** ready to be deleted now **
Hi!
(maybe sticky this? I get asked about it a lot)
A number of questions pop up every now and again, some from new members, some from long-time members, some from people just signing up, etc, so let me just give you a quick review of how this systems works, what it does for you, what it DOESN'T do for you, and what it might do for you in the near future...
There's a 'manual' available for download from the main/login page which has step-by-step instructions, with screen shots, the below here is just a summary.
#1 : as was said before, this system is an independent effort, not controlled/etc by any one ipsc organization. It is used almost exclusively by ipsc Ont affiliated clubs, but that's not a built-in limitation by any means. To be honest, if it grew as originally planned into a multi-section system, I'd need to upgrade it, so people could be grouped within the system according to their section (and for the purpose of match listing/etc too), but since it doesn't appear to be gaining any sizeable interest outside of Ontario, I'm not worried about it. So, if you have a problem/complaint about this, your local ipsc rep (or the board) are blameless
#2 : like everything else in this sport, this is a 100% volunteer effort - I'm using my account/setup on www.vex.net to host it; since it's part of a bigger package I have, it's not costing me anything beyond a $30/year domain registration fee. Whatever time I put into it (development, support, etc) it's all just my time, just like any RO helping out on the range.
But this also means that, like any website, there are no guarantees that it will be 100% up - sometimes the ISP (vex) has problems, sometimes the ISP "upgrades" something which causes some part of the system to stop working (like outgoing emails, happened a couple of times already), etc. We'll work as quickly as we can to get whatever the problem is fixed, but this isn't Google - it isn't 100% uptime...
#3 : anything dealing with policies for individual clubs/matches (like when is it open for signup, why isn't it open yet, why isn't it listed yet, why are there only so many squads listed, etc, etc ) - ALL of that is under the control of the person creating and administrating the matches for that club. I.e. most of the time that will be the club's IPSC rep, but sometimes (s)he will have a more computer-aware helper assisting. We can setup as many people who'll be able to control/setup/etc matches for a given club as you like, so if you're an IPSC rep who isn't too IT-savvy, we can also give someone else the ability to actually setup and control these matches for you, and you can just monitor/etc.
There are no built-in policies for setting up matches, making them open, making them visible, etc - the individual club's "administrators" are 100% free to implement whatever they want. The system is just a tool, they are welcome to use it any way they see fit
#4a : money ; the system has the ability to setup matches where the administrator has to "mark"/"activate" your account for a particular match - you won't be able to signup for that match, until that's done. This was put in place to allow for "pre-payment" matches - once you pay, and the MD received and processed your funds, you'll be able to use the system fully for that match: i.e. signup for any squad with room, move around squads, set your division/PF/etc...
BUT: (!!) I DON'T PROCESS THE PAYMENTS! I DON'T HANDLE ANY MONEY! My system will allow the MD to keep track of who's paid him/her, BUT the actual transfer of money between you and the MD is totally outside of my sphere of influence or control (or interest) - you can pay with a cheque, cash, EMT, bearer bonds, SWIFT transfer, etc - nothing to do with me. That's between you and the MD...
#4b : since the pre-payment system is based on the concept of activating your account for that match, you should be setup in the system before sending money. BUT if you're not, that's fine too - the MD will be able to manually create a dummy/placeholder account for you, so the purposes of scheduling, BUT you won't be able to log in with it, you won't be able to move around to different squads with it, etc - i.e. you'll be signed up, but you won't have any of the abilities which come with being on the system.
#5a : waiting list: Waiting lists are for individual squads, not for the match as a whole. So, if you want to shoot a match that's full, and you don't care which squad, you'll need to add yourself to each and every squad's waiting list. Also, being already signed up for one squad, doesn't mean you can't be signed up for another squad's waiting list - sort of "I like it here, but I'd rather shoot later, if an opening pops up" thing - if an opening appears, you'll get moved, and the opening you created on the first squad will get filled, etc. If the system puts you onto some squad as a result of an automatic waiting list assignment, you will be removed from any and all other waiting lists for that match - so if you're lucky enough to get signed up to SOME squad, via the waiting list system, you lose your place in waiting lists for other squads. You can re-signed up to those waiting list, but you'll get added to the bottom.
#5b : waiting list, last minute: Ok, we're not crazy about this, but fact is, some people DO drop out at the last moment. If an opening appears within 24h of the squad's start time, no automatic signup will take place. Everyone on the waiting list for that squad will get an email, telling them about the opening, so they can go and signup in first-come-first-serve fashion.
The reasoning behind this is that when it's so close to the shooting time, chances are people would/could have made other plans, so blindly signing up the first person from the waiting list might very well result in his/her not showing up, or even not noticing (s)he's signed up (like if an opening shows up at 11pm for a 9am squad the next morning). And the desire to fill all openings, especially the last minute ones, is more important than blindly following the order on a waiting list. This way, we're guaranteed that whoever takes that opening will at least try to show up. This also means that if an opening appears at the last moment, it can grabbed by ANYONE who's logged in at the moment. It really does become first-come-first-serve, across the whole system, not just the people on the waiting list.
NOTE: this was my own logic - if you disagree, if you think it's unfair/etc, we can discuss this, and see if any other ways can be more fair/etc.
#5c: for people who consistently drop out at the last moment - I don't have any way of tracking that, or dealing with it, at the moment. If it DOES become a problem/issue, we'll need to come up with something, and I'll be asking MDs for their comments/ideas/etc...
#6 - matches fill up too quickly for people to notice they are even available. Ok, fair enough; I'm thinking that the next thing to be added to the system will be the ability for people to registered their interest in (any number of ) member clubs, and anytime a match is added (or something's changed about the match, more likely, which includes creation, making it open, etc) you'll get an email telling you about it - so you don't need to be constantly logging into the system, you'll get informed when something changes/etc.
#7 - email!! Because more and more of this system's operations are based on email notifications, it's very important to have your correct email in the system, AND be able to receive the automated msgs!! These msgs are caught and filtered out by some spam software, for SOME reason, no one can give me a straight answer about that. So, if your email address is setup in the system correctly, if you can receive/send personal email, and you added 'omen@vex.net' to your contact list, BUT if you send yourself a test msg from ipsc-matches.net and it doesn't arrive, chances are there's nothing I can do about it - for some reason, your ISP/etc is filtering those out. At least gmail, yahoo, and hotmail all seem to work fine, so it's not a very wide spread problem... (but I know that won't help you if YOUR ISP decides ipsc-matches.net emails are spam).
That's about all I can think of... Any other questions/etc, post them here, I guess
Thanks!
Hi!
(maybe sticky this? I get asked about it a lot)
A number of questions pop up every now and again, some from new members, some from long-time members, some from people just signing up, etc, so let me just give you a quick review of how this systems works, what it does for you, what it DOESN'T do for you, and what it might do for you in the near future...
There's a 'manual' available for download from the main/login page which has step-by-step instructions, with screen shots, the below here is just a summary. #1 : as was said before, this system is an independent effort, not controlled/etc by any one ipsc organization. It is used almost exclusively by ipsc Ont affiliated clubs, but that's not a built-in limitation by any means. To be honest, if it grew as originally planned into a multi-section system, I'd need to upgrade it, so people could be grouped within the system according to their section (and for the purpose of match listing/etc too), but since it doesn't appear to be gaining any sizeable interest outside of Ontario, I'm not worried about it. So, if you have a problem/complaint about this, your local ipsc rep (or the board) are blameless
#2 : like everything else in this sport, this is a 100% volunteer effort - I'm using my account/setup on www.vex.net to host it; since it's part of a bigger package I have, it's not costing me anything beyond a $30/year domain registration fee. Whatever time I put into it (development, support, etc) it's all just my time, just like any RO helping out on the range.
But this also means that, like any website, there are no guarantees that it will be 100% up - sometimes the ISP (vex) has problems, sometimes the ISP "upgrades" something which causes some part of the system to stop working (like outgoing emails, happened a couple of times already), etc. We'll work as quickly as we can to get whatever the problem is fixed, but this isn't Google - it isn't 100% uptime...
#3 : anything dealing with policies for individual clubs/matches (like when is it open for signup, why isn't it open yet, why isn't it listed yet, why are there only so many squads listed, etc, etc ) - ALL of that is under the control of the person creating and administrating the matches for that club. I.e. most of the time that will be the club's IPSC rep, but sometimes (s)he will have a more computer-aware helper assisting. We can setup as many people who'll be able to control/setup/etc matches for a given club as you like, so if you're an IPSC rep who isn't too IT-savvy, we can also give someone else the ability to actually setup and control these matches for you, and you can just monitor/etc.
There are no built-in policies for setting up matches, making them open, making them visible, etc - the individual club's "administrators" are 100% free to implement whatever they want. The system is just a tool, they are welcome to use it any way they see fit
#4a : money ; the system has the ability to setup matches where the administrator has to "mark"/"activate" your account for a particular match - you won't be able to signup for that match, until that's done. This was put in place to allow for "pre-payment" matches - once you pay, and the MD received and processed your funds, you'll be able to use the system fully for that match: i.e. signup for any squad with room, move around squads, set your division/PF/etc...
BUT: (!!) I DON'T PROCESS THE PAYMENTS! I DON'T HANDLE ANY MONEY! My system will allow the MD to keep track of who's paid him/her, BUT the actual transfer of money between you and the MD is totally outside of my sphere of influence or control (or interest) - you can pay with a cheque, cash, EMT, bearer bonds, SWIFT transfer, etc - nothing to do with me. That's between you and the MD...
#4b : since the pre-payment system is based on the concept of activating your account for that match, you should be setup in the system before sending money. BUT if you're not, that's fine too - the MD will be able to manually create a dummy/placeholder account for you, so the purposes of scheduling, BUT you won't be able to log in with it, you won't be able to move around to different squads with it, etc - i.e. you'll be signed up, but you won't have any of the abilities which come with being on the system.
#5a : waiting list: Waiting lists are for individual squads, not for the match as a whole. So, if you want to shoot a match that's full, and you don't care which squad, you'll need to add yourself to each and every squad's waiting list. Also, being already signed up for one squad, doesn't mean you can't be signed up for another squad's waiting list - sort of "I like it here, but I'd rather shoot later, if an opening pops up" thing - if an opening appears, you'll get moved, and the opening you created on the first squad will get filled, etc. If the system puts you onto some squad as a result of an automatic waiting list assignment, you will be removed from any and all other waiting lists for that match - so if you're lucky enough to get signed up to SOME squad, via the waiting list system, you lose your place in waiting lists for other squads. You can re-signed up to those waiting list, but you'll get added to the bottom.
#5b : waiting list, last minute: Ok, we're not crazy about this, but fact is, some people DO drop out at the last moment. If an opening appears within 24h of the squad's start time, no automatic signup will take place. Everyone on the waiting list for that squad will get an email, telling them about the opening, so they can go and signup in first-come-first-serve fashion.
The reasoning behind this is that when it's so close to the shooting time, chances are people would/could have made other plans, so blindly signing up the first person from the waiting list might very well result in his/her not showing up, or even not noticing (s)he's signed up (like if an opening shows up at 11pm for a 9am squad the next morning). And the desire to fill all openings, especially the last minute ones, is more important than blindly following the order on a waiting list. This way, we're guaranteed that whoever takes that opening will at least try to show up. This also means that if an opening appears at the last moment, it can grabbed by ANYONE who's logged in at the moment. It really does become first-come-first-serve, across the whole system, not just the people on the waiting list.
NOTE: this was my own logic - if you disagree, if you think it's unfair/etc, we can discuss this, and see if any other ways can be more fair/etc.
#5c: for people who consistently drop out at the last moment - I don't have any way of tracking that, or dealing with it, at the moment. If it DOES become a problem/issue, we'll need to come up with something, and I'll be asking MDs for their comments/ideas/etc...
#6 - matches fill up too quickly for people to notice they are even available. Ok, fair enough; I'm thinking that the next thing to be added to the system will be the ability for people to registered their interest in (any number of ) member clubs, and anytime a match is added (or something's changed about the match, more likely, which includes creation, making it open, etc) you'll get an email telling you about it - so you don't need to be constantly logging into the system, you'll get informed when something changes/etc.
#7 - email!! Because more and more of this system's operations are based on email notifications, it's very important to have your correct email in the system, AND be able to receive the automated msgs!! These msgs are caught and filtered out by some spam software, for SOME reason, no one can give me a straight answer about that. So, if your email address is setup in the system correctly, if you can receive/send personal email, and you added 'omen@vex.net' to your contact list, BUT if you send yourself a test msg from ipsc-matches.net and it doesn't arrive, chances are there's nothing I can do about it - for some reason, your ISP/etc is filtering those out. At least gmail, yahoo, and hotmail all seem to work fine, so it's not a very wide spread problem... (but I know that won't help you if YOUR ISP decides ipsc-matches.net emails are spam).
That's about all I can think of... Any other questions/etc, post them here, I guess
Thanks!
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- I just realized it had been hidden from everyone else until now ) in the same place (same page) where you create and manage shooting squads - just scroll down a bit, the mechanism was purposely created to mimic squad admin as much as possible, since that's what MDs are used to.. Read carefully the titles in the tables, the worker slot one looks virtually identical to creating squads, so it's easy to not realize there's extra stuff on that page. 
