How many of your associations use Arbiter.Net as a scheduling tool. I have just been introduced to this and it seems to be great.

We do, at least we did last year and haven't heard about any changes (Cardinal Basketball Official's Association - northen VA)

I know some assignors use a computer program, but I do not know which one. And our associations have little to nothing to do with what assignors do. These guys are independent.

Peace

One of my assignores uses http://www.usofficials.com which is very efficient and well organized. You can see who your partner will be, and look up all scheduled games, close out dates you are unavailable, and report info after games.

Another guy mails a post card which is barely legible, often with a baseball schedule on the reverse side for next spring. There are usually scratch-outs. This has been his only method for years, and somehow there are usually 2 officials at each game (or 3, or 4)! Go figure...

901c, you work juco for Ron Martel?

No, I don't know Ron.
Is he a post card guy, or a computer guy?

He uses usofficials.com, which is why I thought maybe you got a juco schedule from him. Oh well. :)

The 'online' assigning sites are
 

cumbersome, and their algorithms for aiding assigning are, mostly, trivial. They generally can't take into account the degree of difficulty of each game, cross-offs, limited availability, distance preferences, and much more, and assign 175 officials to 2000 assignments so that only 9 officials see the same team more than once in the season.

Our scheduler has been usingit for years and really likes it
 

We get accurate schedules with partners and locations phone numbers and year end recaps of our games to count our points.

Funny you should mention this...

I'm about to release my new site:

http://www.reftown.com

It will do many of the things mentioned above and lacking in others.

*Online assignment distribution/acceptance
*Rosters
*Custom Documents
*Schools Directory
*Officials Photo Albums
*Mass email distribution
*News & Announcements
*Meeting/Event Calendar
*Online assigning with consideration for blackout dates/times/schools, difficulty and geography (partially complete)
*Voting (tourney, officers, etc.) (tbd)
*Import of data from select formats.
*All password protected with varying levels of access assignable to specific individuals
*Accessiblity for coaches/ads to determine that their game has been assigned (hiding the actual officials names).

Most of these features are complete and tested.

I currently have 3 association committed with one that has been using the prototype for 2 years.

I'll be setting up a demo version soon. I'll let you know when it come out.

[Edited by Camron Rust on Sep 23rd, 2003 at 12:04 PM]