Online Solutions for

Tournament / Tour
Management

Daniël Meure
dmeure@visual.nl
 Visual Reality
Visual Reality is a company dedicated to automate sports organizations. We have over 30 years’
experience in organizing sports and over 25 years of experience in automation of sports. We can
offer you every aspect of sports IT, using the very latest technology. We are highly specialized in
racket sports. Our customers include several world and continental federations as well as numerous
national federations. Thousands of people have used our products to run their events, rankings and
player databases.

An important issue is of course the integrity and synchronization of all data. Because we can manage
all features necessary, a very big advantage is the use of a single system and database which contains
all the data.

This means:

• No data exchange between different systems

• All data is always up-to-date
• Everyone looks at the same data from anywhere in the world.
• You have one contact for all your questions and there will be no need to discuss data-
exchange definitions between different vendors.
• Our experience assures a short response time to solve any problem.

Our integrated system has been built in such a way that we can easily expand functionality to create
tailor made solutions. We have the expertise of professional systems designers as well as extensive
input from users varying from beginners to international professionals. Our knowledge also covers
multimedia and user-friendly interface design allowing us to create very intuitive applications.

Our software and services are internationally recognized for their high standards of quality and
attention to detail. We're sure that our software will serve as invaluable management and operations
tools — helping you to add value and save both time and money while providing levels of control and
visibility not before possible.
 Tournament Planner
Tournament Planner is designed to manage any type of tournament and provides you practical, and
professional capabilities. As you know by your own experience, managing tournaments can be a very
time-consuming process. Tournament Planner offers lots of functionality with unparalleled accuracy
and efficiency.

Tournament Planner supports many types of tournaments. You can have as many knock-out draws
and round-robins per event as you like. Also consolations and playoffs are supported. Tournament
Planner is the most user-friendly software you will find. Use one mouse-click to schedule a match,
print a draw, and show different events and more.

You can publish your tournament on the internet, so not only the players, but also their parents, the
press and fans can look at all the results. All this happens just by connecting to the internet and press
a single button: no difficult settings or any internet knowledge is needed.
 League Planner
League Planner is designed to run team-based tournaments or club-leagues. After using Tournament
Planner you will find a short learning curve in order to work with League Planner.

Many reports used during team events can easily be printed, like team nominations and result forms.
Complex group standings are calculated as soon as you enter a result.

League Planner is the most user-friendly software you will find. Use one mouse-click to schedule a
match, print a draw, and show different events and more.

You can publish your league on the internet, so not only the players, but also their parents, the press
and fans can look at all the results. All this happens just by connecting to the internet and press a
single button: no difficult settings or any internet knowledge is needed.
 Online League Results
We have a completely online solution for running
leagues or interclubs with many teams over a longer
period.

Club admin’s can enter their teams online using pre-

populated forms.

Team captains enter the scores directly on their mobile

phones using their personal login.

All results are instantly visible for everybody as soon as

they have been entered. All group standings are updated
directly after putting in a score. Numerous statistics are
generated for each player. All input is validated
according to settings of the league.

The administrator has many functions and reports to

oversee the league progress.
 Rankings
Tournamentsoftware can develop a customized ranking using the ranking rules and points of the
federation. The presentation of the ranking system on the internet is very transparent, it allows to
click on any player and see the full points-breakdown rather than only the total points.

A ranking administrator can select which tournaments are added to the new publication of the
ranking. The match results can be automatically imported from the tournament website containing
the publications from Tournament Planner. This means you do not have to retype any information
from other systems. Updating a ranking only takes minutes. An Excel-import is available for results
that are not coming from Tournament Planner, for example results from international players.
 Ranking download
One of the great benefits of using both Tournament Planner and online rankings is the integration of
these products. From Tournament Planner it is very easy to automatically download the rankings for
seeding purposes. The process only takes seconds to complete.

Tournament Planner has a menu option ‘Import Rankings’. After selecting this option, the ranking
and date can be selected. By default the latest ranking is selected.

In the next step the ranking is downloaded into the Tournament Planner and based on the member-
ID, the correct rankings are attached to each player in the tournament.

The result can be seen in the screenshot below. Based on these rankings it is possible to
automatically seed the players.
 Player Database
The online player database is a membership solution for clubs, regions and federations. Logins can be
issues on various levels of the federation, giving administrative people only access to the appropriate
area. With all information in a central location you will speed up processing and reduce
administrative errors.

The members can be added by an

online sign-up procedure or by
importing them from Excel from
your existing database. The sign-
up procedure can be customized
to capture all the fields you need
as well as provide the appropriate
validations. Member-ID’s can be
generated automatically. When
players sign-up they can either be
approved by staff in your office or
immediately added as active
members. Custom fields can be
added to store any information
you like.

Membership expiration can be set to a specific date or can be permanent until the membership is
cancelled. Each player will keep a full history of his membership(s) throughout his career. Various
types of membership can be defined for your federation. Player can be a member at any level in your
federation so for example at club level, region level or federation level. Players are allowed to have
several memberships or other functions at the same time. Functions could for example be a clubs
president or treasurer. Players can easily be transferred to another club in the federation.

A login can be attached to a player. This login allows the

player to enter online or withdraw for tournaments, edit his
profile, upload a photo and make online payments for
tournaments and his membership.

At any level reports and statistics can be generated. For

example a breakdown of players per club or region. Another
report is the breakdown per age or gender.

Tracking of information: We can track any changes a

member makes to his information and we can even track his
entries in your organizations tournaments. We can also track
any administrative actions performed in the Player DB.
We can configure an invoice generation system to your specifications that can generate invoices for
your membership fees. The Invoices can be numbered any way you want to fit in with your other
financial systems.

For your comfort all player information can be exported into Excel so you can have a backup of your
data at any time.

With the player database it is possible to maintain player’s profiles. The profile fields can be
customized according to your needs. Standard features include:

• career overview of number of matches, wins and losses

• Current year number matches, wins and losses
• Latest ranking and points
• Rankings history graph
• Full match history
• Head to head, with a full list of all opponents ever played
• Integration with payment gateways like Paypal
• Online membership cards can be generated.
 Player Validation

Tournament Planner offers an integrated validation with the Online Player Database. For federations
that use the Online Player database, the Tournament menu has the ‘Player Validation’ option.

The validation only takes seconds to validate hundreds of players and the result is presented to the
tournament organizer.
 Online Entries
The online entry system is available through the
tournament website, and can be setup from the
Tournament Planner.

The start and end date can be specified as well as the

number of events. The tournament regulations need
to be approved by the player before being allowed to
enter online.

Optionally online payments can be

accepted. Your own Paypal account can be
specified. Any entry fee that is processed
online will immediately arrive into your Paypal
account. Please note Paypal allows people to pay with
their Paypal account or with credit card. In specific
countries Paypal may offer additional payment
methods.

On the internet players can create their own account

which can be used to manage their entries for
tournaments online. The process is very
straightforward, quick and mobile-friendly!

For federations using the online player database, the

entries can be restricted in various ways:

• Only people in the player database can create

accounts
• Players must have a valid membership (not
expired).
• Non-members can be blocked or redirected
to a page to sign-up for a membership.
• The exact age limitations/gender for events
can be used to block people from entering
certain events.
• Players are validated at the time of entry
already. This will ensure they are playing
using the correct member-ID which will later
be used to calculate the rankings.
Currently 3 types of online entries are supported:

• Individual entries: Each person enters himself into the tournament. Paypal payments are
optional.
• Group entries for individual tournaments: The club administrator can enter their players into
the tournament.
• Team entries for leagues: The club administrator can define teams and select players.
 Integrated Solution

• Reversed workflow, deal with problems in advance

• Validate players in a tournament/league:
- Correct member ID
- Date of birth
- Gender
- Name
- Club
• Block players from online entry:
- Suspended
- Outstanding membership fees
• Entry validation:
- Correct level
- Correct age group
• Ranking:
- Only players with membership
can receive points
 Tournament website
www.tournamentsoftware.com is our generic website offering a variety of sports and federations. All
the solutions explained in the previous pages can be offered on a separate website which will only
show information for your federation (tournaments, leagues, rankings, players, online entry, profiles,
head-to-head etc) This can be offered using the logo and colour scheme of your federation. Each
player will have a personalized experience show his own profile, upcoming tournaments and league
standings if available.
 Tournament TV
Tournament TV is a PowerPoint-like application. Without any work you can display the upcoming
matches and the latest results. You can also display your own text, photos and sponsor logo's. You
can incorporate the logo and colour scheme of your tournament or your main sponsor to give
Tournament TV the look and feel of your tournament!

Tournament TV will get its information from Tournament Planner or League Planner. As soon as you
enter a result, Tournament TV will show updated draws.

Tournament TV saves you a lot of work and gives your tournament a professional touch.
 Acceptance list
An online acceptance list shows players that have entered the tournament online. Its main function is
to separate players into the main draw, qualification and reserve-lists based on the ranking.

Wildcards can be assigned and you can change the order of unranked players. If needed, players can
be withdrawn directly from the acceptance list by authorized users, which will update the remaining
positions to prevent gaps in the list.

You can choose a specific publication of the ranking to use when distributing the positions, and you
can choose the size of each draw.

The position distribution and assigned rankings can be downloaded with the entries into the
Tournament Planner.
 Tournament Application
Tournament organizers can apply online for a tournament. All the key information like tournament
name, dates, location, events and entry deadline can be specified. Some parts of the form can be
customized for your federation.

The federation can review these applications for tournaments and, when approved, publish a
tournament on the website from the application. These tournaments have a tournament key,
assigned by the federation, which can be used by authorized tournament organizers to download the
tournament definition into the Tournament Planner.
 Fact sheets
A factsheet contains additional tournament information, for example hotel and travel information.

Authorized tournament organizers can modify the factsheet and update the information. These
updates can either be processed into a new revision immediately or the new revision can be stored
pending review by the federation before the changes are made public.
 Code of conduct
The code of conduct system allows tournament officials to register offences in the Tournament
Planner, and upload the offences to the website. Each offence can be assigned an amount of penalty
points. After reaching a limit a suspension can be given to the player. Entry offences, like late
withdrawals can be recorded automatically by the website.

Suspended players are prevented from entering tournaments during the period of their suspension,
and validating players in the Tournament Planner will notify the tournament organizer if a suspended
player has already entered their tournament.

Notifications about offences and suspensions are sent out to players via email