TT Leagues has been live for two weeks and dozens of leagues are helping to shape the future development of the product through their feedback.
Over 70 leagues have set up their first competition in the system so far and their feedback has already been taken on board, with a number of updates taking place as part of phase one development.
This week the following changes and updates have been made:
- Player averages – improved appearance and decimal places minimised / options to sort in top 10/20 have been added
- Menu name – editable menu name now available on public-facing websites
Further updates are due to be ready by the end of July, including:
- Match card formats – changing the name to ‘Order of Play’ and adapting the set up to a more flexible approach so that formats can be dragged and dropped. A how-to-video guide will be available to assist leagues here
- Venue details – the use of club addresses as venues will automatically pull through
- Table hierarchies – determine table position when teams are tied on points. A total of 17 table hierarchy systems have been highlighted by leagues
- Reserves/substitutes/step up – creation
- Generating fixture lists – a button will be added to allow league admins to use the same holiday weeks for all divisions saving on input time
- Browsers – information on the compatibility of the system with older versions of Safari and iPads will be investigated
- Permission management – investigating restricted access for varying roles including: Content Manager, Score Card Approvers, Divisional Managers and Lead League Administrators
- App – an app to enable real time scoring input has been launched, meaning team captains can update results from the hall
In the first week of August, the following updates will be completed:
- Postponement management – add outstanding matches onto the admin dashboard
- Unscheduled matches – add unscheduled matches onto the admin dashboard
- Members with unpaid affiliation fees – unaffiliated players will be shown on the admin dashboard. Fixtures featuring unpaid players will be generated and shown on the score card, but a score cannot be inputted for an unaffiliated player and it will show as a walkover
By September 1st, the following features will also become available:
- Player of the Match – this will be calculated by the results, but also comes with the option for peer nomination
- Automatic score card approval – individual team captains or named players will be able to approve scorecards. League admins will have the ability to recall incorrect scorecards
- Emailing capabilities – the ability to add attachments and set up varying groups by selecting members
- Public facing website – add player stats and results
- Public facing website – counties – develop website so that Counties can have their own homepage for news and articles to develop links to leagues
Phase two development will commence in September and include:
- Ranking system – a ranking system will be developed based on outcomes of a ranking survey (see below)
- Tournament management – a flexible method for the creation and management of other competitions, which could be used for: County Champs, British League and summer tournaments
- Advertising capabilities within TT Leagues – allowing leagues and Table Tennis England to place advertisements on league websites
Case study: Oxford League
Among those utilising the platform is Oxford League – https://oxford.ttleagues.com/
Neil Hurford, Chairman and National Councillor for Oxfordshire, and part of the Table Tennis England Members Advisory Group, was involved in advising Rocca Creative on the formats of table tennis league competitions and has been heavily involved in testing the software.
Speaking about his experience, he said:
Once TT Leagues went live, I was keen to test the functionality of the new system to see how it dealt with the complexities of league table tennis.
I thought the best way to do this was to reproduce last season’s Oxford League competition in the software so that I could generate real fixture and real results.
In TT Leagues, I set up a league competition with two divisions that use the match formats and points award systems that are used in Oxford.
I set up venues and added clubs and then added the same teams with the same players who played in the two divisions last season.
I then generated fixture lists for the two divisions with the appropriate holiday weeks and competition weeks inserted into the fixture lists.
The resulting fixture lists are identical to what we had last season – not surprising really as they are all based on the same standard Table Tennis England/ETTA Grids that we have used for many years for producing fixtures.
These ensure teams can be matched so that they can have the same home night with alternate home and away fixtures.
I’ve then put in some results for the Division 1 matches. This has produced on the public-facing website an appropriate divisional table with points awarded in accordance with our system. It’s also produced a list of player averages.
We’ve added a few news items to give the site the look and feel of an operational site – which it is rapidly becoming. We’ve also tried out the e-mailing system that enables e-mails to be sent to clubs, teams and individuals. It works fine – but this needs further refinement to define e-mail groups and to be able to add attachments.
There’s also additional functionality that needs to be added to make it fully operational, but I understand these components will be added before the end of July.
I look forward to using all the new functionality as it becomes available and I hope to be able to use the news items on the Oxford TT Leagues web site to report my experiences with the new functionality and to offer a few hints and tips to my colleagues in other Leagues.
Hopefully other Leagues will be able to see what it is that the new system does. That should in turn give them confidence as they set up their own league competitions in TT Leagues.
TT Leagues Help Guide:
We have also put together a user guide to help league administrators get to grips with the new platform. Click here to view the guide.
If you have any other questions, feedback or comments, please contact our dedicated helpdesk on: [email protected]
Local league ranking survey:
Table Tennis England is currently seeking the opinion of local league players as to what they would like from a ranking system.
To share your views, please fill in the short survey below.
To share this survey with other local league players, please copy and paste the following link: survey: http://r1.surveysandforms.com/4b38nl5b-7f405mfc
Membership Renewal:
The new season begins on August 1st and membership renewal is open online now. Please note that to play in the league structure, players must be affiliated to Table Tennis England. To renew your membership, please visit the new TT Memberships platform. Phone renewals open August 1st.
To view a help guide for the TT Memberships system, click here.