What COMPMNGR does.
Every dance competition has entry forms for the competitors to complete to sign up for dance events and for other purchases (e.g. packages, admission tickets, meals). The basic idea in using COMPMNGR is that you transfer information from your competition's paper entry forms into COMPMNGR's on-screen entry forms (or you use COMPMNGR's optional on-line registration) and COMPMNGR does just about everything else that a dance competition organizer need done. Here is a list of jobs COMPMNGR does, or at least helps you with.
● It generates (some people call it "heating") the dance competition program according to a tentative schedule which you provide. The heating can be set up to combine different types of entry (e.g. pro/am and student/student), age categories, and levels into heats, with multiple ballrooms or floors, in such a way that an instructor is not scheduled to dance with two students at the same time and an amateur is not scheduled to dance with his or her professional and amateur partners at the same time. When the number of competitors in a heat exceeds the maximum number you specify, COMPMNGR generates as many qualifying rounds as it thinks are necessary. After the competition program is generated, you are allowed to edit and revise it as you like before printing it. You can easily change fonts and colors. You can also print a program preface containing a summary of events and, optionally, lists of attendees and competitor's numbers.
● It provides an interface to some word processing programs by saving the competition program in a rich text format (RTF). You can then use such computer programs as Word® or WordPerfect® to do fancy formatting operations (use fancy fonts, color if you have a color printer, etc.).
● It allows multiple concurrently operating ballrooms, each partitioned into multiple (up to four) dance floors.
● It provides accounting for packages, purchases from a user defined price list, one-of-a-kind purchases, payments, and credits and uses the data to generate an organizer's financial summary.
● It provides accounting for organizer's payments and can print checks based on the payments.
● It generates studio confirmation lists (statements itemized by entrants and dances) and invoices, based on price list and other financial data you provide.
● It provides an accounting report for hotel rooms and meals (with up to three meals/day and four people/room) and a rooming list showing who is rooming with whom and what special requests they have (e.g. no smoking).
● It provides a table assignment feature to help you assign studios to tables and generate an assignment report.
● It provides several reports for the trophy vendor.
● It provides a number of other reports, such as an admission ticket count, professional entrant's NDCA and social security numbers, amateur's USABDA numbers, competitor's numbers (the ones that are attached to men's backs), top studio, teacher, and student entrants, and competitor entry count.
● It checks a list of NDCA and USABDA numbers (if supplied in a properly formatted file), automatically supplies numbers for registered competitors, and gives you a report of who is missing a number.
● It generates for each studio a package specification to be given to the studio manager at check-in. The specification includes a list of purchases (hotel and meal packages, session tickets, etc.), the amount due from or to the studio, a list of missing NDCA numbers, a list of session ticket purchase requirements for persons not on package, a list of competitor's numbers, and heat lists for all competitors from the studio. The heat list for a competitor indicates his or her partner's name, the heat number, the session number, and the approximate time.
● It provides processing for top teacher, student, and studio (with provision for small, medium, and other sizes you may wish to define) awards with lots of options on how points are allocated for up to six places.
● It provides a scrutineer's scoring aid, with full implementation of the skating system and with special provision for marking preliminary rounds, showcases, and uncontested events. Results are automatically transferred to the top teacher, student, and studio score data base.
● It provides options making it convenient to print scrutineer's score sheets for a number of competitors.
● It creates web pages (html files) suitable for posting on your web site to allow attendees access lists their lists of entries and schedules prior to the competition and their placements and scoresheets after the competition. It can also set up web pages required for on-line registration by your attendees.
● It provides support for a handheld judges' marking device system and for remote program viewing by the MC and deck captain.
● It generates blank scrutineer's score sheets (one for each unique competition category) with heat numbers, dance names, levels, ages, and competitor's numbers already entered and with space for write-ins.
● It provides a "write-in entry" feature which allows you to enter people in events during the competition and generate updated invoices, multiple copies of revised program pages (with comments or special instructions inserted, if you desire), and scrutineer's scoring sheets (paper, electronic aid, or both).
● It provides automatic assignment of men's competitor number (with user override in case you want to assign some or all yourself) chronologically by entry date. Before you produce the competition program you have the option of renumbering alphabetically ( so Joe Aardvark is number 1, etc.)
● If you are willing to live with paper numbers on men's backs, it will print the numbers in large print and men's names in small print beneath the numbers.
● It allows you to define your own dance categories, each with its own dances, age categories, and levels.
● It allows multiple computer data entry. COMPMNGR can generate a "data entry only" version of itself and copies it to diskette. You use the diskette to set up COMPMNGR on other users computers; they enter their own data and return the diskette to you. The program then merges the data from the diskette into your main data base.
● It allows multiple computer data entry by computers sharing one data file over a network.
● It allows you to import data from a previous competition. This is similar to the merge feature mentioned just above, except that financial data, dance entries, and men's numbers are not carried over and COMPMNGR setup options are carried over.
● It allows simplified studio and entrant cancellation (called "cascaded delete" by computer nerds). If a studio cancels, you can delete it so that all its people, dance entries, purchases (e.g. tickets to events), and payments are deleted at the same time. Likewise, if a person cancels, all references to that person can be deleted at the same time.
● It generates an address/phone number list and mail labels using a data base which is automatically updated as you complete the on-screen entry forms. It keeps track of studio and person attendance for the past seven competitions and allows you to select mailing list entries based on attendance history. It can also print envelopes and form letters.
● It facilitates the data entry process by providing you an on-screen entry form similar to that used by many competitions. The on-screen form has a number of options which eliminate multiple entries of the same data. Also, there is full mouse support to speed access to items in menus and data entry forms.