Scheduling Complete

Scheduling is a serious process and we thank you all for submitting your requests during the summer. It helps us to provide the best season possible with all of the activities you, your team, your school, and your club are involved in.

Here is the process, so you have a sneak peek:

1 - All teams are applied, and then teams make specific requests.

2 - A generic schedule is ran - the system offsets the head coach of two teams automatically.

This takes +/- 20 minutes.

Then the real work begins.

3 - Make sure every team has 10 games in this 11 week season.

• Some lose a game here and there due to odd number teams in flights being forced byes, so we use a drag and drop to make sure all games are scheduled
• This is where the first problem happens - accidentally scheduling two games in one day.

4 - Work through the 189 individual bye requests.

• Most request a single weekend off. Generally the game that was scheduled on that weekend is pushed to the 11th week of the season.
• But of course, multiple teams in the same flight request different weekends off and not every game can be pushed to the 11th weekend.
• So, it often looks like: teams get a game on a Saturday and Sunday of one week, and then no game for a week or two after that.

5 - Whilst working through a bye request, some teams also request a general time of games that we try to deliver:

• "religious school on Sundays, so no games until 1pm on Sundays"
• Check schedule, drag and drop games to suit this request if possible.
• Repeat for all teams.

6 - Constantly answering emails asking about the schedule release, and kindly informing those who claim to have missed the deadline that their submission likely will not be granted.

7 - Release the schedules in draft. Receive emails exclaiming that teams submitted a request and why was it not honored ? (even if 9 out of the 10 games scheduled were perfect...)

• Reinforce - this is a draft for this reason.
• All of the dragging and dropping causes inevitable conflicts, double-headers and other issues.
• Work to solve the issues submitted by the teams.
• This is actually the most valuable step in the process because individuals can see their own schedule, versus staff looking at 400 teams.

8 - Call the schedules final after a review period and upload the schedules to PENSRA - this is where referee's assign themselves to games.

9 - Any future changes require a formal process of communication between teams and likely a change fee.

We could refuse to accept any special requests.

We could give you a schedule and let you figure it out.

Though, we go through these steps because it is important that your soccer experience is great. That your team gets to play, but also gets to carry on with what they have going on outside of soccer. That the 11 week season is the best it can be for you and every team.

And here is a screenshot of what we see within the scheduler for SQWAD. What a process, but we're moving along nicely and the season is around the corner!

We love you and thank you for your support and patience as we work through the new system and still match your expectations.

SFYS

@SFYouthSoccer