User Defined Age groups
Contents
Don't use them unless you understand what you are doing. See summary below.
User Defined Age Groups were originally designed because one or two adult athletic clubs used SportsTrak. It gives a way of defining age groups such as
4 Character Name |
Lower Age Limit |
Upper Age Limit |
VET1 |
36 |
40 |
VET2 |
41 |
45 |
etc |
||
In schools there is no reason not to use the built in age groups, and several reasons why not.
Consider this Age group structure and (we've seen it)
4 Character Name |
Lower Age Limit |
Upper Age Limit |
1220 |
12 |
20 |
12 |
12 |
12 |
13 |
13 |
13 |
1213 |
12 |
13 |
14 |
14 |
14 |
etc |
||
It enables an event to be Open to all by using 1220 as the age, but still have 12 as a separate year level.
How is SportsTrak supposed to know what age group to assign to a kid? A 13 year old fits into three of them.
How is SportsTrak meant to work out Age Group Champions
Here's another:
4 Character Name |
Lower Age Limit |
Upper Age Limit |
12 |
12 |
12 |
13 |
13 |
13 |
14 |
14 |
14 |
16 |
16 |
16 |
17 |
17 |
17 |
20 |
20 |
20 |
Oops, no 15 year old category, or 18,19
Summary
Point 1: Age groups must be inclusive of all possible ages, have no overlaps, and have no gaps in the sequence. Many do it wrong in one way or another.
Point 2: There is no ability to export competitors from this system to another (say an inter-school) that is using regular age groups.
Point 3: There is no need to do it, especially with ST2200 which introduces a lower age limit on an Open event.
Point 4: As programmers, we don't pay much attention to User Defined Age Groups and there are probably some reports or processes that don't work properly with it. And in future we may well cut it out altogether.
If you really think you need User Defined Age Groups, please email or contact us first.