Umpire Scheduling System(s) User Guide

Updated Monday April 7, 2014 by Kanata Little League.

KLLBA Umpire Guide – Using the Scheduling System(s)

Date last updated: 07 April 2014

This is an attempt to document how each of the scheduling systems works, and should be referred to by umpires to understand the basic operations of each system. There are two parts to this document, the first documents the “leaguetoolbox” /www.kllba.ca system; the second documents the SMaLL system. Concepts are similar, some naming conventions differ as well as minor operational differences.

Umpires will generally work games up to the age group below their current age. Ie if you are playing Major games you will be umpiring Minor games.

The scheduling systems used are:

• LeagueToolBox, also known as/accessible as www.kllba.ca

  • This is used to schedule Minor, Major and Intermediate games in Spring. NEW in 2014 this will also be used for spring Junior games. These are games managed by Kanata Little League.

• SMaLL, also known as District 2 SMaLL

  • This is used to schedule Senior and Big League in Spring AND

  • Is used to schedule ALL games in the Summer Interlock league. These games are managed by the District since they involve teams from multiple leagues.

Please keep track of your games done, and email [email protected] with any no shows or incident reports. Incident reports can be done within the SMaLL system, but must be done outside the www.kllba.ca system. I will “review” all assignments with everybody prior to payroll issuance.  An incident report should be filed for any significant issue or altercation, documenting as best as possible the situation.

Leaguetoolbox/www.kllba.ca system:

Leaguetoolbox is a commercial website developed for managing sports leagues. KLLBA is one of thousands of leagues using this system, which has integrated league management tools inherent to it (league management, team management, schedule and event management, officials management, personalized team webpages, integrated calendaring).

This system is new to the league in 2013, therefore we are learning some of the intricacies of its operation as we go. This document will be updated regularly as we learn new things about the system.

Each umpire should login to the system using their userid and password. The userid will be the primary email id of the user. For password resets or userid issues please contact [email protected].

Note to parents: The userid for the umpire is the “email id” entered in the umpires profile. I encourage each umpire to maintain his/her own id and manage your own schedules – this teaches RESPONSIBILITY. However it is realized that these are youth and Parents may either wish to manage the schedules on behalf of the youth, or, receive ‘copies’ of correspondence so that they can ensure that their youth is being responsive/booking their own calendars. For some parents, you may enter your own email id in the field for the youth. However, this does not seem to work all the time – often there is an error ‘email id already in use/must be unique’. I don’t know why some work and some don’t, this is an error condition being looked at by the website provider. The workaround is to first login to the system using the youths userid/email; then go to ‘my info’ (ensure receive emails box is checked), then go to ‘notification preferences’. Click ‘add notifications’, then add whichever email id you would like to receive copies of the notifications.  You will be sent an email to that address which must be ‘validated’ to complete the process.

• Login by using “account login” at the top right of the main screen

• You will be placed on the “My profile” page.

  • Under “my home” and“my info” you may change your password yourself

  • Under “ my schedule” you will see leaguewide events only, you do NOT see your umpiring schedule.You may see your team schedule and/or division wide events as well if you are a player or coach (to be confirmed).

  • Ensure that the profile info under “My Info” is correct.

  • Ignore “my invoices”

• The primary interface for umpires is under the “my officiating” tab

  • You will see listed at the top any games to which you have been assigned.

  • First and foremost, you must update your “availability”. For the umpire to be able to schedule you, he must see you as “available”. You should:

    • Put any “general” availability info on the “Available time” area. For example, in general you might be available every Mon, Tues, Thurs and Fri nights and Sunday all day. Indicate this here (say on Wed nights you have a regular piano lesson, and Saturdays you usually walk your dog all day.

    • I suggest that you make yourself available from 5pm to 10pm Monday through Sunday;and a second availability of Saturday and Sunday 8am through 10pm

      • For times, be sure that the normal game times are within your availability window – normal games are 6pm to 8:15 pm or so;Weekend games could be any time during the day as early as 9am. Also, there will be “rainout” games run on Friday nights.

    • Then put any “unavailable” times in the next section. Especially your own game schedule, or weekends that you will be away, or other events.YOU WILL NEED TO UPDATE THIS SECTION AS YOU LEARN OF YOUR OWN EVENTS!.

    • NOTE: if you fail to put any “availability” into the system, the system assumes you are NOT available and I will never see you.

  • The umpire scheduler will from time to time look at the system and look for games that do not yet have umpires. I will do this every Saturday or Sunday evening/Monday morning for the next 2 weeks games (note the overlap – the second weeks games will have already had some tentative scheduling done the previous week). This will be when the bulk of games will be assigned. However, there are always onesy-twosy games that come up ad hoc and I will schedule these as soon as I see them in that 2 week window.

  • You should ensure your own “unavailability” (due to current game schedule) or availability for the next two week period is IN THE SYSTEM by Friday night.

  • When the umpire scheduler assigns you to a game, you get an email from “Kanata Little League” entitled “Position is scheduled” and the details of the assignment.

  • The game will also now appear under the “my upcoming games” section of your “my officiating” page.(Ensure you hit “refresh” if you are already logged in).

  • You may also get a reminder email (**Umpsched check the timeframe) 72 hours before the assignment. (To be confirmed**)

• DECLINING AN ASSIGNMENT:

  • To decline an assignment you must login to the system. Please try to do this as soon as practical and NOT within 48 hours of the assignment. If within 48 hours, please also email the umpire scheduler to notify him. Only acceptable excuse within 48 hours is sickness.

  • Go to your “my officiating” tab

  • You will see the game listed under “my upcoming games”

  • THIS IS NOT TOTALLY INTUITIVE – hit the button just above the listed games called “view available released games”

    • Click on “unselect/remove” for that game you want to decline.

    • You will receive an email, similar to above titled “position is unscheduled”. You will also receive this same email if the umpire scheduler “unschedules” you, for example, I may wish to move you to a different game at the same time.

  • Also on this list may appear some games that have been “released” by either the umpire scheduler or other umpires.YOU MAY “select” a game in this screen if you would like to officiate it and there is a green box next to it. If you are looking for more games to do, check this area regularly.

FINAL NOTE: there is an “online” calendaring capability on the leaguetoolbox site. This means that you may link your teams calendar into your own “family” or “personal” calendar, and games/practices and events (and any changes to them) would appear automatically on that calendar. To use this functionality, go to your teams webpage and look for the “add to iCal” button.  HOWEVER – this DOES NOT appear to link a persons UMPIRE schedule into the ical capability, which would be nice to have. (We are persuing this with the website people)

 

SMaLL system:

The SMaLL system (Systems Management for area Little Leagues) was developed locally approximately 5 years ago to help manage the “Interlock” leagues in Ottawa. Umpire scheduling capability was added 2 years ago. All interlock schedules are managed here (Spring – Senior and above; Summer – all leagues).

Each umpire should login to the system using their account name and password. The account name will be emailed to the users via an “enlistment” process. Usually it is initiallastname with the first two letters capitalized, however some users don’t follow this format. You need to respond to the enlistment email within 48 hours or “re-enlist” will need to be done. For password resets or account name issues please contact [email protected].

Access the SMaLL website via:  http://ontd2ll.fuzzybeagle.com/SMaLL/umpires or via a pointer on the www.kllba.ca website under “umpires” then “access D2 SMaLL site for umpire assignments”

• Login by using “account name” and password. Both are case sensitive.

• You will be placed on the “District 2 SMaLL Umpires” page, which has multiple coloured sections.

  • Under “edit your profile” you may change your password yourself. However do so carefully. If you change your password, ONLY change your password on that pressing of “save user changes”....do not change anything else on the same pressing of an “save user changes”. If you need to change anything else do so (but do not change your password) and press “save user changes”

  • In this section you will see links to various summaries of your current and past assignments, availability, etc

  • Ensure that the profile info under “edit your profile” is correct.

     

• This is the primary interface for umpires.

  • This system differs from the above system as you must specifically state your availability for all dates. Default is “not available” (appears as Standard). If you then have an event, instead of saying you are “unavailable”, you actually kindof clear your previous availability on that date.

  • First and foremost, you must update your “availability”. For the umpire to be able to schedule you, he must see you as “available”. Please note that “Standard” (which is the default) means NOT AVAILABLE. If a time period appears here, you are indicating that you are available between those hours. To update those hours and dates you scroll to the bottom section and “create availability”. You should:

    • Put any “general” availability info on the “Available time” area. For example, in general you might be available every Mon, Tues, Thurs and Fri nights and Sunday all day. Indicate this here (say on Wed nights you have a regular piano lesson, and Saturdays you usually walk your dog all day).

    • I suggest that you make yourself available from 5pm to 10pm Monday through Sunday;and a second availability of Saturday and Sunday 8am through 10pm

      • For times, be sure that the normal game times are within your availability window – normal games are 6pm to 8:15 pm or so;Weekend games could be any time during the day as early as 9am. Also, there will be “rainout” games run on Friday nights.

    • As you learn your personal schedule, you then remove any “availabilities” that you have previously scheduled. Hit “clear” on the calendar date to do this, it will return the status to “Standard” which really means “not available”. Especially your own game schedule, or weekends that you will be away, or other events.YOU WILL NEED TO UPDATE THIS SECTION AS YOU LEARN OF YOUR OWN EVENTS!.

    • NOTE: if you fail to put any “availability” into the system, or it just says “Standard”, the system assumes you are NOT available and I will never see you.

  • The umpire scheduler will from time to time look at the system and look for games that do not yet have umpires. I will do this every Sunday evening/Monday morning for the next 2 weeks games (note the overlap – the second weeks games will have already had some tentative scheduling done the previous week). This will be when the bulk of games will be assigned. However, there are always onesy-twosy games that come up ad hoc and I will schedule these as soon as I see them in that 2 week window.

  • When the umpire scheduler assigns you to a game, you get an email from www.kllba.ca entitled “SMaLL Umpire Game Assignment” and the details of the assignment.

  • The game will also now appear under the “my assignments” section of your main page.(Ensure you hit “refresh” if you are already logged in). My “upcoming assignments” is the more upcoming ones, I believe it lists all within the next 2 weeks only.

  • You may also get a reminder email (**Umpsched check the timeframe) 72 hours before the assignment. (It didn’t do this last year but Ken may have added this functionalityl....check**)

• DECLINING AN ASSIGNMENT:

  • To decline an assignment you must login to the system. Please try to do this as soon as practical and NOT within 48 hours of the assignment. If within 48 hours, please also email the umpire scheduler to notify him. Only acceptable excuse within 48 hours is sickness.

  • Go to your “assignments”

  • You will see the game listed.

  • Decline the game (***chek actual language). You will receive an email confirmation (***confirm this)

    • You will receive an email, similar to above titled “position is unscheduled”. You will also receive this same email if the umpire scheduler “unschedules” you, for example, I may wish to move you to a different game at the same time.

  • Declined assignments appear under the “available declined assignments” area. You may “pick up” assignments declined by other umpires by reviewing this area.You must have the proper qualifications in order to pick up an assignment. Also, the umpire scheduler will regularly fill any unassigned games.

 

 

KLLBA Umpire System Usage Guide.pdf