Assignments

Assigning means answering two questions: who judges each breed, and which ring each judge works in. Both are done on the assignments tab of the event, and both can be changed later — including after the entries have closed, which is the part of this chapter worth reading before you need it.

The assignments tab

The page is in three columns. On the left the breeds admitted to the event, group by group, each showing the judge it currently belongs to. In the middle the judges of the show, each with the number of dogs they have been given and the ring they work in. On the right the rings, each with how many judges are in it.

Under the two right-hand columns are the four buttons that do all the work: add to judge and remove from judge, add judge to ring and remove judge from ring. They stay greyed out until a selection makes them meaningful, and they name what they are about to do — add judge J3 judge3 to ring 3 rather than a bare label. Read the button before pressing it; it is the only confirmation you get.

Breeds to judges

Tick the breeds on the left. The checkbox in the group header takes the whole group.
Click the judge in the middle column.
Press add to judge.

The judge's card updates with the number of dogs that came along with those breeds, and each breed line now shows that judge's name.

breeds assigned 66/66 in the group header is the counter to watch. Entries cannot be closed while a breed is unassigned, so that fraction is the shortest way to see how far you have got.

only breeds with entries hides the breeds nobody entered. It is the right way to work once entries are in — assigning a judge to a breed with no dogs costs nothing but noise.

The entry statistics

The columns M, F, T and average are the entries for each breed: males, females, total, and the average over past events. The filters at the top — date from shows, date to shows, event types — choose which past events that average is taken over, and the header says how many went into it.

Use it while the show is still empty. The average from last year's national days is the best guess you have of how many Golden Retrievers are coming, which is what tells you whether one judge is enough.

Judges to rings

Click the judge in the middle column.
Click the ring on the right.
Press add judge to ring.

A ring can hold more than one judge, and a judge works one ring. The ring line says how many judges are in it, and the judge's card says which ring they are in and with how many dogs — which together are the load check: two rings sharing a hundred dogs while a third sits empty is visible at a glance.

Once the breeds are assigned and the entries closed, the application distributes the dogs to the rings of their judges, works out the judging order and the start times, and the judge documents that were greyed out on the show card become available.

Changing assignments after entries close

A judge falls ill three days before the show. It happens, and DogShow expects it.

With entries closed, the change assignments button opens the assignments again.

Press change assignments. The event goes into suspended for reassignments — a red badge appears at the top of the tab, and it appears on every ring device as well.

While the event is suspended the assignments can be edited again, and the entries cannot be reopened.

The suspension is the point of the whole mechanism. Assignments are what the ring screens, the judging order and the printed lists are built from; changing them under a running show without stopping it would leave a tablet judging a breed that had just been handed to somebody else.

The same notice on the ring boards: judging stops while the assignments are being changed.

Now make the changes exactly as before — move the breeds to another judge, put that judge in a ring.

Two breeds moved from judge1 to judge3, and judge3 added to ring 3.

When everything is right, press confirm assignments. The event comes back to life and the ring devices start working again.

Confirm assignments ends the suspension and puts the event back in service.

Do not leave an event suspended. Nothing is judged while it is, and on the day that is several rings standing still.

What can no longer be changed

If the show is running and a breed has already been judged, its assignment cannot be moved: the line is shown disabled. That is not a limitation to work around — the results already recorded belong to the judge who gave them, and a manual that suggested otherwise would be suggesting you falsify a catalog.

Everything not yet judged stays editable, so a judge who has finished two breeds out of six can still hand the remaining four to someone else.

The reassignment summary

Once assignments have been confirmed at least once, a Reassignments button appears with the number of changes on it.

After a confirmation, the Reassignments button counts the changes made.

It opens the list of what was changed and when, one block per confirmation: which breed moved from which judge to which, and which judges were added to or removed from a ring. show all changes widens it from the last confirmation to all of them.

The reassignments dialog, with the print button that produces the PDF.

print produces a PDF of the same list.

The printed summary of the changes, for the ring folders and for the record.

Print it. Late changes are the ones people argue about afterwards, and a dated sheet saying which breed went to which judge settles it in ten seconds — as well as being what you hand to the stewards so the ring folders match what the tablets show.