To discover in this latest delivery, some cool new features to improve the overall ergonomics and your productivity:
Search and Athletes summary
Want to get some quick info about a participant and its results? You know you can press Ctrl+f and type either a bib number or part of the participant name, then browse the matches.
What's new now: the athlete summary is directly integrated into the search panel. Faster and more comfortable, you can watch at many summaries in the same row. Moreover, hitting the Return key now opens the result entry form for the participant, which will be the most likely thing you need at this stage.
Search for commands
Though the ribbon organization for feature access is great, you still need a couple of clicks to open something, plus a small mind effort to remember in which area it stands.
Working with keyboard is maybe kind of a geek thing, but all of you might benefit from this new ability: type Ctrl+Shift+P, and then a few letters for what you're looking for. For instance, 'po' to find out the Podiums pane and open it.
You'll see it's as fast as easy, and it remembers what were your latest selections to make it even more comfortable. Means it can be a convenient way to repeat an operation. Betting you can't do without it anymore after you're accustomed...
Figures for split points
More accessible than grouped together with the whole event progress numbers, you can now have a quick overview of the ongoing stats for a split point, keeping the mouse over its page header.
And here's the list of other improvements:
Split points
When working on the result grid, you can now drag time cell values from a split point to another one. This is valid for the finish line as well, and it can work for a selection of rows in a single operation.
When the grid filter 'Inconsistent split times' is on, cells for the anomalies are displayed in red (time value is lower than the previous one).
Network registrations
Non-starter status of participants can be edited from the remote participant entry page.
Start check flag
Some of you often use a split point - unpublished - dedicated to know which participants where seen before start. The information is useful, but somehow doesn't deserve to be a timestamp value, to appear on the result grid, nor to mix up with other split locations. Also, it shouldn't be concerned by safety checks on the race start time or the race terminated status.
Thus we've introduced a new Start check data, which is a simple yes/no value you can see/filter in the participants grid. And the acquisitions settings propose a new target to feed this data from a file import or a direct connection to an RFID device.
Team rankings
Some specific calculation criteria can now be assigned to any custom classification, as it was already possible at the level of a race.
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A new computation option now allows to set a filtering condition for participants, which will be processed upstream for the ranking calculation.
For example this solves easily the case when your team ranking must be made upon some qualified competitors only. Those are usually flagged by a registration data.
Before that, you could still define a classification with the filter and ask the team ranking to be calculated for this classification. But it was a bit more juggling - specially if you had to replicate it for many races - and it made the export of the right ranking not so immediate.
Additional note: when participants are filtered upstream, it means they aren't taken into consideration when calculating the individual rank of individuals. So 3rd means the 3rd of the filtered selection. You get something different if you use the option Other conditions on competitors, for example to tell you want max. 1 foreigner in a team. In this case some competitors will be excluded from teams but they will still count for the individual ranks calculation.
Screen configurations for G-Live
A new variable can be embedded into screen widgets, in order to get a running counter of the time gap with the race leader. This counter will extinguish itself after a few minutes, and will start again when another race leader crosses the finish line - for a new race or a new lap.
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You can now save your configurations on your Genialp online user profile. Means they can be easily shared through the company, and easily downloaded on a newly installed PC.
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While there, the menu Import some samples will bring you a new screen template added to the delivery. Ready to use, or available for your inspiration.
Named Responsive lap race - sized for a convenient TV screen, nice fonts, adapting widget sizes and positions to fit the space, remaining laps counter changing as checkered flag when down to 0 + gap with leader + best lap.
Waiting for more ideas!
Event videos on G-Live
Remember you can declare an online video of your finish line (youtube or other) so that it's shown on the athlete summary on G-Live, starting at the time he/she actually crossed the line.
To follow this idea, you can now declare as many videos as you have. Associating them with the right split point, race, or even stage. All the relevant ones for a competitor will show up on his summary.
Lap races
Useful for some motorsport races, a new option allows a race termination setting as a duration + 1 or more laps. To comply with this kind of rules: when the race leader crosses the line a first time after the race duration is over, every rider is due to complete one (or n) additional lap.
Our regular update, before the season gets too hot...
Race start shortcut
New menu item to enter a start time for a race: quicker option than loading the race list, looking for the right race item and validate. Also can be helpful if you intend to simply record a gun start with the mouse, using the PC clock.
And to enhance further the UX at this place, the contextual menu doesn't show anymore on a right click but instead a drop-down arrow appears on mouse over and a regular click does the job. So you have more chances to discover/remember the feature, which comes along the pre-existing menu to flag a race as terminated.
G-Live
For those using the header option for their G-Live online, the default header content provided as a template (header.html) now includes an HTML element to load a logo for the current event.
If the header is in place, all you'll have to do is filling the new property in Event options screen / Web publication of your events. When browsing the event online the logo will show up.
Internationalization
Pursuing our efforts to provide a great experience to most of you, the job of translating documentation in Spanish has been started.
Relay races
A new option is now available to handle a relay race when runners/riders/... will share a unique chip for a whole team. It's still based on the Relay races management principles explained in the inline help files.
In practice, it allows to register all individuals with their own bib number. In addition you'll have to manage team numbers data and the chip ids will point to it (ex. chip id 4000 for team #4000 with teammates bib range 4001-400x).
When passing acquisitions come down Wiclax will determine which leg is concerned (including leg finish or intermediate splits) and the final ranking will show all the details you expect by participant.
Team races
Having an event globally set as a team race, you can now specify that a specific race of it is an individual one.
Means you can more easily mix team and individual races in a single event, up to the web publication where you'll retrieve a team ranking when necessary, and a regular individual ranking for individual races.
Cycling
To catch up with a new point of the latest UCI regulations, you can now enter some points penalties that will be effective on the climbing classification instead of the points (sprints) classification.
Printout
When printing a team ranking, the option for the team participants display (all, none, ...) is now directly available on the print preview.
The detailed team list (including participants) is now compliant with the thumbnail mode, and shows flags for the team nationality. Standard mode has been enhanced as well for a better density.
Championships module
More flexible than ever, you can now chose which merging key will be used to recognize a same competitor in the different race files.
The key remains by default the competitors full names, originally made for events where no overall control of the registration data exists (i.e. each event registration process is made independently). Then you can now decide to merge on bib numbers, license numbers, or any custom data that will be found in all race files.
General classifications
New option to allow for "DNF" competitors to appear listed at the end of the ranking. It applies to those who typically didn't participate or finish all the required stages. They get appended to the grid, with a DNF status but allowing to display the detail of their performances for the stages they run.
Stage races
For your events managed as independent stages, you now have a new column named 'Stages' available for the participant list. It displays some visual flags to quickly see on which stage each individual is registered.
Furthermore the column can be sorted or filtered, bringing new abilities to work on participant subsets like for instance all those registered on stages 1 and 3.
Custom export formats
A stage index can now be specified alongside a variable to export, other than the one of the exported stage.
Gives the ability for instance export a grid including the start time of the next stage, performances (time, rank) for each stage, etc...
Team time trials
In UCI cycling mode, the net time for riders will be automatically set with the value of the nth rider of the team, when the criteria for the team classification of the stage is actually the "time of competitor of rank n".
Chip filtering
In addition to the general filter, it's now possible to enter a list of single ids to exclude that will be saved at the event level (not globally). Useful for cases when a test chip has remained on the circuit, and comes back again and again with a regular import.
Miscellaneous
Penalties and bonuses: they can now be entered by pasting an external list. Useful in some specific cases where you'll have a bunch of them to enter.
Printout: a new page settings option brings the ability to insert page breaks between groups. For example in a result list grouped by categories.
Withdrawals: similar to entering a list of non-starters, a new item from the competitors menu now allows to enter a list of bib numbers to mark as withdrawals. The bib list entering dialog has been enhanced to display a few useful information on the bib being typed - competitor's name, race and status.
Filters: new item for the grid filtering control (on the right-top corner), allowing to isolate unknown participants created after a chip read.
G-Live: improvements on the display of map legend and track profiles, on smartphone screens.
Not exactly a new feature, but worth reminding it exists: you can change the order of fields in the participants entry form by dragging them with the mouse. The new order gets saved with the event.
Keeping the pace, constant improvements, here's the new official release.
Team races
Some major changes to ease things when it comes to managing the team data:
the old Team list side panel disappears and is replaced by a more accessible and convenient Teams tab, making it available as a standard grid. Means you can get the best of it: sorting, filtering, multi-line edits,... The list can be filtered by race just as the participants or results grids. New data columns are available to get numbers of teammates registered/ranked/finishers. So more statistics become available.
when printing the grid, you'll get a handy choice to print either a simple list or a detailed one with participant details.
the team categories become a separated list, making things clearer in most race contexts. So that where it matters you'll be able to work on a shorter and more relevant list for selection. Options concerning automatic assignment of team categories are now accessible from the categories form below the list.
G-Live
Lot of ideas to keep enriching this strategic piece of the solution.
New TV Screen mode
If you want to display results on a TV sized screen, here's a great new feature. First load the standard G-Live page, select the grid/race you wish, press F4. The grid goes in full page mode and starts auto-scrolling. A non scrolling mode is available by hitting F4 once again. And F7 gives a nice dark theme eventually more suitable for outdoor contrast.
Don't forget to play with the browser zoom as well, before setting it in full-screen mode.
Maps
Better design and user experience for the map items:
different tracks now toggled in one click (loosing the (useful?) ability to display more than one track at a time, but much more comfortable)
the profile shows the intermediate timing points
timing points on the track are displayed with the number of passed/expected runners. Numbers updated in live when the race Live is on, and a click on them pops up a summary of the associated ranking, men and women
Finish line video embedded
If you have a Youtube video of your finish line, you can now enter its address as an event parameter (tab Social networks of the options form. Alongside with its starting hour. On your online results, the video will be embedded into the athlete summary form and will start right before he/she's crossing the line.
Penalties
Penalties are now displayed on G-Live: a mention of the time values added is shown on the result grid, and the detail of the motives can be seen in the competitor summary.
Athlete summary form
Now shows both average speed and pace values, corresponding to the main finish time.
Men/Women/Mixed selection
The selection menu is re-designed, more compact and hopefully more obvious.
Auto scrolling lists on screen configurations
Result lists items placed on a custom screen configuration can now be auto scrolling. You control parameters such as the step height, the scrolling pace and the animation duration. Scrolling can be horizontal as well.
Control recent passing
A new menu item brings the ability to decide when the recent passing history disappears from displays. Rather than an arbitrary timeout, you decide what and when to clean the list, for example to prepare for the next race or the next lap.
Printout
The design of printout templates is enhanced: now organized into 4 distinct areas where text items or pictures can be placed. Document header, (other) pages header, page footer and document footer. Hence more possibilities, like appending some document notes as required for the event. And a nice shortcut as bonus: when working on the print preview a text item from the template can be clicked to quickly change its content.
Participant filters
A very nice and helpful new feature for participant management: on the top panel of the main grids you'll find a new filter icon like this:
It offers some quick additional filtering possibilities, in the sense they're not built on the visible columns data. And they won't conflict with a regular filter already applied like a race selection, rather combining with it.
On the participant list the built-in conditions adds some shortcuts to isolate starters/non-starters, finishers, participants seen somewhere/nowhere, or withdrawals. So it's totally convenient to change in one operation the status for all individuals not seen at any timed location - typically setting them as non-starters.
On the result grids it's combining the data check features, to find missing intermediate times or inconsistent split time chronologies. These ones were already existing as a ribbon button but this way they become much more accessible.
RFID Systems
A consistent list of updates on that front too:
J-Chip connection now fully implemented
Mylaps and AMB decoders now with direct connection, using proprietary protocol P3
new option on the Race Result acquisition to filter chip reads by event id(s)
new general option to prevent the creation of unknown chip read in any case, suitable for events where the participant list or the chip distribution have no reason to be wrong
Miscellaneous
Implementation of export format for UCI races (UCI Dataride)
New variables available for custom exports: race time, gross time and rank for a given split point, time and rank for a given segment, number of starters in the gender and the category, all individual data for a given teammate when exporting a team ranking. Documentation re-written as a more accessible html page in /Export folder
New option to define a race as not published on the Web - it will be hidden on the G-Live app
Custom exports are now compatible with the export of a team ranking, and the export dialog now allow to select team ranking items for each race
For unisex events, a new general option allows to tell that participants for the competition are all men or all women - disabling stuff like Women highlighting for instance
Summer time here, but not totally resting - just like most of you being on the field. So here we keep the pace with a new 8.4 delivery, wishing it brings cool improvements for everyone once again.
The major changes included, in words and pictures:
Chip time based ranking
For those of you being in such context where the chip time is the whole thing, this new option will be much appreciated.
Activating it means the regular ranking is based on the chip time performances. And the gun time becomes the additional information, in grid displays or for podium calculation purposes. Moreover, the intermediate split times get calculated as chip times as well.
New startup screen
The startup screen has been fully redesigned, not only for aesthetics but we hope also for a better experience.
More items in the recent file list are now displayed. The information about licence expiration and new updates available is more straight forward.
Matrix view for lap races
Not the least of the new stuff, lap races can now be monitored in a matrix view mode, complementary to the regular passing list.
In this mode one row is for a competitor and columns represent laps. Great to see at a glance where the race is ongoing, see best lap times and progressions, insert a missing lap, ...
The matrix can be filtered on a race of your choice.
The highlighting of inconsistent lap times is easier than ever, with configurable limit values for each race.
In relay races, it's also aggregating laps made by all teammates, giving an immediate status on all relays.
The matrix can be printed, as long as the number of laps/columns is not too high.
Time offset on imports (acquisition, file)
Useful when one of your timing devices wasn't properly synchronized, or for any purpose when importing some time data: the import options now comes with the ability to add or remove a time offset to the raw values.
Flags and countries on printout
For a greater flexibility, you can now chose how the participants nationality gets displayed on papers. This can be the flag, the country code, the country name or even a combination.
You'll retrieve all options in the data selection menu, opened from the print preview.
New countdown sound for Starts module
The countdown is now a much more audible 10-5-4-3-2-1-0 sound.
Time bonuses
As was already possible for penalties, you can now enter time bonuses independently from the additional classifications (mainly used in cycling events). These bonuses can be individual or applicable to a team.
Start times on result grid
This was a missing one: now the individual start information can be shown as a column of the result grid. Being usable there for printing, sorting, editing and filtering.
Automatic race assignment
The automatic race assignment feature has been extended, so that it can now apply based on registration data. Means you can for example set up a link between age categories and a race, and the race will be immediately assigned after the category.
The feature remains ok to work on result data, i.e. when the race has to be determined based on some split locations having been through or not for instance.
Printout templates
In addition to few bug fixes around, we've made the link between a report and a template more tight by including the race (or the custom ranking/participant list). This means you can bind a different template for each race of your event - because you need different columns or specific logos - and you won't have to care afterwards.
Consequence to that, the automated pdf upload for online results will naturally use the right template for each race (FTP menu)
Screen configurations for G-Live
This can be a must for your very special events: the screen configurations for G-Live can now be embedded on your web site just as the standard G-Live page. So you can display dedicated colors and logos, along with the most relevant data depending on the race.
This of course if you're using the Web Live option.
Order of acquisitions
Cosmetic but useful as well: you can now modify the order of the acquisitions in the list by drag and drop.
Backup finish line
A further sophistication for finish line management: in case for some reasons - linked to the electronic devices - Wiclax receives a chip read from the backup line before arrives the same chip read from the main line, it will override the time first integrated with the most accurate one.
Options reorganized
Though it was somehow convenient to get everything on the same plate, we've decided to bring more clarity and a better organization with the event options screen.
The General options pane no longer exists and the event/stage options are divided into a few straight forward groups.
Segments on lap races
To handle race configurations where you need only some segments of the track to be counted, we've made the segment not timed option compatible with lap races.
Actually there's now 2 possibilities: either excluding some segments - their time will be subtracted from the overall lap time - or specifying a white list of segments to take into account - in this case the lap time is calculated by the sum of these segment times.
A good sample of race pattern where it's gonna be used is a timed climb, with the climb section made an indeterminate number of times and only the climbing time being counted. And the "best lap time" information becomes the best climbing time.