SwimTopia Meet Entries – Ready to Merge

One of the most elegant and simple parts of Meet Maestro is its ability to “merge” a meet between SwimTopia teams. With a click of a button, Meet Maestro takes the entries from both SwimTopia teams and merges the files, seeds the heats and creates an entire meet that’s ready to run on its intuitive interface.

» Note: This merge process is only required if the meet is being run using Meet Maestro™. If you (or the host team) is using another system to run the meet ➞ See Meet is Run in Another System (i.e. Meet Manager, Swimmingly, Team Unify).

Covered in this Article:

• Step 1: Lock Entries
  • USA Swimming Teams - Membership Status Warning
• Step 2: Designate Readiness to Merge Entries & Select Record Books (if created)
  • Uploading / Importing Entries Files
• Step 3: Merge Meet Entries (Home Team)
  • Merge Errors
• Step 4: Launch the Meet Maestro Meet
• Virtual Meets
• Results Download
• Advancers File Download

Step 1: Lock Entries

After all meet entries are completed and the meet is linked between the home/visitor teams, it’s time to lock entries down and signal that you’re ready to merge to seed the meet.

➞ See the SwimTopia - Meet Linking article for more details on linking meets.

Go to the Merge/Export tab and set “Lock out all entry changes” to On. 

» Note: This will automatically Close your Athlete Signup (if Open) so no additional changes can be made by your members/parents. If you change your mind and are not ready to merge, you can slide the bar back to "Off" but you will need to manually reopen your Athlete Signup under the Meet Setup > Status screen.

 USA Swimming Teams - Membership Status Warning

A membership warning will display for any athlete entered into an event that does not have a valid USA Swimming membership. Hovering over the info icon (?) will display the names of the athletes. You can choose to proceed or reach out to the families to confirm. 

If the athlete's USA Swimming membership needs to be updated, this must be updated within SWIMS from the USA Swimming member login (not within the SwimTopia account).

» Note: This warning will not display on your SwimTopia site unless your team is connected to USA Swimming. ➞ See the Connecting USA Swimming and SwimTopia Help Center article for more information if you have not completed this step.

Step 2: Designate Readiness to Merge Entries & Select Record Books (if created)

When using Meet Maestro for meet management, each team competing in the meet must indicate their entries are "Ready for Merge" before the Build in Meet Maestro button is enabled and entries can be combined and seeded.

After locking entries, you will see two tabs with the Meet Maestro tab selected by default. From this screen, slide the status bar next to your team name to the 'On' Ready position to designate you are ready to merge.

Next, select which Record Books (if any) you would like to include for your team in the meet:

➞ See Creating a Record Book to learn how you can set up your team and pool records.

» Note: You can make edits to these selections post-merge in your Meet Maestro meet ➞ See Meet Maestro Settings - Benchmarks (Records & Time Standards) for details.

Uploading / Importing Entries Files

(your own or from a non-SwimTopia team)

Competing against a non-SwimTopia team or using another system for your entries? No problem! SwimTopia supports the upload of a Meet Entries File or Merge Entries File, so you can use Meet Maestro to run your meet. Of course, we would love for entries to be managed in SwimTopia, but offer this flexibility to meet your needs. 

• Supported Formats
• Who Can Upload Files
• Entries From Competing Teams
• Heat/Lane Assignments
• Deck Entries After Merge
• When Files Can Be Uploaded
• How To Upload Files
• Upload Errors
• More Than Two Teams Competing

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➧ Supported Formats

• .hy3 (Hy-Tek proprietary)
• .sd3 (SDIF - Swimmingly, Team Unify...)
• .zip file (containing a .hy3 or .sd3)

➧ Who Can Upload Files

Either team (home/visitor) with access to the SwimTopia meet can upload files. The team that merges the meet (typically designated as home) will import into Meet Maestro -

• All entries from meets created in a SwimTopia site linked to their meet
• Any uploaded files for teams that do not have entries created in a SwimTopia account

➧ Entries From Competing Teams

Entries from Teams Without a SwimTopia Account:

Teams without a SwimTopia account who are invited to a regular swim meet will submit their meet entries to the meet host via entry file. For virtual meets, both teams must have an account.

» Note: Teams Who Manually Time (No Meet Software): Unless a team has a way to import a roster/meet entries through an electronic import (hy3 or sd3) or through a SwimTopia account, you cannot currently run the meet using the Meet Maestro software. We have a "SwimTopia Lite" option these teams could use to create their meets and meet entries and merge with your entries. We offer a free trial period. More information can be found on our website here: SwimTopia: Swim Software You'll Love.

Entries from Teams With a SwimTopia Account:

How entries are managed for the teams that are not merging the meet (typically visiting teams), relates to whether they have used the SwimTopia meet entries feature or not.

If a linked team has meet entries in their SwimTopia account those entries will be merged into the meet by default.

If those teams want to use an entries file instead, they should ensure there are no entries in their meet interface, and that the team abbreviation in the uploaded file matches the abbreviation on their account. OR the alternative option is to make two copies of the meet -- one for entries in SwimTopia and another (without SwimTopia entries) to import a merge entries file into.

» Note: If a team that is not merging the meet uploads a file with entries (whether for one team or multiple teams), all the teams show up but any team with an abbreviation that does not match the visiting team show up with a warning indicating the non-matching uploads are being ignored, as seen here: 

➧ Heat/Lane Assignments

1. The file must be HY3 and not SD3 format because SD3 does not include heat/lane information for meet entries
2. As stated, if uploading an entries file for your own team (matched based on team abbreviation), and you also have meet entries for that meet created in SwimTopia -- the SwimTopia entries will be used and the uploaded entries will be ignored. See above for how to use the file instead.

➧ Deck Entries After Merge

SwimTopia customers are able to do deck entries since the full roster is available in Meet Maestro. 

Hy-Tek meet entry files from Team Manager only include athletes entered in events, so non-SwimTopia visiting teams using this system cannot do deck entries when these files (or any files not containing a full roster) are uploaded. 

Workaround: It is possible to import a roster file in addition to an entries file for the same team and to have both loaded into Meet Maestro. By doing this it would limit the potential issues with "deck adds" to only those cases where an athlete is not already on a team's roster, provided you load a full team roster during the merge process.

» Note: Use the same Upload File button for both files. The Meet Name and Meet Date will be empty and the number of Entries and Relays will also be zero. The order in which the two files are uploaded does not matter. Once both are uploaded you'll see duplicate listings for the same team in the Merge/Export list.

➧ When Files Can Be Uploaded

Once the meet is locked on the Merge/Export screen. 

» Note: the Upload Files button is disabled if any entries are present in the Meet Setup > Entries.  

➧ How To Upload Files

Click the Upload File button (bottom right).

Choose the file to upload. 

➧ Upload Errors

If you receive an error when attempting to upload the file, it is likely due to either the file not being an entries file, or there are mismatched events between your meet and the file. Ask the visiting team to correct their file or edit your events as necessary. If you need assistance, contact your Customer Happiness Team.

➧ More Than Two Teams Competing

You can repeat this process for each team if competing against multiple teams in a meet, or upload a Merge Entries File containing all teams. Any time you upload a file with multiple teams (i.e. Merge Entries, Advancers), the Upload Confirmation pop-up window lists each team separately with the athletes, entries and relay totals for each team

On the merge/export page, each team is listed separately:

» Note: Both of these teams are linked to the same entries file. However, each team can be deleted independently. Thus it would be possible to upload a file with entries for multiple teams, then delete the teams you don’t want to import.

Step 3: Merge Meet Entries (Home Team)

Clicking the Build Maestro Meet button opens a dialog with options for the Merge

» Note: Some options will be disabled, based on the league’s Meet Template “Seeding & Scoring” settings ➞ See SwimTopia - Setting Up Seeding and Scoring Rules for more details.

You'll have the opportunity to edit the course and number of lanes of your pool at this screen:

At the next screen, your lane assignments will be verified, based upon your seeding rules in your meet. You can edit these lane assignments here if needed:

➧ Odd-Laned Pools and Designated Scoring Heats

If you have a pool with an odd number of lanes, only an even number of lanes will be scored. Be sure to set your lane count on this screen:

And on the next screen, you should only see an even number of lanes listed, and these will be the designated scoring lanes for that heat.

» Note: Please double-check that the correct lanes are designated as your scoring lanes. The default follows USA Swimming rules, which designate that Lane 1 is the non-scoring lane. If you'd like Lane 1 to be a scoring lane, be sure it's listed in the lane assignments. The non-scoring lane should not appear in the lane assignments at all.

In this example, Lane 1 is a scoring lane and Lane 5 is the non-scoring lane. Lane 5 should not appear in the lane assignments:

Depending on how your meet is set up in the seeding/scoring rules, the lane that is not listed will either be:

• Seeded with the next fastest swimmer from either team (who will be a non-scoring swimmer), or
• Left empty

In designated scoring heats with designated scoring lanes, the setting for whether to fill the non-scoring lane is in the Seeding and Scoring rules for the meet (or in the meet template assigned to the meet):

➧ Merge Status After the Meet is Merged

» Note: Once the home team merges the entries for the meet, the Merge Status will show "Merged" and all status options are automatically reset on each site – this is to prevent the home team from making meet entry changes and rebuilding the meet without the visiting team’s consent.

>>Tip: When many changes are needed by either team, rebuilding may be a more efficient option, but for a few changes you can do deck adds/removals directly within Meet Maestro. The only time rebuilding is required is if the athlete(s) you need to add were not already part of the team roster at the time of merging ➞ See the Meet-Maestro - Athlete Entry Deck Changes article for more on this topic.

➧ Merge Errors

If you receive an error when attempting to upload the file, it is likely there are mismatched events between teams. Ask the visiting team to correct their file or edit your events as necessary. If you need assistance, contact your Customer Happiness Team.

Step 4: Launch the Meet Maestro Meet

After the meet is merged, a Meet Maestro button will appear in the header. This allows for easy access from any screen if you need to get back into the meet. Clicking on this button will launch Meet Maestro in a new window.

» Note: Meet Maestro is only fully supported using the Google Chrome browser (versions 89+ March 2021). All major browsers are supported for the team management side of SwimTopia.

Multiple admins, including admins on any of the participating teams, may then click the Meet Maestro button to see the meet in Meet Maestro and run reports. The meet may be open in multiple browsers concurrently.

Virtual Meets

You may have noticed the option to "Build as Virtual Meet (session per team)” when merging your meet. This is a feature we developed in response to COVID-19 as a way to provide our customers with a safe meet alternative.

Although the initial purpose was for COVID-19, Virtual Meets could be an opportunity to swim against teams outside of your area/state, so we see this as a valuable feature to promote safety in this new normal AND provide our customers with an option to expand their swim experience.

➞ See our Meet Maestro - Virtual Meets article for more on this topic.

Results Download

After running the meet and completing any data entry or edits, you’ll be ready to transfer your team’s results into your SwimTopia site and each competitor's site. If competing against a non-SwimTopia team, you can download and send the results for the other team in the .hy3 or .sd3 file format so they can upload all results into their team management platform. 

Advancers File Download

The Advancers file format is used when one swim meet serves as the qualification round for a subsequent swim meet — where the top 8 swimmers advance to the next meet, for example. The result times from the current meet are used as the entry times for the next meet, even if the result time is not the fastest time for that swimmer. 

Both of these post-meet downloads will be done from within the meet settings in Meet Maestro ➞ See the Meet Maestro Settings – Finish & Export article for more details.

➞ Next Topic: SwimTopia Pre-Meet Reports - Athletes and Entries

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