Match Schedule Fixture Grid & Draw

This article is targeted at the competition administrators and coordinators.

The fixture grid or draw is the essential core element to the scheduling of matches for a single competition day. This article will explain how to import a draw from either 3rd party services or manually.

Prerequisites

It is assumed that that following steps have already been performed:

  1. Competition configuration
  2. Fixture/Season scheduling (aka day creation & configuration)
  3. 3rd Party Integration (if required)

Importing from 3rd Party services

  1. Navigate to the Match Schedule Admin page within the Competition Admin portal
  2. Select the competition day
  3. Click the Import Draw button to open the import dialog
  4. At the bottom of the import draw dialog, ensure the appropriate 3rd Party integration configuration is selected. This will default to the first in the list assigned to the same Classification as the current fixture day’s configuration.
  5. Check or uncheck the option to “Filter to current day”. Recommended to be checked in most cases as this reduces the data returned.
  6. Click the Fetch 3rd Party Draw button, located next to the configuration selection dropdown list
  7. When the draw is returned the text will be placed in the large text box
  8. Review the returned text, use the troubleshooting information below if required.
  9. When ready click the “Import” button, then click the “Close” button
  10. Review the updated Match Schedule / Draw and if happy click the “Save All” button located below the match schedule grid, or alternatively save each time slot individually.

Troubleshooting 3rd party draw fetch or import

The returned draw only contains a single line of header info?

There are two possible issues that cause this.

  • The filters on the 3rd Party Integration Configuration do not match the 3rd party system (e.g. MySideline competition name).
  • The draw has not been published to the 3rd Party system yet, hence there is nothing to import
  • The scheduled date on the 3rd Party system does not match the date configured within SportsM8’s competition day and hence there is nothing to import for SportsM8’s currently selected date.

The division names returned from the 3rd Party system contain text that I want trimmed or have text removed?

Check the 3rd Party Integration configuration in SportsM8. We support a simple text replacement option for mapping division and team names to different or shortened names in SportsM8 to make the draw easier to work with and understand.

The team names returned from the 3rd Party system contain text that I want trimmed or have text removed?

Check the 3rd Party Integration configuration in SportsM8. We support a simple text replacement option for mapping division and team names to different or shortened names in SportsM8 to make the draw easier to work with and understand.

When I click Import, the updated draw is not reflected on the Match Schedule Draw Grid?

The most likely cause of this is that the date/time of the Match Schedule Draw in SportsM8 do not match the date/time of the matches configured in the 3rd Party system (e.g. MySideline). When matching the draw from a 3rd Party system we use the “timeslot” date time column in UTC time to match to the UTC time of the time slot within SportsM8. When that matches we then match based on the fieldname.

Importing a manually designed draw

The process for importing a manually designed draw is useful when the draw is being created by the competition organizers or governing body within an unsupported 3rd Party system or they are manually creating it within their own processes (word, excel, etc).

  1. First you will need to download a template to populate the draw from. The easiest way is to navigate to the Match Schedule Admin, select the desired competition day, and then click the Export Draw button. Select the option for CSV format and click “Export to File”. Open/Import the CSV file into Excel. Alternatively download our SportsM8 Draw Template XLSX however this will require more data to be entered but is useful when the number of time slots is not yet known or SportsM8 is not yet configured. The key columns are outlined below in “Understanding the draw CSV columns”.
  2. Populate the file with the required match data, save the completed draw excel sheet in CSV format.
  3. Navigate to the Match Schedule Admin page within the Competition Admin portal
  4. Select the competition day
  5. Click the Import Draw button to open the import dialog
  6. Open the saved CSV file in a text editor and copy the contents of the file
  7. Paste the copied text into the draw text box, click the “Import” button, then click the “Close” button
  8. Review the updated Match Schedule / Draw and if happy click the “Save All” button located below the match schedule grid, or alternatively save each time slot individually.

Understanding the draw CSV columns

Our draw import and export process leverages CSV format which requires some key columns

Column Data Type Required For Import Description
dayname Text   This field is intended for making it easier to track which draw you are looking at in a multi day event. It has no impact on the import and will not be part of the exported data. Can be deleted if preferred.
timeslotnumber Number Yes When not providing the timeslot column, this column will be used to match to the SportsM8 time slot.
timeslot Text Yes When the timeslotnumber column is not provided this column is used to match to the SportsM8 time slot. The time is stored as a Text value in the 24 hour format of “HH:MM” and in local time. For example if the time slot is scheduled at 6:15 pm AEST then the column would be represented by the value “18:15”. For manually created draws, it can be easier to match on the timeslotnumber as that can be more easily matched rather than a UTC date calculation.
datetime datetime_utc Yes When the timeslotnumber column is not provided this column is used to match to the SportsM8 time slot. The date/time needs to be stored in UTC with the timezone information, see FAQ. This is the preferred way of matching when importing from 3rd Party systems. For manually created draws, it can be easier to match on the timeslotnumber as that can be more easily matched rather than a UTC date calculation.
fieldnumber Number Yes This is the numeric identifier of the field, often internal to SportsM8. Typically this is sequencial within SportsM8 but can be The Field Name is the friendly name given to the field and can be changed within SportsM8 as needed. If this is supplied then this will be used to match to the SportsM8 field.
fieldname Text Yes This is the actual name of the field, the name that players and participants at the venue will know it by. For example it may be “Field 14” or “Field 10a” or “Field 10b”, with the internal fieldnumber being a unique identifier to distinquish those fields and track them across time slots.
classification Text No This is the SportsM8 classification that is assigned to the day and time slot. It is used when mapping to 3rd party integration but has no impact on the import.
divisioncode Text Yes This is the code that maps the division within SportsM8. A mapping table can be configured on the 3rd party integration if this value needs to be changed on CSV generation or post importing. Ideally when creating the draw manually it should also be aligned to a SportsM8 divisioncode. If there is no match on the field then this should be set to “No Game”
pool Text No The pool of the specific match belongs to. E.g. “Pool A”
round Text No The round that the specific match belongs to. E.g. “Round 1”, “10”, or “Grand Final”.
hometeamid Text No The unique identifying number for the team within the system. This can be mapped to the 3rd party system by mirroring the data in SportsM8. This allows easy look up of team names when populating a draw manually from within SportsM8. This field is also used when setting the teams an individual is not allowed to officiate etc, or the player team manager team assignment and tracking of score entry.
hometeam Text Yes This is the name of the home team for the match. Free text and can be any value. E.g. Set it to “TBA” when there is a grand final and the teams are not known at import.
awayteamid Text No The unique identifying number for the team within the system. This can be mapped to the 3rd party system by mirroring the data in SportsM8. This allows easy look up of team names when populating a draw manually from within SportsM8. This field is also used when setting the teams an individual is not allowed to officiate etc, or the player team manager team assignment and tracking of score entry.
awayteam Text Yes This is the name of the home team for the match. Free text and can be any value. E.g. Set it to “TBA” when there is a grand final and the teams are not known at import.

Using Export Draw to obtain a draw template

Our recommendation is to use the SportsM8 Draw Template XLSX file as the starter to build a manually designed draw from. However, in the case where this is not working for you or you want to validate the column names are what SportsM8 is expecting (column names must match exactly), then you can use the following steps to acquire a CSV template.

  1. Navigate to the Match Schedule Admin page within the Competition Admin portal
  2. Select the competition day
  3. Click the Export Draw button to open the export dialog
  4. Select the CSV option from the drop down
  5. Either review the data in the text box. If this meets your needs you can stop here, alternatively continue with the next steps to obtain the CSV file
  6. Click “Save to File”
  7. When prompted, save the file to an appropriate folder on your computer/device. If you are not prompted then check your downloads folder as this is dependant on browser settings.
  8. Open the downloaded file in your favorite text editor.

FAQ and Troubleshooting

I am supplying the “timeslotnumber” column but it is not matching to a time slot in SportsM8

Check the configuration of a time slot by clicking “Edit” on the time slot, then click “Edit” next to the time slot time. This will show you the internal tracking data for the time slot and what is used to match the draw.

NOTE: Time slot numbers are sequentially generated in SportsM8 as each new time slot is created/added. Depending on your workflow they can end up out of sequence, i.e. you had to shift the start time of the day and rather than change the times of all time slots you added a new time slot to the start of the day.

The date/time column needs to be stored in UTC with timezone, what does this mean?

Modern web applications store dates in universal formats. This helps with supporting different time zones, but ensuring the times are displayed based on the use preference within their device and browser. This is also the most accurate way of handling dates across systems such as when importing from a 3rd Party system. The expected format of the timeslot date/time is YYYY-mm-DDTHH:MM:SS.000Z. For example a value of 2025-05-27T08:15:00.000Z would represent for 28th May 2025 6:15pm in AEST, it would also represent and map to 28th May 2025 4:15pm in AWST).