Creating Matches

The Matches step turns your schedule into a match list. Clicking Create Matches fills every practice and qualification block with numbered matches, spaced by each block's cycle time and spread across your alliance fields. The step also holds the elimination settings for programs that use a bracket.

Teams are not placed into matches here. That happens later, on the host computer's Matches page, once you know who has arrived and passed inspection. Keeping the two steps separate means you can build the match list days ahead and still leave out no-show teams on the morning of the event.

Open the step from Event Setup. It stays disabled until the event has at least one team (see Teams) and at least one practice or qualification block with a cycle time in the active session (see Schedule). Set at least one field to the Alliance type on the Fields step so matches have somewhere to run. Only the Admin role can open Event Setup. See Roles and Permissions.

[Screenshot: The Matches step with the Create Matches button, elimination settings, and the generated match list]

Creating the Match List

1. Under Qualification Matches, click Create Matches.
2. Read the confirmation. It reminds you that practice and qualification matches will be created from your schedule, that unscored matches from earlier attempts will be deleted, and that teams are assigned in a later step.
3. Click Confirm.
4. Review the match list on the right. Each match shows its name, scheduled time, and field.

Create Matches works only on the practice and qualification blocks in the active session. Elimination blocks and other blocks are ignored. It fits as many matches into each block as its cycle time allows, then rounds the total for each round type down to whole rounds, where one round is one match for every team on the Teams step. Practice matches are named P1, P2, and so on, and qualification matches Q1, Q2, and so on, in time order. Matches are assigned to your Alliance fields in rotation, following the order on the Fields step. If there are no Alliance fields, matches are created without a field.

If the list ends well before the last block does, the total was rounded down to whole rounds. Shorten the cycle time or lengthen the block on the Schedule step to fit another round, then click Create Matches again. You can run it as many times as you like while you adjust the schedule.

Important

Create Matches removes every unscored practice and qualification match in the active session before creating the new list. Scored matches are kept, new matches are numbered after them, and no new match is placed at or before the time of the last scored match in its block. If you have already queued matches or told teams their match numbers, creating matches again changes those numbers for any match that has not been scored.

Elimination Settings

The Elimination Matches section changes with the program chosen on the General step.

Aerial Drone Competition Pro, Achieve, and Inspire

These programs use a single elimination bracket. The section shows Wins to Advance with one box per round: Round of 32, Round of 16, Quarterfinal, Semifinal, and Final. Every round defaults to 1.

1. Click in the box for a round.
2. Type how many match wins an alliance needs to win that round. The minimum is 1, and blank or lower values are reset to 1.
3. Click or tab out of the box. The value saves immediately.

Setting a round to 2 makes it best of three: each series in that round opens with two matches, and a third is added automatically if the series is tied. These settings shape the bracket built after alliance selection, and the elimination block estimate on the Schedule step uses them too, so decide them before alliance selection. Changing a value after the bracket exists re-evaluates the bracket immediately, which can add or remove unplayed matches. See Eliminations.

Engage

The section explains the exhibition finals format: each alliance plays a single final, lowest ranked alliance first, and the alliance with the highest score is named champion. A tie for first sends only the tied alliances back out for another match. There are no settings to change.

Aerial Drone Competition

The section reads This program does not use an elimination bracket. Teamwork Mission finals for this program are run from the Eliminations page after alliance selection, with no settings on this step.

Remarks

Create matches the day before the event so you can print the match schedule report and check field assignments in advance. After check-in and inspection on the day, use Assign Teams to Matches on the host computer's Matches page to place present teams into the matches created here. Teams that are not present are left out, and matches that are no longer needed are dropped. See Team Check In and Inspection. The Queueing then works through the matches in scheduled order.

Importing or generating teams is refused once teams are assigned to matches, so finish the team list before you assign teams.

For a league, matches are created in the active session only. Switch sessions on the League step before creating matches for the next session. See Leagues.