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Version 2008 Enhancement List
Available January 7, 2008
Major Enhancements
Microsoft Vista Ready – Race Director is now Vista-ready. Several changes around screen formats and upgrades to sub-components used by the application have been made. The system is 100% tested and operational on Microsoft's Vista operating system.
Alpha characters in bib numbers. Added the ability to designate by bib number ranges an alpha code prefix that will show on all pre-race and results reports. Many of the spots in Race Director where you enter a bib number will allow you to use either the internal bib number (numeric) or the related alpha bib number
Better Organized Menu Paths. Created a new screen to serve as the single place to import all chip times - start, intermediate and finish. This option is found as a new entry under the Enter Results. This replaces using Enter Results -> Chip Systems -> Import for start times and Enter Results -> Time Entry -> Import for finish times.
Chip System Direct Connection. Added a direct-connect option for pulling results and driving the Announcer screen for the DAG, Accuchip and IPICO chip systems. Enhanced the import / Calc function found on the Overall and Age group report to only pull in new times from the chip direct-connect source - this preserves adjustments made between pulls.
Reports
On the Age Group and Overall Results reports you can now choose whether or not Did Not Finish (DNF) and Did Not Show (DNS) participants are included. DNF means the participant completed at least one segment of a multiple segment race. DNS means the participant had no result posted.
Age Group Record Holders. All Age Group reports (no matter how many segments or which version of the report you run) now have the capability to show age group record holders. Additionally, if the current year's finisher has established the record, they will show in the heading with the notation "New Record!".
Added an "Update" button for Age Group Recordholders on the Age Group report screen. This will update any recordholders when the current year time for an age group is better than the record on file.
New report to create searchable results output (GRU) for races where the results are entered as lap results.
On both the Age Group and Overall Results reports, the DNF finishers are now sequenced by the number of segments they completed and then the fastest time in the last completed segment.
Added option of showing total age group finishers on each line of the overall results report.
Added "Time Back" as an option to all Age Group and Overall results reports.
Age Group Report - Changed so that asterisks are replaced by the actual ranking for top finishers in multiple segment races. Added option to not show the participant's age.
Active.com results upload - Changed the assignment method. Instead of assigning a Race Director division to each Active Results ID code, the screen now lets you assign the Active Results ID code to the Race Director division.
Added option to replace city / state with email address on all team pre-race reports.
Added T Shirt descriptions to several of the pre-race reports.
Added a "newspaper summary" option to the overall team results report. This is a simple report showing only finish position, team name and total time in sequence by finish position.
Added an option to Overall Team Relay report to print without page breaks.
Added a landscape version of the pre race Alpha list that includes team and team classification.
Added an option to the Participant Lists report to specify a custom heading. Handy for when you select a subset of participants.
Added an option to the Overall results report to not skip to a new page when the division changes. Made this change for single event non-chip report only.
Added aWinning Time and IPICO to Chip Return Audit report.
Enhanced the Laps Results report to allow for selecting multiple divsions and the option of showing divisions separately or combining everyone from the selected divisions.
Changed the GRU export to respect the Pace and Time Back settings from the report screen.
Enhanced the Overall results report to show the name of a team relay member when running a single segment report for a team relay division.
Enhanced Age Group report to re-state the top finishers when a data filter is in place.
Results Processing
Time Machine via Ethernet. There are several serial to Ethernet conversion boxes on the market now. Race Director can now connect to these devices through a direct TCP-IP connection. This results in a very stable serial interface to the Time Machine as well as giving you a lot more capabilities in how you can establish links to your Time Machine over much greater distances.
Put all chip processing in more logical menu paths. Now all chip results imports (start, intermediate and finish) are done from one screen.
Races with Start Times and Division Waves. Made significant improvements in detecting participants that start in the wrong wave. Now, you can specify, by division, a range of valid start times. Also, you can specify a "quarantine" division for situations where a participant's start time is out of range of their registered division. During the start times import, the participant will be automatically switched to the "quarantine" division if their start time is out of the range of valid start times for the division they are registered in. There is also a new report that prints at the end of the start time import process showing everyone who was moved to quarantine. This report can also be run after results have been posted - showing their time and giving you an easy way to determine which division the participant should finally be switched to.
Changed the chip time import process to allow for filtering out any times less than a specified time of day. This enables ignoring start times when pulling finish times when both sets of times are contained in the same import file.
Added the option of scoring teams by average time.
Added a "Move Block" and "Clear Block" button to Enter Results --> Places.
Added "initial time is start time" to lap results making it now possible in lap races to have the first read for a participant be their starting time.
Changed Lap Results to allow for stating lap distances with 3 digits to the right and left of the decimal.
Increased the maximum chute number setting for Time Machine imports from 11 to 23.
Added a new screen for pulling in DAG results directly from the DAG black box or Badger.
Enhanced the Lap Results entry process to accept a separate file for each lap. This is useful for a race with multiple segments where you have a results file for each segment.
Participant Entry
Alpha characters in bib numbers. Added the ability to designate by bib number ranges an alpha code prefix that will show on all pre-race and results reports. Many of the spots in Race Director where you enter a bib number will allow you to use either the internal bib number (numeric) or the related alpha bib number.
Added the ability to specify which T Shirt size values are allowed in race tailoring. Valid T Shirt sizes are now shown in a drop-down control on the Update --> Participants screen.
Added a CSV import capability to the participant Wave Offset screen.
Import / Export
Added "time of day" to list of fields that can be exported.
Participant Import - Added programming when using tab-delimited input files to deal with situations where imported data fields contain commas or double quotes - which can be problematic when importing from .csv files.
Added an option to the participant import process to not "extend" any blank participant data imported with information found on the master participant file. For example, if the imported data has a blank email address, it will remain blank after the import even if the matching master participant record has an email address.
Added a T Shirt size edit to the import process - including the ability to turn off this check when importing.
Modified the import process to not consider a person a match on the master participant file if both the import record and the master participant record have a birth date and they are different.
Added the option of Race Director assigning the team number when doing the import of teams in Tailor --> Teams.
Expanded the size of the Active.com User-ID field as this has been changed to e-mail address.
Tailoring
Strengthened edits on the Age Group setup screen.
Added a new feature to Tailor --> Divisions for importing a list of bib numbers that cross-over to a specified division. This is handy for race day situations where you have a list of bib numbers that need to be assigned to a specific division.
Added a "Notes" button to Tailor --> Options. Here you can record notes about the race for reference in future years. The amount of text you can record is unlimited. An edit window is activated when you take this action where you can modify or review the text.
Increased size allowed for division name from 25 to 30.
Added a checkbox to the Tailor --> Teams screen to indicate you want the team list sequenced by team description. This setting also carries over to the Update --> Participants screen for the team drop-down list.
Added a "Short Description" field to the Division setup. Limited to 3 characters, this will be used in place of the division numbers on reports.
Added an Excel Export button the the Tailor --> Teams screen allowing imports from either Excel or tab delimited text files.
Added "Total Participant Count" to the Tailor --> Teams screen.
Enhanced the Bib / Chip assignment import to allow importing additional files after the initial import and not impacting the original assignments. This includes the ability to get secondary bib / chip references in a subsequent import.
Added an "Age Group Winners" button to the Age Group definition screen. This will enable you to re-state the age group winners by looking at the current year only or all years. The "all years" option is very useful for situations where you have added or deleted age groups - the process will look through all of the historical data for the race, re-calibrate the age group based on the current age group definitions and re-determine the age group record-holders.
Moved the Bib / Chip Assignment process for IPICO and Accuchip from the Tailor -> Options screen to Enter Results -> Chip Systems -> Chip Assignments
Centered all screens based on the resolution of the monitor. Added an option to Tailor -> Options -> System where screens positions for screens you move will be remembered the next time you use the screen.
Labels / E Mail
Added residence state as a data selection criteria for labels and reports.
Added a "Chip Sticker" label which prints race name, bib number and chip number and can be selected for any range of bib numbers - whether or not participants are set up.
Updates to the Redemption Outlook security patch - bypassing Outlook's security restriction on sending multiple emails from an external source.
Miscellaneous
Major redesign of Backup and Restore screens.
Added a Master Participant sync option to not include participants from the history file.
Added "By Age / Name" as a means of re-assigning bib numbers.
Added the capability to manage race data from more than one data path.
Enhanced the Overall results report to show the name of a team relay member when running a single segment report for a team relay division.
Changed the update conversion process to only convert the master participant and zip codes files once - instead of over and over again as each race is converted.