Arbiter Issues
 

Is anyone else having trouble with Arbiter today?

Nope.


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I have trouble with it every day.

To be clear, the site works as designed, but I don't like the effort I have to go through to manage my 33 different groups and get the blocks and the "sharing" right.

Damn.

I tried logging in earlier today, but it said my credentials (I'm on a personal computer, so my login and password have been saved for a long time) were wrong. I tried the "forgot password" thing and it even states my email is not in the system.

My phone is doing the same thing.

Bob's "33 different groups"
 

Wow!

Chat with tech support or the admin. person of your group who oversees Arbiter. BTW, no issues with my account today.

I think the support center phone number is 1-800-311-4060.

Two Different Groups ...
 

I had a second group added this year, for state tournament games, and I'm forgetting to treat each group separately (with checks in the proper boxes).

State tournament games? I'm a journeyman official who hasn't worked a state tournament game in thirty-seven years. I seriously doubt that I'll get one this year, with a bone spur and osteoarthritis in my right ankle, and patellofemoral pain syndrome in my left knee, but hey, hope springs eternal.

It's really too bad that my body is failing me now. I thought that last season was my best ever in terms of concentration, confidence, poise, consistency, judgment, mechanics, signals, court coverage, calls, game management, being a good partner, etc., and my ratings were great, except for physical conditioning.

I can't do state tournament games when I walk with a limp like Matt Dillon's sidekick, Chester, in Gunsmoke.

https://tse2.mm.bing.net/th?id=OIP.8...=0&w=300&h=300

I get older every year and the players stay the same age. It's just not fair.

I had to leave a message with them to call me back as it wouldn't keep me in hold. Although it's been an hour and they haven't called back.

I also emailed them and have yet to get a response.

I'm currently watching the JV game with my partners for the varsity game and they aren't having issues. Hopefully they get back to me.

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The last time I had to deal with the support center, it did take a day or two for the return phone call. But someone did call back.

Generally when a game you’ve accepted is moved, you get a notification and have to re-accept the new date/time.

Well I had a game moved to a date I had blocked and I never got a notification or the chance to re-accept. Apparently multiple people have had that issue and Arbiter is working on it.

Software Hiccup ...
 

Same thing for me two years ago. I didn't bother to followup with Arbiter (our assigner takes care of all Arbiter issues) and just called my assigner, he took care of the new reschedule. Later he told me that it was just a software "hiccup".

I will add a few words to this thread. My opinion is that Arbiter is not a good system now because they grew too quickly when the NCAA became part of it. The servers were not equipped to handle the capacity and activity, the programmers do not have enough options available for individual officials who work in multiple areas or for multiple assignors, assignors are often frustrated with the lack of detail in their options, the tech support is slow, the fees are too high, and the security cannot be trusted. (There have been two high profile breaches that I know about, including one involving NCAA basketball officials. Additionally, the system used to email your password to you when you joined a new group. I got them to cease doing that because email accounts are relatively easy to hack.)

I was the admin for our Arbiter group for eight years. I dealt with numerous issues from various angles: the assignor side, the school admin point of view, and the individual officials. Over that time the fees were raised four times and new fees were added. We eventually concluded that Arbiter was not worth the money and dropped it. We purchased a website and hired our own programmer to design an assigning system to meet our needs. For about 20% of the cost we have a system which is ten times better.

I work as an assigner and use Arbiter both as an assigner and as an official. I think there are some good and bad things to Arbiter. One of them actually has been changed recently.

In some sports, like swimming and track, it is common to have a boys and a girls meet at the same time. Previously with Arbiter you could not have a boys and girls meet at the same time at the same site. Arbiter would block out the site and the prohibited any new assignment from being made at the site during the time period. This was a major pain.

I was notified earlier this week that they have changed this and when assigned a track meet for Spring, I found this to be true. You now receive a warning that the site is in use at that time, but you can over ride this and assign the game anyway.

Arbiter can be responsive to the needs of those using the system.

I know of a much better and cheaper solution too! ;)

Yes, RefTown seems to work pretty well -- but I would like to be able to export ALL my games to Excel for a specific time period , instead of having to do it for each group separately. (Unless I'm missing something -- it's not used for Basketball here, so I haven't been on the site in a while)

Gunsmoke ...
 

If nonbasketball related television trivia bothers you, then just look away.

As basketball officials we're used to dealing with tall individuals, but others may not.

You wouldn't know by the photo that Chester (Dennis Weaver) is 6' 2". He looks tiny here compared to Matt Dillon (Jim Arness) who was 6' 7".

Arness: "In one film the leading man was five-ten, and I had to play all my scenes sitting down. Then there were times when they'd dig a trench for me to stand in so I wouldn't dwarf the rest of the cast. Once they even had two leading characters wearing foot-high lifts on their shoes".

It wasn't there...but it is now. Thanks for the suggestion. :)

1. Go to Schedules -> My Games (All Accounts)
2. Use the search filter to pick the date range you want
3. Then click Quick Links -> Export

It isn't 100% polished yet. It may contain a few blank columns you may not need, but I set it include columns that may be used in any organization. I'll add more intelligence to later it to eliminate those columns if none of your organizations use them.

Thanks -- and the specific columns don't bother me -- I have to re-format it anyway to get to my personal (for taxes) tracking spreadsheet and / or to import to Outlook for the calendar.

Strange...

They called me back and somehow my wife's email address became my main email with them. Although my ArbiterPay account stayed the same.

Oh well, at least it's fixed.

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Unless you HAVE to use Arbiter, don't. Although I wish Reftown had a similar pay portal.

As for the calendar, there is already an outlook import format available (top of the date/time column of any listing of games). There is also a calendar subscription (calendar feed) that will put the same info onto your calendar automatically within a few hours of being assigned (or removed it if canceled).

Manual Calendar Entry: https://www.reftown.com/kbp_60/index...try&EntryID=77

Automatic Subscription: https://www.reftown.com/kbp_60/index...ry&EntryID=186

Yes, but for various reasons the excel option works better for me.

Mark, Jr., and I are in complete agreement with you. Because I only umpire baseball and softball now I only have 9 groups to manage but because Junior still does basketball besidea baseball and softball he has 19 groups on his Arbiter account, not to mention he has two other separate online assigning website for the four Div. I conferences for college softball.

Because I have retired from my real job five years ago I have become the social secretary for Junior and me, and it can take forever to go through "blocks".

MTD, Sr.