Auto-Assign

Sections:
Auto-Assign Overview
Auto-Assign Settings - Levels
Auto-Assign Settings - Positions
How To Use Auto-Assign
Viewing the Results of Auto-Assign
Troubleshooting Auto-Assign




Auto-Assign Overview

Auto-Assign is a feature that will automatically assign your officials to games according to the settings you choose. When you run the auto-assign program it will automatically assign officials to the appropriate games, thus significantly reducing the amount of time you must spend assigning officials. Once you have run auto-assign you will have the opportunity to manually adjust the assignments before making them public. If you are not sure about your settings, keep in mind that an auto-assign can be undone.
 



Auto-Assign Settings - Levels

Before running auto-assign, you need to set up the system to assign the games properly. There are two main areas that govern how the auto-assign program chooses officials. The first area is the set of blocks found on each official's record. Setting the official's blocks for dates, teams, partners, etc. before running auto-assign is critical. The second area is the auto-assign settings that can be set for each level.

To view the current auto-assign settings for a level:

1. Go to the Resources tab and click on the Sports/Levels sub-tab.
2. Click the number of levels on the right side next to the sport.

3. A list of levels for the selected sport will be displayed. Click the edit pencil next to a level.

4. The edit level screen is shown. The auto-assign settings will be located under the Assigning Related section.

Please see below for descriptions of each setting under the Assigning Related section:
 

Auto-Assigning Priority

• Rank:
  • This setting tells the system to look at the rank of the officials and the rank range of the position. The system will not prioritize giving an even amount of assignments for all officials. It is going to put the first ranked available official on the assignment regardless of game counts for each official.
  • Note: If an official is ranked 999, the auto-assign program will not assign the official.
• Sport:
  • This setting gives an even number of assignments to all officials within the sport. It is going to look at the total number of assignments that the official has in the sport and even-out the total number of assignments based on that number for each official.
• Level:
  • This setting works similar to the sport option. This setting gives an even number of assignments to all officials within the level. The system is going to look at the number of positions each official has in the level, and even-out the assignments based on that number for each official.

Auto-Assigning Order

• The Auto-Assigning Order setting allows you to determine what days will be assigned first when running auto-assign.
  • If your most important games are on Friday, you can put "1" in the box for "F" to tell the system to start the assigning on Friday games instead of Monday.
• Direction: This tells the system what number to start with on the Auto-Assigning Order. If the setting is set to Forward it will start with the lowest number (1). If the setting is set to Backward it will start with the largest number (7).

Other Auto-Assign Settings

• Game minutes: Total duration of the game, including timeouts and intermissions. Basically, the game minutes should include the entire time that you have booked the sub-site to play the game. i.e.: 60 minutes = 1 hour, 120 minutes = 2 hours, 150 minutes = 2 hours 30 minutes, and etc.
• Max distance: This is the maximum one-way distance (in miles) that an official will be allowed to travel to a game. The distance is measured from the center of the official’s Travel Limits zip code to the zip code of the game site.
• Max games: Max number of assignments that an official may receive for this level of games. 
• Days/Game: How many days need to go by before an official can be assigned to another game at that level.
• Days/H Team (Days per Home Team): How many days need to pass before an official can be assigned to another game where the current home team is playing again.
• Days/V Team (Days per Visiting Team):  How many days need to pass before an official can be assigned to another game where the current visiting team is playing again. 
• Days/Partner: How many days need to pass before an official can be assigned to a game with the same partner of that level.
• Speed: Sets a default driving speed (miles per hour) to help the system calculate the travel time necessary for an official to arrive at the game site from their location. i.e.: 55 = 55 mph.
• Arrive Early:
  • Sets a requirement for how early (in minutes) an official must be on-site before the start of the game. This will be considered with the availability of the official when assigning.
  • Note: If the system determines an official will not be able to arrive "X" minutes early based on how many miles they are traveling at the speed set above, the system will not see the official as available.
• Max Games/Team/Year: Max number of games that an official can work for a team within the current school year (July 1 through June 30).

 

 

 

Auto-Assign Settings - Positions

To achieve positive results from an auto-assign, you must both rank your officials in ArbiterSports and indicate what range of ranks are allowed to work (for each level and position). The rank given to each official not only lets the system know the skill level of the official but will also help determine how many games the official receives when the games are auto-assigned. By default, the system will assign the best-ranked available official. This gives the better-ranked officials a higher number of the games. This can be changed (so that the assignments are balanced) by changing the auto-assign priority for any level.

1. Under the Resources tab, click on the Sports/Levels sub-tab.
2. Next to the sport, click the levels on the far-right side. On the levels page, click on the positions on the far right side next to the level.

3. Click the edit pencil next to the position.

4. The three auto-assign settings will be Sequence, Range, and Direction.

• Sequence: The position will be placed in a queue for assignment based on the numerical value entered in the Sequence box. Positions with a low sequence number will have a higher placement priority than positions with a higher sequence number. If the sequence number is 0, the auto-assign tool will NOT check the position for priority placement.
• Range: This is the rank range by which you can designate which officials can officiate for games at this level. For example, you may wish to restrict your Varsity games to officials who are ranked higher than 200, so your range might be 100-199. However, you may open your lower levels, like Junior Varsity, to lower-ranked officials. In that case, you can make the range 100-399 so that your Varsity-ranked officials can still officiate JV games if needed.
• Direction: This feature instructs the auto-assign tool to assign officials based on rank. “Ascending” means that the system will first assign officials with a low-numbered rank, and then assign officials with higher-numbered ranks (100-999). “Descending” means that the system will first assign officials with a high-numbered rank, and then assign officials with lower-numbered ranks (999-100).
• Points: This feature is currently inactive, and does not affect assigning or officials’ profiles.
• Games/Day: This sets a limit on the number of games that an official may assign to this position within a single day.
• Games/Week:  This sets a limit on the number of games that an official may be assigned to this position within a single week.
• Games/Eligibility Period: This sets a limit on the number of games that an official may be assigned to this position within an eligibility period (if applicable in your group).

 




How To Use Auto-Assign

1. Go to the Schedule tab.
2. Before you begin auto-assigning games, filter for the games that need to be auto assigned. If all games need to be assigned, select the Future Games filter. For more information about how to create game filters, view this help article: Filtering Games
3. Check the boxes on the left side to select the games that need to be auto assigned.
4. Click AutoAssign on the left side under the "Utilities" section.

5. Select which Game Counts option you prefer for this batch of auto-assigned games: Use officials previous game counts or Do not use officials previous game counts.
   • If “Do not use officials previous game counts” is selected, only assignments from the current filter will be used to distribute assignments and the system will not count previous games the officials have been assigned to.
   • If you are using auto-assign for tournaments, check the Tournament Assigning checkbox. Check the “Ignore Position and Officials Assigning Variables” box if you want the system to disregard the auto-assign settings for officials and position settings. Enter how many consecutive games there will be and how many minutes in between games.
6. Click Begin Auto-Assign.

7. After the auto-assign has started a status page will display showing the progress of the auto-assign. The “Refresh” link at the bottom of the auto-assign status page can be clicked to update the status page.

 

 

• You do not need to remain on the auto-assign status page while the auto-assign is running. If you return to the main games page the link that normally reads 'Auto-Assign' will now read 'Auto-Assign Status.'

When the auto-assigning has completed, you will receive a confirmation email similar to what is shown below:

Viewing the Results of Auto-Assign

The best method for viewing the results of an auto-assign is to generate a master schedule report for the same filter that was used to run the auto-assign. This allows you to view a listing of all the games with assignments.  It is also popular to either generate a Schedule Report from the official's screen or simply look at the game totals for each official (to the right of each email address).  Either method allows you to see each officials' totals.

If the results are not satisfactory, select the games and click Unassign under "Utilities."





When the unassigning is complete, make changes to your assigning defaults (found under positions and levels) and then run the auto-assign again.  If the results are close to what you were looking for, simply make any manual changes you see fit. Once you are satisfied with the results, select the games and click on Publish under the "Utilities" section to send the game assignments out to the officials.







Troubleshooting Auto-Assign

The auto-assign routine will most likely not be able to fill all games. However, if the majority of the games remain unassigned there may be a problem in your setup. The most effective way to determine what the setup problem may be is to attempt to manually assign a few positions the auto-assign routine did not fill.  When you attempt this, every official will probably have at least one issue.  Look carefully to notice if most officials have the same issues. If certain issues are shown for almost all officials, the cause of the games not being auto-assigned should become apparent.  Make the necessary changes to what is creating the issues and re-run the auto-assign.

A properly setup auto-assign will usually assign 93-98% of your games.  If all of the slots are auto-assigned, then the rules you have set up which govern the assigning may be set too loose and you may get a lot of declined assignments.  If you are getting too few games assigned, then either an important setup issue has been overlooked or your rules are too strict.