Kristians Rozenvalds is one of the few tournament organizers with a BWF Level 2 certificate, has organized BWF World ranking tournaments Yonex Latvia International, World junior ranking tournaments Yonex Latvia Junior, European U17 ranking tournament Yonex Latvia U17, as well as many Latvian and Baltic championships and tournaments. He is also a referee and umpire. Kristians Rozenvalds has a long experience with Tournamentsoftware, but he has also managed many tournaments with Rankedin. Here he will try to compare the two platforms based on the base versions of both programs. And he will analyze them not in general, but specific stages in the organization of tournaments.
Tournamentsoftware is known to almost all badminton players, because this platform is used by the Badminton word Federation, also continental federations, also all European national federations. The World and Continental Championships, the largest World Badminton Tournaments, were organized on this platform. Players and fans know where to look for match times and results. Tournamentsoftware is therefore considered an official badminton competition tool used by most national federations and clubs. Is there a need to look for an alternative?
Terms of use of Tournamentsoftware are unclear
A customer, such as a club or national federation, buys a license for a year, paying €149 for the first year and now €89 for an annual update. And initially, the tournament organizer is fully confident that he can use this program on his computer even every day, organizing weekly sparring competitions in his club. But somewhere in the Netherlands, there is a technical employee who thinks that the club is using the program too much, and without warning the user, suspends the license during the tournament, but then explains that, in his opinion, the license is only meant for 8-10 tournaments a year. In addition, there is an absurdity to be explained – the organizer supposedly earns from organizing with Tournamentsoftware, but the platform would like to take about 10 euros per tournament. It’s like a racket because there’s no mention of it before when you buy the license. And it is also absurd from the point of view of logic, because Microsoft Excel does not ask for a commission for the fact that an invoice for a million has been issued with its help. I bought the program and it is my responsibility to figure out how and how often I use it.
Rankedin offers a more understandable solution – a free program with basic elements that is completely self-sufficient, and a fixed fee for Premium for each tournament, depending on the number of participants in the tournaments. Although, it is also not clear in the Rankedin offer how the tournament organizer can know in advance whether 24 or 48 participants will apply for the tournament. Also, the 48 euro fee for the tournament is too much.
Tournamentsoftware limited availability
Tournamentsoftware, unlike Rankendin, can only be administered with a PC, not even an Apple, or even the ability to administer a tournament with a cell phone or tablet. That’s because Tournamentsoftware runs on the user’s computer, not in the cloud like Rankedin offers.
But it must also be recognized that Tournamentsoftware can be used with very old and weak PCs, so it’s no wonder that there is a new MacBook on the table of the tournament organizer, but also a prehistoric PC next to it, the only use of which is Tournamensoftware…
Meanwhile, Rankedin offers a web-based solution that can be fully managed even by phone. Tournament organizers know how convenient it is to be able to make operational changes.
Cloud technologies – pros and cons
However, it must be recognized that cloud technologies have both advantages and disadvantages. Users complain about Rankedin both in conditions with unstable internet and also at times when Rankedin is overloaded, including Friday nights when administrators are planning game lists and holidays when competitions are held in many places and results are entered. In this situation, having a program that depends on only one computer is safer.
In addition, Tournamentsoftware offers regular backups, so if someone does something wrong during a tournament, you can quickly roll back on the spot, which is not possible in Ranked, because tournament organizers have to restore the management of the tournament until the next match, when there is no time to communicate with the Help Desk, even if the response was prompt.
Backing up your computer is a very important security aspect that Rankedin does not provide. If the organizer wants to make changes to the men’s doubles tables, for example, but inadvertently makes changes to the women’s doubles tables, there is no option to undo. In this way, the organizers have inadvertently deleted the entire men’s doubles tournament that has already taken place with one wrong click, just because they wanted to make corrections to the number of women’s doubles subgroups…
On the other hand, as a plus, we can mention not only the possibility to administer the tournament with different devices, but also the possibility for several people to manage the tournament in parallel. This option is very helpful during the preparation phase, when colleagues can complement each other, as well as during tournaments, when almost every court can have its own administrator.
Social networks and reporting
With Rankedin, the tournament can be easily advertised on social networks, including as an accompanying image not only the Tournamentsoftware logo, but in the case of Rankedin, a large tournament name and the logo of the tournament sponsors.
Rankedin also ensures that players receive tournament information in their email.
Customers can also receive notifications on their phones.
Navigation for players and fans
Both Tournamentsoftware and Rankedin title page have pointers to the important links of the tournament, Rankedin has a better design, while Tournamentsoftware has more useful information.
Tournamentsoftware also offers contact information for tournament organizers, which may be relevant to players, supporters, media and sponsors, while Rankedin offers a link to tournament administrator profiles, thus stopping the ability to promptly contact the organizer.
Tournamentsoftware offers links to other tournaments hosted by this organizer, while it is not immediately available on Rankedin.
Also useful is information provided by Tournamentsoftware on the number of participants and events, active links on events and disciplines, information on updating tournament information so that the tournament participant knows if there are new updates within a certain period.
But the main thing is that Tournamentsoftware, by clicking on a player’s link, you can see all his games in this tournament, including game times and results, and this is very important for the players themselves, coaches, fans. Rankedin, on the other hand, redirects to the player’s profile, which is secondary. The most important thing is to know what my or my colleagues’ match time and results are. Finding it on Rankedin is hard.
Functionality options for the organizer
Rankedin presents itself as a very attractive and modern platform that offers “tasty” integrated offers, including live broadcasting from a phone or tablet with the result included on the screen, the possibility for each player to be a umpire with his phone or tablet, the possibility to be a umpire himself with a Google smartwatch, the possibility display the result on the big monitor.
But in the meantime, the “old iron” Tournamentsoftware can be modified for every need in the tournament, including the ability to create subgroups each in a different size, while Rankedin offers one template. Tournamentsoftware offers the option to enter a draw, or the option to end the game with “No Match”, while Rankedin only offers a “Walk over”, provided that one of the players is the loser. With its web-based design, Rankedin allows you to enter a simple tournament, but the organizer does not have the ability to make any changes. Yes, it takes almost twice as long to plan a tournament with Tournamentsoftware, because all the settings for the respective discipline have to be entered manually, they can’t even be copied from men’s to women’s singles, but this way there is room for maneuver in each group. This is relevant in cases where the number of participants is special, including 9, 17 or too many participants is too large.
Administration during the tournament
Despite the fact that Rankedin offers e-umpire options, as well as the fact that competitions can be managed simultaneously by several administrators, including web-connected computers, tablets and even phones, Tournamentsoftware’s solution is much more useful.
In the “Enter Result” section, Rankedin offers a list below the draws that are open by default, and I have to close them every time after refreshing the page. In addition, the list is long, including all already played matches, as if there is an option to sort only the upcoming matches, but the option does not work. In addition, the list does not show upcoming “pending” matches, so the organizer has no visibility into how many matches are left.
Meanwhile, Tournamentsoftware is very suitable for ensuring match control, because on one screen you can immediately see all the upcoming matches, all the matches that have started at the moment, the occupancy of the courts, you can see which players are currently busy, which ones and what is their rest time. Yes, scheduling a tournament is easier with Rankedin, while controlling matches is easier and safer with Tournamentsoftware.
Rating administration
Ranking administration is one of the advantages of Rankedin, as the name of the app indicates. For organizers, creating a rating is very easy and free.
Simple procedure – a few of clicks to create a rating at the beginning, then one click to add a new tournament to the rating, a couple more clicks to determine the rating coefficient for each discipline. And everything else happens by itself. If the tournament organizer fits into the Rankedin template, then this app is the perfect tool, but problems arise when even the smallest deviations are required.
This is basically the biggest problem with Rankedin, that they try to limit the sports event with their template, instead of trying to adapt their program to the sport.
Categories:Competition, Rating
BadmintonOrg.com 