What this section does
The knockout schedule gives every bracket match a day, a start time and a lawn. It has three views along the top, the same three as the Schedule for block play: Plan (the start times and settings), Schedule (the board you drag matches around on, with two other ways of reading it), and Adjust (per-bracket overrides). Answer Plan once, place matches on the board, and read the conflict list before you publish.
Every knockout time is a floor. A match starts when the matches feeding it have finished and the players have rested, so times print as not before on the public bracket and the printouts.
Plan
When
The event's dates, the day and time block play ends, and the knockout days, all read from the Blocks schedule. The knockout starts on the day block play ends. First knockout day and Last move the window when a knockout runs on other days; after the blocks puts it back. Block games appear on the board as grey walls, so a knockout match can't be placed on a lawn still in use.
Lawns
The event's lawns in play, from Blocks ▸ Plan. Which lawns a bracket may use is set on Adjust.
Games and rest
- Time per game — minutes one game holds a lawn. A best-of round holds the lawn for that many games; the best-of comes from Scoring settings. A bracket whose games run longer or shorter than the rest gets its own figure on Adjust.
- Min rest between matches — the gap a player is promised between one knockout match ending and the next starting. The board warns when a placement gives less.
Start times
Per knockout day, the start times matches can be given. These are the rows of the board.
Each day has play from and latest start. They default to the end of block play that day (or the day start from the block schedule) and the block schedule's latest start. Change either and the day's empty rows are re-suggested one game plus one rest apart inside the new window; rows that hold matches stay, and are marked before play starts or after latest start when they now fall outside it. The last day can therefore end earlier than the days before it.
The rows themselves are edited directly: type over a time to move it (every match in it moves too), × removes it (its matches lose their time), + add start time adds one after the last.
Start times need not be evenly spaced. A wave can wait for lawns to come free, or for the pairs from a best-of semifinal to rest. The board says when a wave is too close to the one before it.
Will it fit
Games against room (start times × lawns), the longest chain of dependent matches — the quarterfinal that feeds the semifinal that feeds the final needs at least that many waves — and a line per day with its window, its start times and its room. A round that may share a lawn (Adjust) counts each lawn twice.
Auto-fill the board · Clear all times
Auto-fill lays each round out together in the earliest start time where the matches feeding it can have finished plus rest and lawns are free. Among rounds that could start together, the one with the longest chain of rounds still to come goes first, then the main draw after the consolation and placement games. The main final goes after everything else in its competition, and when finals of several competitions fall on the same day, the higher competition's final takes the later start time. A round that may share a lawn fills every lawn once before doubling any. Rows outside a day's window are not used, and a bracket with a play window only takes start times inside it. It writes the times, so it asks first when matches already have them, and Undo brings them back. A match with a result keeps the day, time and lawn it was played on; auto-fill and Clear all times work on the matches still to be played. It is a starting point to drag from, not a schedule to accept. Clear all times removes every knockout time and lawn still to be played. Where two competitions have people in common, Auto-fill also keeps their matches from running at the same time, as long as that still places every match it would otherwise place; when it can't, it places them anyway and the board lists each overlap.
Schedule
Filters
Above the views: All competitions (shown when more than one competition has brackets), All brackets and All rounds. A filter dims what is out of scope rather than hiding it, so the rest of the day stays visible behind it; Clear removes them. The round list is by name, so Final shows every bracket's final at once. Beside the filters, each bracket's colour is listed with its name; tapping one filters to that bracket, tapping it again clears it. A card's colour is its bracket, the same colours as the block schedule's competition palette, in bracket order.
A strip above the views counts matches placed, conflicts and warnings, carries Undo (also Ctrl/⌘-Z), and shows when the last change saved. Each change saves as it is made; there is no Save button. The conflicts and warnings it counts are listed under it, each naming the match:
| Listed as | When |
|---|---|
| Conflict | Two matches on one lawn at overlapping times (unless both rounds may share a lawn and they start together), a third match on a shared lawn, or a match on a lawn still in block play |
| Conflict | A match that starts before a match feeding it can have finished |
| Warning | Less than Min rest between matches after a feeding match ends |
| Warning | A match on a lawn its bracket is kept off on Adjust |
| Warning | A match starting outside its bracket's Play window on Adjust |
| Warning | A match running at the same time as a match, or block games, of another competition that has some of the same people entered — see Competitions that share players |
Matches with only part of a time — a day without a time, or a court typed as free text that isn't one of the event's lawns — are counted separately, since the public bracket prints what it has.
Board
Rows are the day's start times, columns are its lawns, and every placed match is a card in a cell. The card's colour is its bracket; its column is its lawn. Drag a card into a cell, or tap a card and then tap the cell. While a card is picked up every cell shows what would happen there: green is fine; amber would start before the matches feeding it can finish, or with less rest than the plan asks, and the reason is printed in the cell; red is a lawn already taken. Dropping a card on another swaps the two — or double-banks them, when both rounds may share a lawn on Adjust, in which case the cell reads shares Lawn N with … before you drop. A card with a ! has a conflict; △ is a warning; ×2 shares its lawn.
Not yet placed at the top holds matches without a time. Drag a card there to take its time away.
A grey row is block play on that day, from the real block assignments; nothing can be dropped on it.
Competitions that share players
A knockout match's players aren't known until the matches before it are played, so the board can't tell that Jane Smith is due on two lawns at 2:00. What it can tell is that the Doubles and the Championship Singles have people in common: everyone entered in both, matched by player code or by name. Any start time where matches of two such competitions run at the same time, or a match runs while block games of the other are still on, gets one warning line naming the start time, both sets of matches and how many people are entered in both, for example 14:05: Doubles C3, C4, C5, C6 run alongside 1st Flight Singles C4, C5, C6, C7. 11 people are entered in both, so a player could be due on two lawns.
It is a warning, not a conflict. Two competitions with only a few people in common can run side by side and simply wait for a player. When most of a field is in both, give each competition its own start times: doubles in one wave, singles in the next. A play window on each bracket does this for every day at once.
Draw
Each bracket drawn as a tree, with the day, start time and lawn written on every match, in the bracket's colour. A match with no time carries an amber tag. Click a match to open its panel: every start time on every knockout day, struck through when the lawns are full or the feeding matches can't have finished (with the reason beside it), then the lawns free at the chosen time. Choosing writes the same day, time and lawn the board writes. Clear time removes them.
By time
The running order per day and start time, in lawn order, with the bracket, round and finishing places on each line. Every start time is headed not before. This is the wall sheet.
Adjust
One row per bracket. Grey values inherit the Plan.
| Column | What it changes |
|---|---|
| Time per game | Minutes one game of this bracket holds a lawn. Blank inherits the Plan. A 19-point championship game and a 13-point plate game are not the same length. |
| Play window | When this bracket's matches may start, the same on every knockout day: from is the earliest start and latest start the last. Blank on either side means no limit that side; any time clears both. Auto-fill only places the bracket's matches at start times inside it, and a match dragged outside it is a warning. |
| Lawns | Which lawns this bracket may use. All ticked, or any, means any lawn. Beneath it, one line per round: tick lawns on a round's line and that round uses those lawns — the final on Lawn 3, the semis on 1 and 2 — while inherits leaves it on the bracket's lawns. Auto-fill places each round on its lawns; a match placed elsewhere is a warning, not a conflict. |
| May share a lawn | One chip per round. A ticked round may be double-banked: two of its matches on one lawn at the same start. A third never fits, and a match from a round that isn't ticked never shares. Tick the quarterfinals and leave the semis and final one per lawn. |
| Best of | Read from Scoring settings, shown for reference. |
Nothing on Adjust moves a match by itself. It changes what the board checks and what Auto-fill assumes.
Play window
A window per bracket orders the day by competition. For example, with 65-minute games:
| Bracket | from | latest start |
|---|---|---|
| Doubles | 9:00 | 11:00 |
| Championship Singles | 12:15 | 15:55 |
| 1st Flight Singles | 12:15 | 15:55 |
After Auto-fill the board, each knockout day opens with the doubles matches and the singles follow, for as many days as the knockout runs. A window only chooses among the day's start times on Plan, so each window needs at least one start time inside it on every day it should play. A round that doesn't fit inside its window on a day moves to the next day, and a match with no start time in its window on any day is left in Not yet placed. The window is the same every day; to change one day only, drag that day's matches on the board.
Import a schedule
Import a schedule… above the board loads a knockout schedule the organiser already has — a spreadsheet, Word file, PDF, photo or pasted text — instead of placing matches one by one. It is the same import as on the Schedule tab, where the checks are listed. Each line is tied to its bracket match by match number, round and place in the round ("QF2"), players, or what feeds it ("Winner QF1"). Importing replaces the knockout schedule: matches with a result keep their times, and the board's days widen to cover every imported day. The block schedule is only changed when the file has block games in it too.
Type a day, time and court on each match instead
A fold under the board opens the per-match editor: every bracket match as a card with a day, a time, a lawn or any court typed as text. It writes the same fields as the board, so the two can be mixed. A court typed as text (another club, say) appears on the board as part of a time until the match is placed on one of the event's lawns.
Gotchas
Tell players "not before" means exactly that — a match may start later than its floor, and the round after a quick semifinal may start well before anyone expects. The public page and printouts carry the not before wording for you.
Auto-fill replaces placed matches. It asks first, and Undo brings the previous times back, but it does not know which placements were deliberate. Drag after the last auto-fill, not before.
Related
- Knockout setup — building the brackets this schedules.
- Schedule — block play, whose end sets the first knockout day.
- Scoring settings — per-round best-of, which sets how long a round holds a lawn.