Game plan and scheduling
CupManager is built from scratch to support you as a user at every step of the way when you generate your game schedule. Instead of fixed templates, Cup Manager use advanced algorithms both in grouping, team drawing and scheduling. This allows us to offer features that are real automatic.
At the same time, we know that it is complicated to construct a game schedule even if you have automatic features to help. At every step, decisions need to be taken that can have difficult consequences. Therefore, we also think it is important to have clear overviews and support functions to control and manually make small changes to a ready-made schedule.
Finally, we know that a system is not all that is needed. Therefore, we are always ready to answer questions and give advice. It is always included in the license cost you pay, so do not hesitate to contact us. You can also find answers in our manuals.
Lottery functions
To always give you a clear overview of your tournament, the first thing that meets you in cup manager's draw function is an overview of all your age classes. In it you can easily get an overview where you see all the groups, playoffs and transitions between them. You'll also see if there are teams that aren't in the draw yet, or waiting in a reserve list.
Read more in our manual to get some more examples of the details in the overview.
Of course, you can create each group of your entire draw manually and place the teams yourself, but Cup Manager also have a guide to help you take advantage of Cup Manager's all automatic ticketing features. Choose whether you want results or not in the class, which group sizes you prefer and which teams go to the playoffs, and Cup Manager generate a draw for you automatically. If you then want to make manual adjustments in any class, it is of course fine! Read our manual for the drawing guide here.
If you are interested, you can read more about what Cup Manager take into account in our information text for tournament nerds.
In order not to lock you in to the exact number of teams that have signed up for the cup when you complete a draw, Cup Manager have a concept we call hidden matches. This means that you can create space in the draw for teams that do not exist (or withdraw from the tournament). The games that the team that does not exist would have played, both in the group stage and in any playoffs, are then hidden from your visitors. However, they are still visible to you administrators so that you can choose to schedule them and appoint referees even before the team has signed up, or while you wait for a replacement team to appear.
Read more about hidden matches in our manual.
Cup Manager support that instead of taking teams from fixed groups, you rank all group 3s in your playoff trees (or left groups) to allow the best to advance to the A-playoffs. That way you can make sure you always have an A-playoff that breaks even. Of course, the order is calculated completely automatically when you enter results in the group stage during the tournament.
Cup Manager have no restrictions on the number of teams, groups, playoffs, stages, classes, locations, matches when you create your schedule. Some combinations can, of course, be cumbersome, but we still support it. Expect us to ask how you thought if you do things in a special way. Maybe it's worth taking after!
It goes without saying that teams from the same club should not end up in the same group and are forced to play against each other, but Cup Manager it takes it several steps further by also taking into account in its algorithm for handing out teams:
- City
- District
- Postcode
- Land
- Landsregion
- Jersey color
This means that you will get balanced groups regardless of the geographical area your tournament covers. If you are interested, we will describe in more detail how this is done in our tournament nerd informationpage.
Cup Manager use templates not to construct the playoff trees in a tournament, but by an advanced algorithm that builds an optimal playoff tree regardless of the conditions. This means that you don't have to worry about manually changing your playoff trees if you have a complicated collection of teams that, for example, have progressed to your B-playoffs or if you have many uneven playoff trees.
If you have qualifying groups, Cup Manager will automatically ensure that teams from the same group in the original group stage meet as late as possible in the play-off trees.
Read more on our tournament nerds page if you are interested in how it is done.
To easily get an overview of how teams from different countries or cities have been distributed between the different groups in your draw, you can choose to color the teams according to different characteristics.
For example, you can color by:
- Land
- Municipality
- Landscape
but also things of other importance, such as:
- Day of arrival
- Meet in the playoffs (shows teams from the same club that have the opportunity to meet early in the playoffs)
If you have a more complicated structure to your draw that includes qualifying groups and more playoffs, Cup Manager can automatically help you both create qualifying groups and playoffs that automatically ensure teams from the same group in the group stage meet as late in the playoffs as possible, even if the route goes through qualifying groups. No more manual crafting.
Cup Manager have advanced support for inconclusive classes that go beyond hiding the results on your website. We advocate two different arrangements for a tournament with younger age groups with no results.
If you have time for that (e.g. if you play over two days), you can build two group games in succession where in the second group stage you gather teams that are about as good. By collecting results in the first group stage, Cup Manger can sort the teams into the second group stage automatically without having to manually make a new draw for the second day of the tournament. It also allows Cup Manager to show from the start of the tournament which matches a team will potentially play on the second day to facilitate planning for the participating teams. To avoid teams from the same club accidentally ending up in the same group on day 2, you can use one of cup manager's colour schemes to warn if there is a risk of that happening.
Option 2 is to bring all your teams together in one class in the same group and allow Cup Manager to select which matches to play between the teams. By taking into account where the teams come from, Cup Manager can select matches between teams that are as different as possible in order to have as exciting a schedule as possible. This of course also makes it easier if you have a little too few teams to create real groups, but still want to let everyone play the same number of matches. For example, with only 7 teams, but everyone should play 5 games.
If you have too few teams in any age group, you can choose to merge the teams from two classes into one class in the draw when you draw lots. The merger will only affect the draw and not the notification of the law. This makes it easy to undo, but also that you can leave the registration open to both classes even after the merger in case a few more teams appear so that you can divide the classes again.
When drawing lots, you always have an eye on the status of the class's reserve lists and not approved entries directly in the drawing interface. This allows teams to be easily moved off the reserve list in case of a gap somewhere in the draw.
Scheduling
As in the draw, we believe that it is important to have a clear overview of the tournament schedule as well. Therefore, you can always get the entire tournament's game program up in a graphical schedule with all matches. Here you can easily get information about each individual match, but also easily see warnings and errors in the schedule using the guides shown.
If you want, you can group your plans and get a schedule with each group of plans. Cup Manager automatically offers groups by geographical area or size of the playing field (e.g. 7-a-man and 11-a-man) in football, but you can create groups yourself if you want. For example, with all pitches where finals are played, or divided by weekend if you play several weekends.
If you hover over a match, you will immediately receive an info box with the details of the match, but you can also click and, for example, find out where home and away teams play all their matches. In the playoffs, of course, you see connections to the past and next game of the playoffs.
Cup Manager has a built-in automatic scheduling feature. If you are more interested in how it works under the hood, there is a little more information here. The automatic scheduling takes into account rest times, arrival times and opening hours at your venues, but besides that, there are a plethora of rules you can add to get the schedule you want in the tournament. For example, do you play over several days? Is everyone going to get at least one game in your fancy main arena? Do you want a schedule with as little rest as possible for all teams? Maybe a rest should be longer for them to have time to eat a snack from your kiosk?
Even with an automatic function for both drawing lots and scheduling, there are lots of questions to consider. We believe that a system will not be good until you also have a good support. Therefore, we encourage all our customers to book a workshop with our talented employees where they get the opportunity to show tips, tricks and all smart features that you with your presets benefit from! Here is also a manual with the most common settings.
Cup Manager automatically take into account the arrival information that the law added to their notification if you have allowed them to do so. Both in the graphical schedule that shows first-match alerts are before arrival time, but also in the automatic scheduling. This allows you to easily ensure that the participating teams do not get too early matches, and if this is inevitable, you can easily see which teams need to be contacted to see if it can be solved in any other way.
Of course, you can move matches directly into the schedule by dragging and dropping them to their new location. While you move them, the system will also display related matches and other important information to help you easily find places where the match fits.
If Cup Manager find a problem with the schema you created, the warnings will appear directly in the graphical schema to give you an easy over-click. Among other things, double booking is shown, for short rest time and if a team plays its first match before their arrival time.
Clicking on a match or dragging it in the schedule can also help you see all the other matches that the teams in the match you selected are playing in to easily check the length of breaks or find gaps in the schedule if you have to move the match manually.
Any changes you save will automatically sync with all your external information channels. This means that you never have to worry about an old version of your game schedule being out on your website or in your app.
When you're done with your schedule, you can open up a table for everything from individual groups to all teams in the tournament to quickly get an overview of key performance indicators. It allows you to check that everyone has as many long days, breaks or plays the right amount of matches on the different playing days if your tournament goes over several days.
For example, if you only want to publish the schedule for a single class or maybe the first day of the tournament, you can easily control it in Cup Manager. It allows you to publish the first match for all participating teams, without the entire schedule having to be completely clear.
Read more about how drawing lots and schedules work in this manual.
Support world class!
We know it's complicated to build tournament pitches as well as a good schedule. Especially under pressure as the tournament approaches and some teams drop out at the last minute. We are also used to it and have experience in how to solve the problems that arise in the best way.
Therefore, we always include full support in all license fees. We just don't think you should sit alone in the boat. If you use Cup Manager, we'll solve the problems you have together! Therefore, do not hesitate to contact support if you have questions, we would like nothing more!
Used for the world's largest tournaments (and the smallest)
Cup Manager are used for both small 3v3 tournaments with no results that quickly want to create schedules for the world's largest youth sports tournaments that, in addition to all the features, need to be easily overview. We offer something to everyone, but above all we can be trusted to make sure that things work when it comes down to it!
Contact Us
Between us at the support, together with our tournaments, we have made thousands of schedules. We love sharing our experience. Feel free to contact us!
Cup Manager support
Phone: 046-52580
Email:support@cupmanager.net
Do you want a good schedule?
Contact us, or choose an appointment to book a demo of Cup Manager. We look forward to showing you our system.