ScoreExpress 3.5 Announcement

With version 3.5 we introduce a couple of novelties in the ScoreExpress application.
The most obvious and visible change is a complete overhaul of the user interface. But there are also some new features and changes in the background that should improve the experience of working with the application.

We decided to open the release with the new interface early in order to get feedback on the changes as soon as possible. We kindly invite you to try the new interface and let us now if there are areas where you think we could still make it better.

New User Interface

We took the decision to create the interface completely new, while preseving the structure of the application. This means that the navigation flows and the overall structure of the pages has been kept the same, but that certain page sections have been restructured to make it easier to use.

While we aimed for a 100% coverage of the existing features in the new interface, we are aware thatt some cases the new interface will behave slightly different from the old one.
In order to make sure that you are still able to do everything the way you are used to, the application is set up such that you can switch back and forth between the old and the new interface.
We will maintain this option untill we are sufficiently confifent that the new interface works at least as well as the old one in all scenario's.

Switching interfaces

If you are working in the cloud, each user can switch between the interface versions through the user profile drop down menu in the top right corner of the screen.

If you are working on a local installation of the application, event organisers can decide which version will be used for all users of the event.

Feedback in the Application

The new application interface has been made in a way that makes it easier to give you feedback on things that need your attention.
Some areas where you will be able to see this:

• Better form validation error feedback. When form data is incomplete, you will get better feedback aout what is missing.
• Attention badges in the menu: When something needs your attention in the organisation or in an event, we can add a badge to the menu items, in order to alert you about the issue. E.g. when you have categories that have been added, but don't have a competition format, you will see a badge at the categories menu item.
• When working on a local installation of the application, the administration interface will give feedback on the data syncronisation status. This way you know at all times if the current state of your event data is uploaded to the cloud.

Overhaul of the role specific interfaces

The interfaces for Supervisors, Presenters and Observers has been revised quite substantiously. All three of these interface now have the same basic workflow:

• You can select an active session to follow the current state of competition: e.g. you can see the last score of each panel. Which participant is currently performing at a panel and who will be next. You can zoom in on the starting order of a panel and check the intermediate results of the session.
• You can consult the competition schedule and the competition results.

The difference between the three roles is the depth of the information that is visible and what actions can be done:

• Observers are limited to consult information that is considered publicly available.
• Supervisors can zoom in on scores and check all the scoring details which they need to supervise the judging process.
• Presenters can see essentially the same information as the observers, but they are allowed to:
  • See and configure display timers
  • Control the content of displays.

We are especially keen on getting feedback on these interfaces in order to know what is good and what needs improvment.

Display Updates

Display Presets

If you find yourself recreating the same set of displays over and over again for each event, you will find display preset very conveniant.

The feature allows you to create preconfigured sets of displays on the organisation level and to add these into an event in a single step.

It is also possible to save the displays you have in an event as a preset.

Display Timers

The way you put timers on the display screens have been refactored to create more flexibilty.

In the display configuration, you need to assign a group name to a display (if no group name is configured, you won't be able to add timers to the display)
When creating a timer, you no longer assign to a specific display, but to one or more groups.

The implication of this change is that:

• You can show a timer on multiple displays at once (by having multiple displays in a group or by assigning the timer to multiple groups).
• You can show multiple timers on a display.

Restructuring of the Databases

In order to improve the performance of the application some changes changes in the database structure have been made.
When checking the database now, you will see that instead of one database, there will be three databases in the docker environment.

• scoreExpress: this remains the main database for the event data.
• scoreexpress-tmp: this database will contain tempoarary data that does not need to be synchroized to the cloud database, such as the display content.
• scoreexpress-files: all file attachments (mostly images) have been decoupled from their containing objects and will be stored in a separate database that gets synchroized to the cloud. The main goal of this separation is to keep the main database more lean.

Artistic Gymnastics Difficulty scoring

With the new interface, we also introduce the option in Artistic Gymnastics for difficulty judges to enter scores in detail (number of elements, requirements score, connection bonus)

The option needs to be activated through the settings in the category.

Note that the option will also work in the old interface, but the layout of the screen is better optimized in the new interface.