SUBURBAN
AQUATIC LEAGUE, Inc.
Team Manager II Software: Help and Protocols
Team Manager II Basics
Team Manager II (TMII) is a very powerful tool from a swimming coach's perspective. Your team's TMII database will contain all the times for all swimmers for the entire season (and even previous seasons, if you want). Coaches can use Team Manager's functions to help them make line-up decisions (e.g., it will choose the "best" relay team with one click), it will provide a quantitative comparison of the swims in a meet to previous personal bests, and (as an optional feature of TM) you can even print out labels for "improvement awards" when swimmers bested their PB in the last meet (these are just some of the cool coaching-related stuff that TMII will do). TMII generates "entries" for your upcoming meet. TMII entries allow you to specify heat & lane assignments for each swim, which are used by the companion Meet Manager (MM) software. For championship and invitational meets, The TMII-generated entries can also include entry times (swimmer's PB for the event), which are used to seed championship and invitational meets.
The following information should be used in conjunction with the TMII SAL Set-up Instructions
Beginning the Season with TMII
At the beginning of each season (and several times during the season), you should download the latest free upgrade of TMII from the Hy-Tek website, and follow the instructions to install it. This will ensure that you have the latest features and the fewest programming bugs in your installation of the software.
A useful technique is to make a copy of the database from last season for the following season, and rename it. You then have an archive of the database for last season, and can delete all the meets from the database for the new season (from MMII Main Menu, you can purge all the Meets/Results: File ---> Purge ----> Meets). Thus, you retain all athletes, athlete information, etc from last season's database in a fresh database for the following season.
It is suggested that teams may want to purchase extra copies of the TMII Manual from Hy-Tek, particularly if there is more than one team leader who will be using the software.
Use TMII to provide rosters to the league registrar at the beginning of the season (Roster due by date of Fall Coaches Meeting). To Export you team Roster: From the TMII Main Menu - File > Export > Athletes/Teams. You will then be prompted to export the roster file. The resulting file can be provided to the boys and girls registrar on diskette or as an email attachment.
Preparing for a SAL Meet
1. Import the Meet Templates containing the SAL Events into your TMII database (You will need to do this only once at the beginning of the season).
Obtain the files containing events for SAL girls, boys, and double-dual events. These files can be downloaded to your computer by clicking on the links to the files in the Table below (These files contain the Event Sequence adopted starting in the 2002-2003 season)
Click on file name to download Event Templates for TMII |
|
SALgirlsevents.zip |
SALboysevents.zip |
SALdoubledualevents.zip |
From the TMII main menu, choose File --> Import ---> Meet Events. Then select the zip file containing the events template, TMII will then unzip the file (it contains a single events file ("hyv" file). Select the unzipped *.hyv file for import. Repeat this step to import all three (girls, boys, and doubledual) event template files.
If you have successfully imported these event templates, then the templates should show up as Meets on the MMII Meet Browser screen, as shown below.
Now you can create new meets, and copy the events (Under the Events Menu) from the girls, boys, or doubledual templates.
You can now use the Entry Features to create your meet line-up for each event and/or each swimmer. When you create your line-up for a SAL dual-, double-dual, or tri-meet, YOU MUST SPECIFY THE HEAT AND LANE FOR EACH ENTRY. For championship or invitational meets, DO NOT specify the heat and lane.
After creating the line-up for your meet, you should print at least TWO copies of the TMII Entry Report (one for the person running MM at the meet, and one (or more) for you to use for yourself, your assistant coaches, Deck Parents, and your swimmers.
MOST IMPORTANT: Export your Entries onto a diskette to take to the meet for the person running MM. BE SURE THAT THE FILE YOU BRING is the correct one for that meet (e.g., it can be easy to get confused and bring the entry file for last week's meet by mistake).
In case there are additions of athletes to the line-up on the deck, it is also requested that you bring an electronic copy of your up-to-date team roster to the meet. To do this, from the TMII Main Menu, File --> Export --> Athletes/Teams. You can choose to export this file to the same diskette on which you put your entries for the meet.
After the Meet
At the end of the meet, the person running Meet Manager will provide you with a paper copy of the Meet Results (the Meet Results report produced by the Meet Manager software). S/he will also export the meet results for your team to the diskette you brought to the meet. That meet results file can then be imported into your TMII database. It will contain all of your results - if the host team has a touchpad system, it may even include your relay splits!
Hints and Advice from S.A.L. TMII Users
As a wise, old teacher once said,
"I have three pieces of advice for you when it comes to using computers:
1. Always backup your work.
2. ALWAYS BACKUP YOUR WORK.
3. ALWAYS BACKUP YOUR WORK!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!"
In the case of TMII, it is suggested that you make a backup of your database each time you
add information to it.
TMII and MM both have a "Repair Database" feature that has been found to be useful in fixing some problems that can occur when using the software. From the Main Menu, File ----> Repair/Compact Database.
GOOD LUCK!!