The Sharing feature seems to be only Half finished. Please make the "Sharing" feature so BOTH the Schedule and Blocks Calendars for the officials show ALL Sharing information. It is Not very helpful to Only be able to see the sharing information at the Assigning Level. Most all officials do Not go in and block a date when the games have been assigned within the actual Arbiter system. As an official, it is assumed that information can be accessed by all assignors. In my opinion, I believe that all assignors should be able to see ALL assignments of any official in their group, without the "sharing" feature having to be opened. I think sharing should be automatic and if someone does NOT want it to be shared, they can then go in and turn that feature off.
13 comments
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Harold Buck At the very least, it should automatically show you when people are working and where, even if it doesn't tell you what group they are working in or who the matchup is (e.g., Springfield HS vs. Shelbyvllle HS).
Even if the person doesn't share their schedule, you can already kind of find it out. The assigning page shows if they have a game that day, and if it isn't in your group you can trying to assign them to different times and see when it tells you they can't work because of a game in another group.
I agree that the quickest fix is for games to be shared by default. As a HS assigning, I am allowed to use a college guy for a HS or youth game in the same day *after* a college game on the same day but not before. Many guys don't have their schedules shared, which makes this a challenge.
FWIW, at least Arbiter will not allow someone to be assigned two games at the same time, or at different times if the travel doesn't work, even if the official doesn't block over the schedule after getting a game in another group.Of course, the travel calculations still leave much to be desired.
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Doug McClure Harold, I agree and for example, if you know that an official lives in City A and his leave on the assigning page is City B, you KNOW that he is working at that school. If it is put onto the blocks and schedule calendar, I can then go to that person and find all of his open dates and assign him / her, instead of playing find the official in a hay stack and hoping that you are getting your job done.
As for the travel, that has been non updated to my knowledge since the site opened.
I am becoming very disappointed in making this system More user friendly, especially when paying so much for it annually.
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Nathan Evans Doug,
We don't share the details of an official's calendar for privacy purposes. Many officials and assigners have expressed frustration that when their schedule is shared with certain people, they are denied games or threatened with a loss of assignments. For that reason, we are careful with the schedules.
Now what I just wrote is for not defaulting things to shared, but I want to understand better how you're making assignments. It appears that you want to pull up an official and assign them games instead of pulling up a game and making assignments. Will you expound on that? Some assigners use the self assign option (from the edit official page) to assign one official several games.
Best Regards,
Nate
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Harold Buck At the very least, Arbiter needs to tell you where people are and when they can't work. If I can figure out that information by trial and error, there's no point in hiding it.
If I go to assign John Roderick, and the date or dates listed in "Before/After" are red, you know he has a game that day in some group. If you click on the date and the schedule hasn't been shared, if doesn't show you when that game is, but by trying to assign him at various times you can figure out where the game is (from "Leave City") and when the game is. So why not just show that when you click on "Before/After": from 2:00-4:00, he's in Springfield working a game?
That would be enough to solve my problems.
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Harold Buck Well, problems with this issue related to assigning, anyway. :-)
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Nathan Evans Thanks for the additional information.
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Secretary-ODSUA The most basic part of this for me is that, even without sharing turned on, an official should not appear as "available" when they've already accepted a game assignment for the exact same time I'm trying to assign them. I don't have to be told why, just like with Blocks, just that they're unavailable. I think this is similar to what Harold is asking for. The current process creates additional work for the assignor when an official assigned to a game declines that game because they had already accepted an assignment with another group. If that decline doesn't come quickly, now the assignor may have to scramble to find someone. I understand trying to give officials flexibility, but there's also the view of the assignors who are just trying to see if an official is actually available or not. The issue of retaliation by assignors, for me, is external to this system and should be handled externally, not by hiding information.
Curious... has this always been the way ArbiterSports has worked? I'm pretty sure it used to be that, when an official accepted an assignment from another group, they would not appear as an available official, no sharing required. At the very least, it should be documented that, in order for me to see that an official is unavailable when they are a member of other groups, that official must, at a minimum, share the time of assignments from other groups. Otherwise, they will show as available to me when I go to assign games.
Thanks!
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Harold Buck I am 98% sure that officials used to show as unavailable if they had a game in another group at the same time.
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Nathan Evans Thank you for the comments.
- Officials still appear as unavailable if they have another game at the same time. However, a few years ago, we allowed an assigner to override that conflict (you must still go to the potential or issue summary options when assigning).
- The sharing feature does not impact availability. The sharing feature determines what information an assigner can see about assignments from other groups. Unfortunately, all assigners aren't as gracious as those on this board.
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Secretary-ODSUA Nathan,
Thanks for the clarification.
What you've shared is the opposite of what I was told when I called in to support to determine if I had an issue of officials appearing on the list of Available Officials when assigning games. I had at least two instances of officials declining assignments saying they were already assigned games with another group. To me, they appeared in the Available Officials list with no issues. Support informed me that, in order to not appear as available, the officials would need to, at a minimum, turn on sharing of at least the time of their other assignments. Otherwise, they would appear as available to me.
What you're describing makes more sense. If an official has an assignment at the same time as I'm trying to assign them, they would not appear as available and I should see an issue code (probably G or S), but no other details. That would be acceptable to me if that's actually how it works.
Now that I've been given two different descriptions of how this is implemented, I'll need to confirm with my officials as to which way it seems to be working.
I'll post back to once I have more information. Thanks!
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Tim H There are numerous assigners that will blackball officials if they are working games that they (for whatever reason) disapprove.
The site and any other game details should NOT be shared by default. In many cases, simple sharing of the site is tantamount to providing all game details. This can unknowingly cause official great harm to their officiating career.
Whether we like it or not, some assigners have near dictatorial power in some locales...and they wield that power. Officials should not be subjected to this without them first knowing what details are being disclosed to others.
Simply showing the official as "unavailable" is all any assigner should need to know...unless the official specifically approves otherwise.
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Harold Buck My point is that you can already pretty much figure that information out if you try to—if an official is showing as unavailable from noon to 2:00 and shows as coming from his home address in Springfield before noon and shows as being in Shelbyville after 2:00 (you'll always see this because of the way ArbiterSports.com calculates travel), I know he's doing a game in another group from noon to 2 in Shelbyville, and I can probably figure out what that is. So why make me go through that to figure it out?
Probably the solution is something else I suggest long ago, which is having a "setup wizard" for all new accounts. Have it lead the person through all of the steps for setting things up, including sharing. It could list pros and cons for sharing schedules there and let people make a decision.
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Nathan Evans This topic has been delicate as we have worked to balance the information needed to successfully assign officials while providing privacy for officials. For many years, officials didn't have the ability to 1) hide some details of their games and 2) be assigned to a game if they were already assigned.
The current implementation has allowed officials to do those two things. Unfortunately, there are some situations in which this adversely affects officials and assigners.
In our experience with assigners (and we work with 10,000+), they are reasonable and work with officials. There are those who penalize their officials for things that are outside of their concern. Because of this, most officials would prefer that their schedule is shared with their assigners by default with the option to change the setting if the assigners are not using the information well.