2022—A Year in Review + New and Improved Scheduling Features
2022 has been a big year for Diamond Scheduler! We officially launched our Web version in November 2022 and have since launched many new features to continually improve our software.
Scheduling functionality
1. Neutral venues
Explicitly mark a venue as neutral, even if it has home teams (previously only neutral if home teams not assigned)
2. Optional scheduling config: enforce home venues
Allow scheduler to ignore home-team / neutral venue constraints
3. New time constraints
Create additional time/date constraints for teams, including
No play team
Must play at home
Max travel from last game
Max travel from home venue
4. Balanced schedules
Setting to turn on balancing of days of week, time of day, venues, surfaces, etc
Leads to many more unscheduled games than normal schedule
5. Schedule log
See a step-by-step log of the scheduling attempt, and see why specific timeslots can’t be used for specific games
6. Conflict checker
Run a conflict checker on a schedule to determine if any teams or surfaces have conflicts (usually created by hand-management)
7. Schedule rotations
If not 95% success or above, rotate pairings and try again to see if we can improve results
Keep track of best result and use at the end of rotations
8. Dynamic early / middle / late balance
When reporting EML balance, we now examine all games in the schedule and categorize them based on relative start time, rather than using previously hardcoded time ranges
e.g. previously, a schedule that only had games between 4 pm and 10pm would all come back as “late”. Now, it will classify those 4-6 pm as “early”, 6-8 pm as “middle”, etc.
9. Enhanced balance reporting
Total Matchups, including Home-Away balances between specific teams
Venue balance per team
Home-Away and EML balance per team
Weekly Balance per team
Day of week balance per team
Rest teams per week
10. Constraints copying
When creating a time/date constraints, users can now apply it to all teams in the division using checkbox at save
11. Override constraints box
Allow for ignoring of team’s constraints when manually assigning a game to a timeslot
12. Blank schedules
Allow for creating a blank schedule where you can create games by hand rather than using the algorithm. Particularly useful for small schedules/cross-division entries.
13. Enhanced filtering for game table
More columns and better filtering experience across games, practices, timeslots, divisions, etc.
14. Last edited field on schedule items
Keep track of what you edited by seeing when each item was edited in the table
Calendar & timeslot functionality
15. Hidden calendar days
Hide certain days on the calendar if not relevant to your schedule, to increase working space and improve UI
16. Swap timeslots from calendar
Highlight two games on calendar and swap timeslots
17. Splitting timeslots
Turn a single timeslot or game into 2 back-to-back items, creating a double-header if it was a game
18. Reserved timeslots
Create timeslots but prevent them from being schedule by marking them as reserved
19. Calendar settings
Change the time range shown as well as display interval to save space
Ability to hide calendar toolbar for more space
Persistent across page changes
20. Bulk surface updating
Select items on the calendar and change the venue + surface they are at
Importing and Exporting
21. CSV importing of people
Import players, coaches, etc via CSV
22. Import Coaches from SportsEngine
Bring in coaches during SE import
23. JSON import from desktop and vice versa
Bring your league from the desktop program to the web via JSON, or export web to desktop
24. Uploading timeslots via CSV
Import your existing timeslots in a formatted CSV rather than creating by hand
25. New CSV export formats for other platforms
GoalOnline
LeagueApps
LeagueAthletics
Arbiter
PointStreak
BlueSombrero
26. New export visualizations
Day-By-Day CSV
Per-Team CSV
Account settings and scheduling sharing
27. Timezone selection and first day of the week
Set your explicit timezone and choose which day of the week shows up on the calendar and is used for scheduling (e.g., many leagues start on Monday rather than Sunday)
28. Public schedule sharing
Get a publicly-accessible read-only link to the schedule
29. Schedule embedding
Get an iframe embed code that displays a read-only version of the schedule to embed on your website
30. Bulk editing
Edit all team information within the season from a common screen (app.cactusware.com/bulk)
If you are looking for any of these features mentioned above for your scheduling needs, we have a free editable and printable tournament bracket for you to use. You are also welcome to sign up for a free trial of Diamond Scheduler. You can try all of Diamond Scheduler’s features for free when you sign up! Some games will be hidden and export is disabled until your account is upgraded.
Be sure to check out our tutorials before getting started for the best experience:
If you find that Diamond Scheduler meets your needs, you can click the “Upgrade” banner to upgrade your account!
We will continue to improve our software in 2023 with new features to help your scheduling experience quicker and easier. Onward and upward to 2023!
