At a timing location, we usually have to build a local network.
This network has many purposes:
- access Internet from our main laptop.
- access our boxes or decoders from our main laptop.
- give access to the G-Live seated on our main laptop.
One pitfall to avoid is using 2 different lan on the main laptop as it would confuse the G-Live.
The good practice to achieve that is using a 3G/4G Gateway connected to your local network so every devices can connect to a central hub and get Internet Access. Every device is working with the same network address range like 192.168.1.x e.g..
For our own timing we use this 4G Gateway from D-link. But it is not the only device that can do the job.
The good points about this one:
- There are 4 lan ports so you can connect your laptop directly and the RFID hardware with ethernet cables.
- You can insert a sim card to get an internet connexion for your network.
- It has also a wifi access point so you can connect a tablet for the commentator to display G-Live.
Here we come with our new seasonal delivery!
8.2 release is on track and you can enjoy it. Still thanks to your many feedbacks it surely brings new valuable features for each of you in our timing community.
Entering into details:
G-Live module
Quite a lot of new things on that strategic piece of the solution, that you can discover in this additional post.
Data output
The concept of Exporters under G-Live is getting extended to address more use cases than ever.
Now a third-party app can receive live passing data in a custom format to comply with what it can digest. The same way, an exporter can now communicate through a USB/Serial port and be configured to feed a LED display board for example. The configuration shapes the data to comply with the device communication protocol.
Team ranking
New possible criteria - total number of laps, total distance run, average of ranks - are now available for the team ranking computations.
Bib assignment
For the scenario when bib number ranges have to be rearranged at the last minute because of unexpectedly high registrations, you can now bind multiple bib ranges to each race of an event. Keeping the consistency control advantage on the software side.
Stage races
A few changes bring some new flexibility in stage races management:
- a new global 'No general classifications' option provides the ability to publish an event file made of independent stages. Interesting for cases when the same runners can participate to the different stages but no general ranking is expected.
- a new default behavior for the general ranking, for events with independent stages: a runner now appears in a general ranking not only if he participated to each one of the preceding stages but more exactly if he participated to each preceding stage for which at least one runner of the race he belongs to has participated. In simpler words, it means you can have an MTB event for example with 8 special stages and 2 races - Junior and Senior. Juniors being expected to run only stages 1 to 3, and Seniors running them all. So you'll get Juniors ranked in the final general once they have done their stages, without more configuration trick.
- still for events with independent stages, the ribbon now gives access to the add and remove stages features. A mostly appreciated help when the event schedule gets changed at the last minute.
Jerseys and custom classifications
To go even further with UCI (cycling) race management, the notion of jerseys goes live.
Those jerseys can be configured for all kind of situations, calculated automatically from the general or from a secondary ranking, or fed manually if the wearer is instead designated by the race direction.
They're also ready do integrate a complementary filter, thus making it possible to define 2 yellow jerseys for example if you have 2 distinct categories in your event.
Then jersey leaders and wearers (being automatically granted based on the priority order) are available for printout in the stage summary report. Custom colored picture for them can be provided if none of those in the predefined list is fitting.
In the same spirit, some custom additional classifications can be defined on the basis of a filter condition applying to the general ranking instead of a point attribution. So for example you can create a Best national runner ranking with a simple condition on nationality.
Once done, such a ranking gets also available for inclusion in the stage summary report and so does it to serve as a basis for a jersey attribution.
Data edit
Always keen on making data edit smoother, here are a couple of improvements:
- A useful text replacement feature now available from a column header contextual menu
- The remote page for participant entry now displays runner's chip id. and allow for its editing. Also has been added entry fields for license number, email and nationality. The club/team field now gets populated with a list of pre-existing values.
- A Chip id column is now available for display in the participant list. For the moment to be used for checking purposes, remembering that the link can be 1-n, i.e. a single bib number can be bound to several chip ids.
Passing acquisitions
The great chip filtering feature, described in this earlier post, can now take multiple prefix values for its processing. For cases when you'd have to work with 2 different lots of transponders for instance.
New option for start time acquisition: a max delay applying to the start location target can be entered. This delay being accountable from the race start time. What it makes possible is to have a single acquisition targeting both a start line and some further split points, while keeping the ability for the start location to retain the last time the runner is detected. That until a reasonable time has elapsed and the passing can be considered to be the next split point.
Compliance with these new devices has been added:
- Machsa One4All5
- Race|Result USB Timing
- Alge IDCam (external stopwatch)
- Digitech Master (external stopwatch)
- Microgate RaceTime 2 (external stopwatch)
And to help with organizations where a race preparation involves many folks, it's now possible to import and export a full configuration of acquisitions, including the chip filtering settings. The commands are available on left side of the acquisitions form status bar.
Printing
A very handy shortcut appearing in the print preview screen allows for saving a PDF file of the printout in a single click - no need anymore to select the PDF printer and switch back after to the regular one.
Useful when you're on the race site and have to deal with the few last-minute registrations, you'll be able to quickly print those registration sheets to provide to organizers.
Printing templates can now include some frame objects in addition to texts and pictures, to draw either lines or rasters. A lot more enhancements on that side are described in this additional post.
Team races
Team race management mode goes one step further by allowing an automatic assignment for team categories.
The rules can be a simple copy of the individual categories, in case individuals are initially imported with categories like 'Trio Men', or can be some custom conditions based on the number of teammates and their gender. These settings are accessible from the Team list pane, button Categories.
The general search field has also been enhanced to allow for a team lookup and open the team result summary or the team properties form in a click.
Categories
New flexible option for the categories management: it's now possible to bind some categories to a specific list of races in a single event.
This means in the same event file you can for example manage 2 different sets of age classes and have them automatically assigned based on the race each competitor belongs to.
Such scenario can be encountered when having a race mixing runners and cyclists on a same finish line, expecting a ranking based on their respective sport federation rules.
Race assignment
Also for not so frequent cases, this feature allows to predefine some custom rules intended to automatically assign the race of a participant when he/she crosses the finish line.
Those rules will generally be about which split points the competitor has gone through. More exactly when passing a given split point is not discriminating enough to determine the race (this simple case being already treated by Wiclax).
As a key part of the solution and being the showcase for your professional outcomes, the G-Live module deserves some regular updates. To bring new features or simply make the end-user experience even more friendly. Keeping this trend for the future, and already with the last Wiclax 8.2 delivery:
Browsing stages and general classifications
A new menu is now combining the stages and general classifications browsing. Thus one single entry point instead of two and a Final general ranking item highlighted for immediate selection. Note that this final ranking becomes the one loaded by default, as long as all stages have been run.
New search field display
Giving more space for the essential and providing a better lookup experience, the search field for result/individual lookup is no longer located in a dedicated tab. Instead just sticking to the page top.
Team rankings
Now possible to publish your event's team ranking directly into G-Live. Only thing to do for it is to check the "Publish this classification on the Web" option from the team ranking pane.
A new "Teams" filter button gets displayed on the public side, above the result list.
External links to an individual result
Now possible to provide a web URL to show the race data for a competitor. This URL gets available as a basis for a Facebook share.
See a live sample of it here - result page for bib number 89 in a marathon race.
More interesting, the link can be made not only through the regular bib number but also using a specific id. of your own, provided it's available as a custom data. G-Live section of the help docs tells you more about the details.
Enhanced kiosk mode
While the G-Live display was already convenient in its design to be used on a kiosk screen, here comes a more attractive mode where the feature scope is all and only about runner data lookup. A new menu item of the G-Live button gives you the address to load it.
Custom plugins on competitor's summary
A bit more technical, this new feature can empower your race data published online by appending some custom stuff to the runner summary page.
As an example, you can bring there a link to a photo purchase offer - by you or a partner - based on the runner bib number or another id. of your own. But can be anything else you'd like to get inserted.
Just refer to the G-Live section of the documentation for more details on how to implement it.
Paper printouts on races are not dead yet - all events are not with thousands of runners and you still like to provide a professional-looking result book to the organizers.
So here's another round of improvements coming soon, to empower the use of customized report templates.
Among a lot of details fixed, the most important changes are the following:
- new design for the management form, with a better access to the item list and a dedicated panel for the general properties
- new ability to define Left and Right margins
- new item kind - shapes: bringing the ability to draw various rectangles or lines, with access to the background color and some border options
- items are now resizable with mouse on the preview
- text items have new properties: auto-size or not, horizontal and vertical alignment, vertical text and font family selection
- new variables available to include into texts
- the list of data columns saved with the template is now visible
Giving that in picture. This sample will be available for selection in the next release so you'll be free to use it in a click or to upgrade it with a race logo for example. And you can notice by the way the new PDF button in the ribbon to make your pdf documents in a click.
Let's introduce this useful tip:
You already know how to import participant and result data, through the powerful file import wizard. But did you know you can simply paste some data when working on the grids?
You sometimes have an Excel sheet already open with some participant lists, for example. Want to import them in your Wiclax event? Means opening the file import dialog for participants, and then lookup for the file through the Explorer. Great, but you can do quicker by copying the original list into the clipboard, and then simply pressing the usual Control+V shortcut after you put the focus on the competitors grid. That will show up the filedata import wizard, with the Import from clipboard option checked. And from that point you know how to proceed.
And this way is not only quicker, it's also a necessary helper when you want to import only a selection of what's in the original file.
Last thing to say, it can as well be used to move some participant/result data from a Wiclax event to another, selecting them and playing with the Control+C and Control+V shortcuts.
Starting to give a flavour of the new features already implemented, but not yet in a public release. So that you can wait for them, and give us a feedback in between.
Focusing this one today: if you are a user of Australian RFID Timing systems as we do, you will soon enjoy this new layout for your acquisitions. Not taking more place, the row will show up with the device's battery level, the visualization of the active antennas, the readers current mode, the power of each reader and the reading ON/OFF status.
Here's the picture:
