GMS 5

Creating Games

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Introduction This section covers creating new games in GMS using the New Games Wizard or Duplicate Games tool. We assume here that the data you are working with has permanent delegations and template events defined. Refer to those sections of the documentation for more details on creating and editing these objects. GMS offers two ways to create a games: the New Games Wizard will create a brand new games based on the setting you provide in the wizard, and Duplicate Games creates an exact copy of the chosen games, minus the entrants. New Games Wizard The New Games Wizard is the primary tool for defining new games. The step by step process will walk you through setting the games' name, dates, locations, who's attending, what events are being offered, how they are going be run, and other settings. To open the New Games Wizard from the main GMS screen click Games then on the left side of the window select New Games Wizard.

Illustration 1, New Games Wizard

Enter the name of your games, and, if games groups have been defined, select the games group it will belong to. Click [Next] to continue.

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Dates & Locations Enter the start date and end date for the games, as well as the age date. The age date is used to calculate the ages for entrants in the games, so that entrants with birthdays during the games do not change age groups.

Illustration 2, Dates and location

All events added to the games will get the same start, end and age dates applied to them as the Wizard finishes. You can always go back and adjust the dates for specific events individually. Click [Next] for the Options page. Options Use bib numbers for entrants Enables bib assignment and reporting within the games Use GMS housing Allows you to define housing locations then associate entrants with locations, room types, room numbers, roommates, arrival/departure data and run housing-related reports. Enable Hierarchical delegations This lets delegations be grouped into a hierarchical format. For example, naming your delegations US.NY.Area 01 US.NY.Area 02 US.NY.Area 03 US.MA.Area 01

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This would let you treat (for reporting purposes) all of the US, NY, or MA as single groups, encompassing the delegations within them. The period/point/hard stop character . is the separator used to delimit parts of the hierarchy.

Use honest-effort rule If checked, GMS will make honest-effort (sandbagging) reports available within each event. Set the default value to be used in each event here; you can adjust the value for individual events by modifying their definitions once the games is defined. Enable scheduling Enables start, finish, status and locations to be assigned to individual divisions, entrants, teams and matches. How this is used is specific to each event. If you don't need scheduling, don't turn this on it will only make GMS run slower. Primary rule group Defines how GMS determines division ages: Special Olympics a division is as old as its oldest member National Senior Games a division is as old as its youngest member General a division is as old as its oldest member Place assignment rules In case of a tie within a division, Skip places on ties would result in 1st, 1st, 3rd where Don't skip places would result in 1st, 1st, 2nd. Click [Next] to continue to the Ages page.

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Ages To limit the entrants in this games to a specific age range, enter the minimum and maximum ages here. A zero in either field means no limit for that value. GMS will still let you enter people whose ages are unknown or out of bounds here, but these entrants will appear on the errors and exceptions report.

Illustration 4, Age limits

Click [Next] for the Who's Coming page.

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Who's Coming Select what types of people are allowed in this games, and for each type allowed, whether or not they can participate in events. Note: someone whose type in GMS is Staff can still come to a games where staff are not allowed to register, as long as they register in a role other than staff. By the same token, just because someone is an athlete does not mean that they cannot participate in a games as a coach. An individual must be in exactly one role in each games, but their role in a games does not have to match their type. If Create coach role to assign coaches to individual athletes is checked, a custom field will be defined which will appear on each athlete's custom field page to allow you to associate a coach to that athlete.

Click [Next] for the Select Delegations page.

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Illustration 5, Select Delegations

Select the delegations that are coming to the games. Checking Don't use delegations to group entrants.. will create a single People delegation for everyone coming to the games, suppressing all other delegation options. Checking Create HOD (head of delegation) and A-HOD (assistant HOD) roles will cause GMS to make two custom fields for each delegation, in which you can enter the head of delegation and assistant head of delegation for each delegation. On the list of delegations, select the ones that are going to be at the games. Right-click on the list for options: Create new lets you create a new permanent delegation or an unassociated games delegation which exists only for this games. Duplicate will duplicate the selected delegation and add it to the list; this duplicate only exists inside this games and does not affect your permanent delegations. Use this when a permanent delegation is coming as more than one group that you want to track separately: make multiple copies of the permanent delegation and name them appropriately. Edit lets you edit the name and details of this copy or the permanent delegation. All/None/Reverse options check all, none, or reverse the checkboxes on all of the delegations on the lsit. Click [Next] to continue to the Sports page.

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Select Sports, tracks and Subjects Define custom sports which are specific to this games here. A sport created here exists only within this games; to make a custom sport which is available everywhere in GMS, see the System Setup document. To make a custom sport, track or subject that is specific to this games, right-click on this list and select Add new custom sport.

Illustration 6, Custom sports

Click [Next] for Select events.

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Select Events Select the events for the new games. The events listed are all of the template events in your system. Clicking on the box next to a sport will select or deselect the entire sport; clicking on the symbol will show the events within a sport so they can be selected or deselected individually.

Illustration 7, Events checklist

Right-clicking on an event lets you edit that event's definition (this affects only the event in the games, not the template event), or you can create a brand-new event from scratch here. Remember that you can always edit each event's definition, add new events, duplicate events or create new events from scratch from within the games after it's been created. Click [Next] to continue.

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Preliminary round of competition? Competitions might have only one round (finals) of competition, or could have several rounds. When adding an event to the games here, GMS lets you set the number of rounds for all events in the games.

Illustration 8, Rounds of competition

If Some (or all) events use more than one round of competition is not checked, each template event, as it's added to the games, will be set to a single round of competition. Otherwise, you can choose to have each event keep its setting from the template event, or override the number of rounds for all events. Note: After the games is defined, you can always go back and change the definition for individual events. Click [Next] to continue to Awards.

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Awards Set the types of awards to be given at the games here, either medals for 1st through 3rd with ribbons for all other places, or ribbons for all places. This setting will display in the event grid, results entry, reports, and the web exporter the places for entrants. Click [Next] to continue.

Illustration 9, Awards

Click [Next] for the last page.

Click on the [Finish] button to proceed to making the new games. (This may take some time, depending on the number of delegations and events.) If Open your new games once it's done is checked, GMS will open the new games immediately when it's done creating it.

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Duplicate Games The second way to create a new games is to duplicate an existing games. The new games will be an exact duplicate of the previous games events, delegations, housing custom fields, etc., but the new games will have no people in it. This is very helpful when you run the same games every year; rather than running through the New Games Wizard and selecting all of your options again, duplicate last year's games with a new name and then add this year's entrants to the new games. Once a games has been duplicated, the two are separate games changes to one will not affect the other. To duplicate an existing games, from the list of games, right-click on the games you want to duplicate and select Tools then Duplicate games. GMS will prompt you for a name for the new games call it something appropriate.

Illustration 10, Duplicate games

Note that the duplication process may take some time, and no one should try to open the new games from another machine until the duplication process is complete. After the new games is done, you will most likely want to edit the games' setup to specify the correct start, end and age dates. Right-click on the new games and select Setup/Redefine Games. See the Games Setup document for more information.