BC4E is a Badminton Game Management System driven by schedules. Once you have configured properly, running club just a matter of signing in to play, and signing out when leaving early.
Following is the general procedure to get started:
Configure "User Types" -> Import "Users" or Add "User" one by one -> Configure "Courts" -> Configure "Schedules"
1. Configure User Types of club users: choose menu item "Config" -> "User Types".
You can group club users by different types. One sample is to have two different types: "Permanent Members" or "Casual Visitors".
There are three reasons to have different user types:
a. Different club visit fee for different users.
b. Set up user types into two divisions, and implement different policy between them.
c. Impliment player number limit or locking out control based on user types.
2. Add Users by importing from a file or editing User Profile one by one:
You can manually add club user one by one: choose menu item "Admin" -> "User Profile";
Or import all club users from a text file (.csv, see sample file for the format): choose menu item "Admin" -> "Import".
3. Configure the court on the site: choose menu item "Config" -> "Courts".
This only needs to be done once for the court site.
4. Configure the club schedule time period and court allocation: choose menu item "Config" -> "Schdule".
This only needs to be done once when the regular time period or court allocation changes.
When you change the active schedule, it will only take effect in the next match arrangement, unless
you use "Rearrange All" to override the arranged new matches.
5. Sign In a player for each club run: "Double Click" the club user,
or "Right Click" the club user ->"Sign In".
or "Drag" a cluber user from Club Users Windows and "Drop" on Waiting Players' Window
Notes: When choosing a user from the list, you can type in one or mupliple letters of user name initials to speed up navigation in "Club User" list.
6. Sign Up/In a new player, who is not listed in Club User Window: Add this user by choosing menu item "Admin" -> "User Profile".
Typing in the mandatory fields ( marked with * ) -> "Update" button.
Notes: It is to Update user profile, and sign in to play as well. "Sign In" button is for signing in a listed club user.
Above is the overall procedure to use this program. It will arrange matches automatically according to the schedules.
7. Start a new arrangement manually: "Run -> Arrange New"
Or Choose "Run -> Rearrange" to overwrite the matches that are already arranged,
8. Run a club occasionally that is different from the predefined schedules: "Config -> Schedule"
You can modify the active schedule, or create a Casual Schedule specifically for the day only.
9. Change the options that program behaves: choose menu item "Config -> Options"
To know how to set up Options for your club, please read FAQ document.
10. Reserve a court for other use: "Right Click" any player in the court -> "Manage Court" -> "Reserve".
11. Release a reserved court for club players: "Right Click" any player in the court -> "Manage Court" -> "Release".
12. Leave club: "Double Click" the player name, or,"Right Click" it -> "Leave".
13. Take a break: "Right Click" the player name -> "Take a break". The player won't have a match for next session.
But he or she will be automatically included in the match arrangement after the break.
14. Exclude a player from new match arrangement, but not leave: "Right Click" the player name -> "Exclude".
15. Include a player who has been excluded: "Right Click" the player name -> "Exclude".
16. Play a last match, and then leave: Right click the player in Waiting Players window -> "Leave after one Match".
17. Change view: you can change the main view by Court, Player: choose menu item "Views" -> "Court View" or "Player View".
18. Swap between two players: "Drag" from one player, and "Drop" on to the other player;
Matches are only allowed to change at the certain of time (configurable), before they start playing, or started not too long.
19. Delete a match at the specific court: "Right click" any player in the court -> "Manage Court" -> "Delete"
This is only used when the match is incorrect, or unwanted.
20. Clear a court: "Right click" any player in the court -> "Manage Court" -> "Clear"
This is used when you like to manually arrange some matches on cleared courts.
In Auto Mode or Sync Mode, all courts are Cleared at the same time. Only in Async Mode, each court can be cleared separately at different time.
Notes: Delete and Clear opertion are different in that "Delete" removes the match from the match history while "Clear" keeps them in the history.
"Clear" a court is just to make it available for new match (normally for manual arrangement).
Match history is very important in arranging new matches because it affects who to play and whom to play with next.
21. Restore the previously deleted or overwritten match in a court: "Right click" any player in the court -> "Manage Court" -> "Restore"
Used only when deleting a match by mistake.
22. Restore all matches: Choose menuitem "Run" -> "Restore"
23. Simulation feature is provided to test how the Options affect the matches arranged. It is used to get Options right for the club without need to actually run the club.
Choose menu item "Simulate" -> "Simulate for Today" or "Simulate for One Run"
Notes: You can export all players out to a .CSV file to be able to test the same group of players for different combination of Options in any time.
before actually running the club. Remember to reset (clear) Simulation matches or players afterwards.
24. Pair 2 ~ 4 players together: Select multiple players by Holding the CTRL key, and Clicking each player to pair.
Then "Right Click" any selected player -> Choose "Pair Together". System will arrange them in the same match as much as possible.
It will have better chance of success to pair players in the same status (Waiting or Playing), because BC4E has fairness as rule number one.
If the paired players have played different number of matches, most likely BC4E won't arrange them togeter unless the arrangement doesn't conflict with Rule #1.
25. Sum up club fee: To make the system automatically sum up the club fee that should be collected in a club run. You need to configure the Club Fee by:
"Config" -> "Club Fee"
26. You can lock up Player Signing In to prevent any user from signing in unexpectedly without paying visit fee :
"Admin" -> "Lock Signing In"
27. Specifiy the percentage of matches together for paired players: Click the Pairing Group Id -> Choose the percentage in the Drop Down list.
28. Specify the differnt duration for WarmUp session period: "Config" -> "Options", and specify a none zero value for "minute_of_warmup_period" paramter.
'-1': flexible WarmUp period from 0 ~ 30 minutes;
'0' : the same duration as match duration;
'positive number': the minutes of warm-up period that can be different from match duration.
29. Copy Reports to Excel spreadsheet or other software: Just use standard Windows operations for Select, Copy & Paste : Ctrl + A - select all; Ctrl + C - copy ; Ctrl + P - paste.
30. You can Right Click the title of the Group Boxes of "Active Mathces", "Waiting Players" and "Club Users" to choose Show or Hide skill levels or other fields.
31. Use barcode to speed up signing in players: Firstly, you need to have barcode configured or stored for users. After that, you can use barcode scanner to scan a user's barcode to automatically sign in the user.
You can import a batch of users with ID_Serial_Number field as their barcode strings, or set a user's ID_Serial_Number to his or her barcode string one by one through editing User Profile.
For importing, see Import Users.
For editing user profile, do following steps:
a. Right click the user name in Club User window.
b. Choose Edit Profile.
c. In the prompted form, use TAB key to move the input filed to the TextBox after "ID S/N #" .
d. Scan the barcode for the user.
e. Click Update button.
f. If there is an active schedule for the day, BC4E will automatically sign in the user when updated.
g. If you don't want sign in the user as a player, you can reset all players by choose menu item "Simulate" -> "Reset Matches & Players".
32. You can divide all users into two divisions by specifying which User_Type belongs to Division 1 or Divsion 2. Then choose the Options for the way to arrange matches between the two divisions.
There are three different ways: "Mix up", "Compete", or "Separate".
"Mix up" - treat two divisions as one pool. Just like no division at all.
"Compete" - arrange matches with one pair of players from one division, just like tournament between two divisions (clubs).
"Separate" - arrange matches among each division. Players in one division will hardly play with players in the other division.
33. You can show Player's Level in the arranged matches to facilitate your manual adjustment by Right Click "Current Matches" heading and Choose "Show or Hide".
34. You can change Club Run mode to suit for your club: "Run" -> "Switch to XXXX Mode".
Auto Mode -> Sync Mode -> Async Mode -> (back to start)
Auto Mode: All courts start and stop at the same time, and all match durations are as predefined. They start and stop automatically.
Sync Mode: All courts start and stop at the same time, but Club Operator kicks off starting or stopping (implicitly) matches manually.
Async Mode: Each court has its own pace. Each court can start and stop at different time. They are all controled manually.