Feature Incorporated: Smart Copy of Events Between Years
Feature Incorporated: Smart Copy of Events Between Years
Request addition of a capability to "smartly" copy races, groups of races, or an entire season, from a previous year to a future year. Manual entry of each race is time consuming and induces errors. An ability to basically port all of last year's crew manager-scheduled races into a future year would address this. Most major races in a region remain the same "relative" day year after year (eg third Saturday of June). However, the actual date of the event changes each year. For a "smart" copy capability the system would transition races to the new future date observing the relative day (eg third Saturday of June) as opposed to the previous calendar date (eg June 15th).
Feature Incorporated: Smart Copy of Events Between Years
Smart Copy is a feature that is now active on all Crew Manager websites. EC and I discussed the desire for this capability last fall when we were both setting up our 2019 boat schedules. The Smart Copy concept was added to my "to-do" list, but took a lower priority to getting the Multisite version of Crew Manager ready to roll out in January 2019. This means we both brute force copied selected events using the AI1EC "Clone Event" feature. It required a significant amount of editing the dates and times on the cloned events.
Some of the Smart Copy routines were developed when the Crew Manager site setup scripts were written. Over the past few rainy days, I had the time to review the detailed technical requirements and developed an approach that now works for Smart Copy. Smart Copy has been incorporated in all Crew Manager websites. It won't help Skippers loading their initial first year schedule since data must be either manually entered, or imported using the event importer via the AI1EC website.
Crew Manager Skippers will have a much easier time loading a schedule for subsequent years as previous events may be copied and the dates automatically advanced. The information below will be incorporated into the Skipper's Manual.
Copy Past Season Schedule - Annual Smart Copy
After Crew Manager has been used for a season, a new schedule may be easily copied from a previous season. Annual Smart Copy is available to the Skipper in the admin screen to allow copying selected events for the next season. Events may be copied from a selected calendar year to future dates with a selectable offset. This will reduce typing and simplify scheduling. Many events occur each year with fixed dates or days of the week. Annual Smart Copy allows copying past events to the future with dates advanced the specified number of days. The following are copied for each event: Event Title, Start / End Date & Time (advanced as selected), Event Location Details, Event Cost & Tickets, Organizer Contact Info, Event Text Field, Uniform (Custom Field), and Featured Image. Only the first entry of a repeating event is copied. The following are purposely not copied to the new event: certain custom fields (registered, fees paid, results, results link, series results, series results link), Crew availability, positions & assignments. A repeated event is shown on the list with the date spanning two lines. The repeated event is copied using the first date in the series as a single event. Repeated dates & excluded dates must be edited in the copied event. Copied events may be edited as desired to update for the next season with crew availability to be set and assignments made.
Smart Copy may be run on different batches of events to create a new season. An example is a regatta that is scheduled once every two years. The Year to Copy would be a year previous to the current year. The older event may be selected and advanced 728 days (or offset that may be applicable) to create the new event for editing. Once that is complete, the current year would be selected to Smart Copy the desired events to next year.
Assuming you are already logged in as the Skipper, do the following to copy a past season schedule.
Some of the Smart Copy routines were developed when the Crew Manager site setup scripts were written. Over the past few rainy days, I had the time to review the detailed technical requirements and developed an approach that now works for Smart Copy. Smart Copy has been incorporated in all Crew Manager websites. It won't help Skippers loading their initial first year schedule since data must be either manually entered, or imported using the event importer via the AI1EC website.
Crew Manager Skippers will have a much easier time loading a schedule for subsequent years as previous events may be copied and the dates automatically advanced. The information below will be incorporated into the Skipper's Manual.
Copy Past Season Schedule - Annual Smart Copy
After Crew Manager has been used for a season, a new schedule may be easily copied from a previous season. Annual Smart Copy is available to the Skipper in the admin screen to allow copying selected events for the next season. Events may be copied from a selected calendar year to future dates with a selectable offset. This will reduce typing and simplify scheduling. Many events occur each year with fixed dates or days of the week. Annual Smart Copy allows copying past events to the future with dates advanced the specified number of days. The following are copied for each event: Event Title, Start / End Date & Time (advanced as selected), Event Location Details, Event Cost & Tickets, Organizer Contact Info, Event Text Field, Uniform (Custom Field), and Featured Image. Only the first entry of a repeating event is copied. The following are purposely not copied to the new event: certain custom fields (registered, fees paid, results, results link, series results, series results link), Crew availability, positions & assignments. A repeated event is shown on the list with the date spanning two lines. The repeated event is copied using the first date in the series as a single event. Repeated dates & excluded dates must be edited in the copied event. Copied events may be edited as desired to update for the next season with crew availability to be set and assignments made.
Smart Copy may be run on different batches of events to create a new season. An example is a regatta that is scheduled once every two years. The Year to Copy would be a year previous to the current year. The older event may be selected and advanced 728 days (or offset that may be applicable) to create the new event for editing. Once that is complete, the current year would be selected to Smart Copy the desired events to next year.
Assuming you are already logged in as the Skipper, do the following to copy a past season schedule.
- On the left side menu, mouse over Crew Manager and click on Annual Smart Copy.
- Initial Screen Smart Copy Events
- Smart Copy Events.png (952.08 KiB) Viewed 23208 times
- The list of events defaults to the current year for Year to Copy, and 364 for Days to Advance resulting in future dates occurring the same day of the week, one year later (except for leap years). These may be changed using the Year to Copy dropdown and Days to Advance box. Clicking Update Dates refreshes the list.
- Each Event & Location are displayed in a column as a link. Clicking the link opens the original event in a new page should it be desired to see the event details.
- The Copy column has a checkbox next to each event. The box should be checked to copy the event. There are buttons above the table to check or uncheck all boxes to make individual selections easier. Once the desired events have been checked or unchecked, click the Update Dates button at the top or bottom of the list to update the display for review.
The list is updated with those events excluded from copy having a blank in the Advanced Date column. A blue Smart Copy Events button appears at the bottom. Do not click this button until the events are listed for copy as desired. Steps 3 and 4 may be iterated as necessary to make corrections before executing the Smart Copy.- Event List Updated
- Smart Copy Events List.png (874.55 KiB) Viewed 23208 times
- When the list of events to be copied and advanced is as desired, click the blue Smart Copy Events button once. The events will be copied and display a message showing the results, and the Smart Copy Events button is removed to prevent an inadvertent copy action. (See picture that follows this step).
Copied events are available to edit on Events menu to left. Events are copied with all fields except for results, results links, registration, and fee paid status.
Crew entries for copied events are reset and may be populated for the new entries. Repeating events must be edited to update the interval & number of repetitions.- Results Displayed After Executing Smart Copy
- Smart Copy Events Results.png (940.39 KiB) Viewed 23208 times
Crew Manager Administrator
Re: Feature Incorporated: Smart Copy of Events Between Years
Effective January 2024 Smart Copy has been enhanced to strip out selected information in order to reduce the amount of editing on the copied events. The smart copy routine detects in any custom field, payment field or club link field any of the regatta management sites (Jibeset.net, Nextsailor, Regattanetwork, Yachtscoring). The old links are now automatically removed during the copy process. The text field is not checked, only the link fields.
Crew Manager has a routine that detects regatta management sites in these fields, and automatically generates various standard links for race documents, notice board, scratch sheet, etc. The new regatta management site link should be entered when it is available.
It is suggested that Skippers put the regatta management links in the Payment field so Crew Manager may automatically generate these additional links. See the following Skipper Manual links for further information:
Crew Manager has a routine that detects regatta management sites in these fields, and automatically generates various standard links for race documents, notice board, scratch sheet, etc. The new regatta management site link should be entered when it is available.
It is suggested that Skippers put the regatta management links in the Payment field so Crew Manager may automatically generate these additional links. See the following Skipper Manual links for further information:
Crew Manager Administrator