you can choose "8:7" or even higher ratio ("8:6","8:5","8:4") to favour the higher players.
There are two ways to deal with it. One is the modify the predefined schedule for the different court allocation. But you need to change it back to normal later. The other way is to create a Casual Schedule, which is just for that day. This temporary schedule will be automatically disable after that day.
They are the same in moving players away from the court. But Deleting a Match remove it from match history. Normally, it is an operation for new arranged matches, which have not played.
"Clear Court" is for matches that already started and played for while. The match will be kept in match history, which will affect next arrangement. Clearing court is mainly to arrange some new match manually before the automatic picking, or make all players in Waiting Players windows.
In Auto mode, all courts start and finish matches at the same time. And all match durations (paces) are the same. BC4E automatically arranges new games without any human operation. Matches are arranged, started, and stopped automatically.
In Sync mode, all courts start and finish matches at the same time. But match durations (paces) could be different for each session at different time. Operators can adjust match start time or end time. Or matches can be arranged, started and stopped manually by operators.
In Asyn mode, each court can have its only pace. Matches on courts are arranged (thus started), stopped manually by Operators. In other words, each court is managed seperately by right clicking the court, and choosing the action to take.
Switch between three modes are done by the same menu item. It goes like Auto Mode -> Sync Mode -> Async Mode -> Auto Mode.
Firstly, configure BC4E Options to enable hourly feature by choosing Config -> Options -> Choose "Yes" for option "enable_hourly_fee". Then, to register to play club by unit of hour instead of the whole club duration, Right Click the player's name in Club User window, and choose "Register - 1(h)" for one hour's playing. Be aware that you cannot use any other way to register the player for unit of hours. All other ways are to play the whole club duration. When adding a new club user, BC4E will register him or her as default. If the player only wants to play one hour, you need to register him or her again as described previously. BC4E will automatically timeout the player when his or her paid duration is over.
Sometimes, new version of BC4E may cause unexpected errors. If you experienced some problem after upgrading to a new version. Please follow these steps to roll it back and restore to the previous version:
1. Export current registered players to .CSV file by choosing "Admin -> Export Player" to keep the registered players.
2. Close BC4E application.
3. Rename "C:\BC4E" folder to something like "C:\BC4E_yyyymmdd" by adding a date suffix.
4. Restore the old BC4E by renaming the latest backup folder (upgrading procedure will create a backup folder with date time suffix automatically) to "C:\BC4E".
5. Start BC4E (make sure the Shortcut still pointing to the executable in "C:\BC4E" folder.)
6. Import the registered players by choosing "Admin . Import Player", and browse to the files saved in Step 1.
7. Rollback is done. Club should be ready for running the old version BC4E. The only drawback is that all match history is lost. So only to roll back the upgraded version when new version doesn't work.
Notes: If new version doesn't change the data storing format (most likely), you can save the Step 1 and Step 6 by simply copying the "players.tbl" and "matches.tbl" data files to the restored folder. This is better in that match history are kept as well. You can take chance in most of time. Data format is not changed very often.
To grantee gender balance, you can set option "Enforce Gender Balance" to "Yes". With that, BC4E will set Gender Balance as mandatory pn top of skill level balance.
Notes: BC4E usually puts Level Balance before Gender Balance. The reasons are that for example, if a female player has much higher level than other female players, and only male players has equivalent level to hers, It makes more sense to let her play with male players.
1. BC4E already has data protection mechanism in place. You just need to activate it by setting an non empty password for the default administrator account "admin".
2. With initial installation, "Admin" account has an empty password, which is designed to facilitate customers to test all features without data protection activated.
3. To activate data protectioin:
• Choose menuitem, "Config -> Administrator".
• In the dialog window, type "admin" for Adminitrator, and any none empty password in Password field, and Password Confirmation field.
• Click "Update" button to change the password of "admin". They reason you can do it like this is because "admin" has empty password previously.
1. By default, BC4E allocates courts randomly when making a new match. The option "Court Selection Scope" controls the scope of random selection.
Random allocation is fair for everyone because some courts may be better than others in terms of location, light, etc depending on sites.
2. To make the random selection scope smaller, and avoid large movement around, you can change the settings from "100%" to smaller values.
For example, if you have 10 courts in your Club Schedule, and set "Court Selection Scope" to "25%". BC4E will allocate courts in such order:
(1 ~ 3); (4 ~ 6), (7 ~9), 10. But the order of court 1, 2, 3 are random (2.5 courts round to 3 courts), so court 4,5,6, and so on.
3. To arrange court in sequence, you just need to make the random scope less or close to one court. In the example above, choose "10%" or less will in fact make the aloocation in sequence 1, 2, 3, ...10.
4. You can even reverse the court allocation sequence by specifiying the Court Name differently in Court Configuration form.