Schedule creator program

Bigrod · 03-07-2014, 05:56 PM

Edit:3/27 Schedule Creator 2.1 added. You'll need winrar to extract and Apache Open Office to use. I misnamed the file so disregard the rar name. It's 2.1 not 1.1
Click the link:
https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/s/...FdtBhqbtncKsVQ
2.1 Fixes a couple of bugs. See post #36 for details.

A little over 2 years ago I was asked to help someone you all know create a schedule for his IronPigs lg. In the process, I decided that there had to be an easier way to do this. Not one where you can just hit a button and poof your schedule is created (not even the pros can do that), but just something simple that keeps track of what you're doing in a simple format, checks your progress as you go along, helps eliminate scheduling errors, etc.

It requires the user to have at least a basic knowledge of how to set the number of games they want, creating the schedule element line, as well as how to balance the number of Division, Non Division and Interleague games so that they equal the number of total games required. If you know that, then this program (all spreadsheet driven) will make things a whole lot easier to create any kind of schedule one would require. A lot faster as well.

It's been 2 years since I've worked on it, but if there's enough interest and a few folks are willing to give it a shot, I'd release it as is and do my best to teach you how to use it.
Currently it's for Apache Open Office only as I don't use excel nor ever will, so you need to have that. It's free.

This is basically how v2.0 currently works. It uses 6 sheets in total and will handle 338 teams per Subleague or 678 teams total (can be expanded by user to handle even more teams) as well as schedule an entire years worth (365/366) of games. Yes it can be expanded to do more than 1 years schedule at a time:

UPDATED for v2.0 3/25:

1. Schedule Setup Sheet: This is where you setup your team vs. team # of matchups.
2. Template Sheet: This is where you cut and paste your daily matchups, enter the Total number of games played, set the season start date, day=number (You just enter the date of the first game in column 1, and put 1 in the opposite column and all the rest are auto filled for one whole year). It also keeps track of the remaining number of games each team needs to be scheduled in order to = your total number of games played for the season.
3. Grid Sheet. As you fill in your daily matchups, the grid auto tracks the number of games each team plays against the other as well as the number of games left to schedule for each team.
4. Vlookup Sheet: Nothing to worry about here as what is needed is either already filled in or fills in automatically as you fill in other items.
5. Schedule Sheet: Here you paste each teams yearly schedule one at a time each below the other. The actual schedule section (columns B-H) auto fill when you past in the teams yearly schedule.
You can manually set a random game time by entering 1 for a day game (9am-11:55am), 2 for an afternoon game (12pm-4:55pm), 3 for a night game (5pm-8:05pm) in Column M, or leave it blank for a random afternoon or night game (1pm-8:05pm).
As you enter/paste the required data, the schedule is auto built with 1 exception. The Schedule Element line needs to be edited manually to match your league settings.
Column B keeps track of correct team day=#s in numerical order so that when you copy and paste special to the Final Sheet, all you have to do is sort the schedule to get all the days matchups in order.
6. Final Sheet: Here you paste special the schedule info from the Schedule sheet columns B,C,D,E,F,G and H into Cell A4. Then sort that so that all the day=#s are in order. Then delete Column A and your ready to save it as an .lsdl file. (csv file with space delimeter)

Everything is totally user customizable. All important data cells are protected and locked to avoid accidental changing of those. There's no password. so you can simply unlock these from OO's tools menu (tools-protect document and click sheet to unprotect) and mod to your heart's content. Just remember to reprotect the sheet again to avoid accidentally messing up important data.

Almost forgot....you can also use ootp's schedule report grid to auto import any pre-existing schedule. In the future, depending on interest, I think I can get it so you could import the acutal .lsdl file and mod it that way.

Any interest or volunteers to help me get this worked out a little better??

Bigrod · 03-07-2014, 08:01 PM

Here's some screenshots...
1. Actual schedule imported from ootp's schedule Report Eval.
2. The setup
3. The grid
4. Schedule page

The Game · 03-08-2014, 01:33 AM

Waiting impatiently for this file. Gonna use this nest year. This year i am using 1993. Gonna have issues when i get to 2026 when I have 4 teams in the Nl East and 4 in the AL West vs just 4 in the Wests like MLB.

shawa666 · 03-08-2014, 10:10 AM

Please yes!

I need this to happen so bad!

Bigrod · 03-08-2014, 10:49 PM

Thanks for the interest. As I said, I thought it was about a yr. ago that I created this, but it was actually 2 (ootp13). I had completely forgotten how I did it. When I finally figured it out, I found some formula errors that needed to be corrected and since I'm not the sharpest tack on the board, took all day to fix them.
I want to spend a little more time experimenting with it, but I should have it posted by Sun. eve. or earlier..I'll pm you when it's available.
thanks for your patience.

Ike348 · 03-09-2014, 10:45 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Bigrod

Thanks for the interest. As I said, I thought it was about a yr. ago that I created this, but it was actually 2 (ootp13). I had completely forgotten how I did it. When I finally figured it out, I found some formula errors that needed to be corrected and since I'm not the sharpest tack on the board, took all day to fix them.
I want to spend a little more time experimenting with it, but I should have it posted by Sun. eve. or earlier..I'll pm you when it's available.
thanks for your patience.

In case you haven't realized this from my "thanks", I would like a copy of this as well.

GiantYankee · 03-09-2014, 11:05 AM

I would love to get a copy as well. Thanks for sharing!

oman19 · 03-09-2014, 02:53 PM

Would kill for a copy of this as well. Thanks sooooo much for this. Been trying to create a pretty basic 162 game schedule by hand and i always seem to screw something up.

RchW · 03-09-2014, 02:57 PM

I'm ready to help in anyway I can. It may also help that my wife is an Excel God as far as I'm concerned.

oman19 · 03-09-2014, 02:59 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by RchW

I'm ready to help in anyway I can. It may also help that my wife is an Excel God as far as I'm concerned.

Downloading the program the OP mentioned currently to get familiar with it. RchW if you could get this to somehow work in Excel if the OP has no problem with that, it would be amazing.

Bigrod · 03-09-2014, 11:00 PM

Sorry bout the delay, but here it is. Link is in post 1.
http://www.ootpdevelopments.com/boar...ml#post3654016
It's an Open Office spreadsheet file only. OO can covert it to Excel, but I don't know if all formulas will work.

Since it uses many formulas and not all are protected, You must make a copy of the original and use your copy to create the schedule. You can unprotect the sheets and mod any of the protected sheets/cells. There is no password.

I'm horrible at writing so there is no read me, however if you see a little red square in the top left corner of a cell, hover your mouse over that cell to see the comment/help. You can also PM me and I'll gladly give you my phone #. I'm pretty much available any time and can teach you how it works in just a few minutes.

This is just a beta. It works and with help and suggestions, I'm sure we can make it better.

Since it contains hundreds of formulas, it may load slow and some of your inputs may take a few seconds to show depending on your system as each time you add an entry, delete, change, all formulas have to recompute to update all the other sheets. I used it to create a test schedule for 300 teams (NCAA D1) and it handled it fine on my system..

Do Not change the order or delete any sheets as it'll really mess things up. I think I have all the necessary cells and sheets protected, but I'm old and very forgetful so you never know

Thanks and enjoy. Hope it makes schedule creating a little easier. I look forward to your feedback..good or bad.
Rod

Edit: Once you complete your schedule and are ready to save it, you need to manually add the closing xml tags to the bottom like this:
</GAMES>
</SCHEDULE>
Haven't figured out how to do it automatically yet.
Also, you can create a new sheet or new spreadsheet and paste in your completed schedule to create the .lsdl file. To do so, make sure your sheet (Newly created one) is selected (OO will only save the sheet selected and ignore others) and follow these steps:
1. Use ctrl+shift+S to save as
2. Where it says Save as Type, click the dropdown and select Text csv
3. Uncheck Automatic filename extension and change the filename extension from .csv to .lsdl
4. Check Edit Filter Settings and click save
5. When the box pops up, click Keep Current Format
6. In that popup, Set Character set to Western Europe (ISO 8859-1)
7. Set Field Delimiter to Space
8. Very Important...Delete the " (Quotes) from the Text delimiter selection
9. Click Save and if all went well, the schedule should load into ootp just fine.

Edit: Told you guys I was forgetful.

Note: Skip the below instructions if you're not going to use a new sheet to create your final schedule.

When copying from your schedule to the newly created sheet, you must use ctrl+shift+V (paste special). When the box pops up, In the selection area. Deselect paste all and formulas, make sure the others are checked then click ok. No need to touch anything in the other 3 areas. If you don't do this, It's gonna also paste the darn formulas and mess up your final schedule..

The Game · 03-10-2014, 05:34 AM

thanx. i will play with this on wednesday when i am off.

Bigrod · 03-11-2014, 08:49 PM

A big Thank-you to Ike348 and Oman for running this through it's paces and finding probs..thanks to them, I've fixed up some things and changed the way the Schedule sheet works.
Beta 1.1 fixes/changes:
Fixed off days showing up in the schedule. You no longer have to manually delete them and when you sort the schedule, blank entries due to off day are ignored and game days will be in the correct order.
Deleted/fine tuned a bunch of formulas to increase processing/loading time.
Added auto filling of dates and Game day # to the Template sheet.
Beta 1.1 posted 3/12

In the works:
Add a tutorial on how to set up schedules and use the program.
Set conditional formatting to Highlite all away teams in Red so one can distinguish the difference between the Home and away team when setting the matchups.
Add tracking of Number of Home and Away games vs. each team to the Grid
Add Totals for Home, Away, Div., Non Div., and Interleague games to the Grid.
Add ability to inport any .lsdl schedule, convert the team="" to your team name so you can easily change times and matchups.
These and others will be slow coming as I need to finish up my duties for ootp 15 first.
As always, your help, comments and suggestions are greatly appreciated.

Ike348 · 03-11-2014, 09:11 PM

Just thought of something. For differentiating between home/away, adding the "H" or "A" would work just fine. However, for division, non-division, and interleague, you could make the sheet look up whether or not a certain opponent was in the same division or sub-league. So it would know that if BOS was in SL1-D1 and PHI in SL2-D2, then the sheet would count all BOS-PHI games as interleague.

Bigrod · 03-11-2014, 11:17 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Ike348

Just thought of something. For differentiating between home/away, adding the "H" or "A" would work just fine. However, for division, non-division, and interleague, you could make the sheet look up whether or not a certain opponent was in the same division or sub-league. So it would know that if BOS was in SL1-D1 and PHI in SL2-D2, then the sheet would count all BOS-PHI games as interleague.

Must have been reading my mind as that's my plan.

Just haven't decided which will work best for all users as there are many ways to do the same thing.

oman19 · 03-11-2014, 11:43 PM

Was just about to call you Rod to get a tutorial on how to use this. Maybe I'll wait until the next one build is out and I can figure it out with the tutorial.

Bigrod · 03-12-2014, 01:33 AM

Beta 1.1 upped and link posted in first post. Enjoy.

Since this now works as it should I hope...I'll work on a tutorial next. I don't have any fancy tools so it'll be in MS Rich doc. form.
It's gonna take a while as I still have ootp 15 stuff to finish and get to Markus.

The Game · 03-12-2014, 01:49 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Bigrod

Beta 1.1 upped and link posted in first post. Enjoy.

I get an error message.

Bigrod · 03-12-2014, 04:46 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by The Game

I get an error message.

What the ****, It would help a lot if I knew what the error message was and when it happened.

When extracting
When dling
When opening the file after extracting..
Sounds like you might possibly have jumped the gun a little bit and dl'd the old before I got the new one up and changed the link cause it all works fine for me..try dling it again.

The Game · 03-12-2014, 08:56 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Bigrod

What the ****, It would help a lot if I knew what the error message was and when it happened.

When extracting
When dling
When opening the file after extracting..
Sounds like you might possibly have jumped the gun a little bit and dl'd the old before I got the new one up and changed the link cause it all works fine for me..try dling it again.

My bad I meant your updated link when I tried downloading last night/early this morning. Works now.

03-07-2014, 05:56 PM	#1
Bigrod OOTP Stats Master Join Date: Mar 2009 Location: Maine Posts: 3,075	Schedule creator program Edit:3/27 Schedule Creator 2.1 added. You'll need winrar to extract and Apache Open Office to use. I misnamed the file so disregard the rar name. It's 2.1 not 1.1 Click the link: https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/s/...FdtBhqbtncKsVQ 2.1 Fixes a couple of bugs. See post #36 for details. A little over 2 years ago I was asked to help someone you all know create a schedule for his IronPigs lg. In the process, I decided that there had to be an easier way to do this. Not one where you can just hit a button and poof your schedule is created (not even the pros can do that), but just something simple that keeps track of what you're doing in a simple format, checks your progress as you go along, helps eliminate scheduling errors, etc. It requires the user to have at least a basic knowledge of how to set the number of games they want, creating the schedule element line, as well as how to balance the number of Division, Non Division and Interleague games so that they equal the number of total games required. If you know that, then this program (all spreadsheet driven) will make things a whole lot easier to create any kind of schedule one would require. A lot faster as well. It's been 2 years since I've worked on it, but if there's enough interest and a few folks are willing to give it a shot, I'd release it as is and do my best to teach you how to use it. Currently it's for Apache Open Office only as I don't use excel nor ever will, so you need to have that. It's free. This is basically how v2.0 currently works. It uses 6 sheets in total and will handle 338 teams per Subleague or 678 teams total (can be expanded by user to handle even more teams) as well as schedule an entire years worth (365/366) of games. Yes it can be expanded to do more than 1 years schedule at a time: UPDATED for v2.0 3/25: 1. Schedule Setup Sheet: This is where you setup your team vs. team # of matchups. 2. Template Sheet: This is where you cut and paste your daily matchups, enter the Total number of games played, set the season start date, day=number (You just enter the date of the first game in column 1, and put 1 in the opposite column and all the rest are auto filled for one whole year). It also keeps track of the remaining number of games each team needs to be scheduled in order to = your total number of games played for the season. 3. Grid Sheet. As you fill in your daily matchups, the grid auto tracks the number of games each team plays against the other as well as the number of games left to schedule for each team. 4. Vlookup Sheet: Nothing to worry about here as what is needed is either already filled in or fills in automatically as you fill in other items. 5. Schedule Sheet: Here you paste each teams yearly schedule one at a time each below the other. The actual schedule section (columns B-H) auto fill when you past in the teams yearly schedule. You can manually set a random game time by entering 1 for a day game (9am-11:55am), 2 for an afternoon game (12pm-4:55pm), 3 for a night game (5pm-8:05pm) in Column M, or leave it blank for a random afternoon or night game (1pm-8:05pm). As you enter/paste the required data, the schedule is auto built with 1 exception. The Schedule Element line needs to be edited manually to match your league settings. Column B keeps track of correct team day=#s in numerical order so that when you copy and paste special to the Final Sheet, all you have to do is sort the schedule to get all the days matchups in order. 6. Final Sheet: Here you paste special the schedule info from the Schedule sheet columns B,C,D,E,F,G and H into Cell A4. Then sort that so that all the day=#s are in order. Then delete Column A and your ready to save it as an .lsdl file. (csv file with space delimeter) Everything is totally user customizable. All important data cells are protected and locked to avoid accidental changing of those. There's no password. so you can simply unlock these from OO's tools menu (tools-protect document and click sheet to unprotect) and mod to your heart's content. Just remember to reprotect the sheet again to avoid accidentally messing up important data. Almost forgot....you can also use ootp's schedule report grid to auto import any pre-existing schedule. In the future, depending on interest, I think I can get it so you could import the acutal .lsdl file and mod it that way. Any interest or volunteers to help me get this worked out a little better?? Last edited by Bigrod; 02-27-2015 at 07:35 AM.

03-07-2014, 08:01 PM	#2
Bigrod OOTP Stats Master Join Date: Mar 2009 Location: Maine Posts: 3,075	Here's some screenshots... 1. Actual schedule imported from ootp's schedule Report Eval. 2. The setup 3. The grid 4. Schedule page Attached Images Last edited by Bigrod; 03-07-2014 at 08:37 PM.

03-08-2014, 10:10 AM	#4
shawa666 All Star Reserve Join Date: Apr 2010 Posts: 601 Infractions: 0/1 (1)	Please yes! I need this to happen so bad! __________________ Remove Selig from the premises.

03-09-2014, 02:53 PM	#8
oman19 All Star Starter Join Date: Jul 2009 Location: Metro Detroit Area Posts: 1,305	Would kill for a copy of this as well. Thanks sooooo much for this. Been trying to create a pretty basic 162 game schedule by hand and i always seem to screw something up. __________________ GENERATION 10: The first time you see this, copy it into your sig on any forum and add 1 to the generation. Social experiment. My OOTP wishlist: http://www.ootpdevelopments.com/boar...-wishlist.html

03-09-2014, 02:57 PM	#9
RchW Hall Of Famer Join Date: Jul 2004 Location: The big smoke Posts: 15,628	I'm ready to help in anyway I can. It may also help that my wife is an Excel God as far as I'm concerned. __________________ Cheers RichW If you’re looking for a good cause to donate money to please consider a Donation to Parkinson’s Canada. It may help me have a better future and if not me, someone else. Thanks. “Conservatism consists of exactly one proposition …There must be in-groups whom the law protects but does not bind, alongside out-groups whom the law binds but does not protect.” Frank Wilhoit

03-08-2014, 01:33 AM	#3
The Game Hall Of Famer Join Date: Feb 2012 Location: Inside The Game Posts: 30,807	Waiting impatiently for this file. Gonna use this nest year. This year i am using 1993. Gonna have issues when i get to 2026 when I have 4 teams in the Nl East and 4 in the AL West vs just 4 in the Wests like MLB. __________________ Go today don't wait for tomorrow It isn't promised, all the time you get borrowed Don't live your life for other people Don't bottle your emotions till they crack and fill a couple just sorrows Take your mind and refocus go get a paper write your goals out Throw your middle fingers to all your haters "Stay Strong"

03-08-2014, 10:49 PM	#5
Bigrod OOTP Stats Master Join Date: Mar 2009 Location: Maine Posts: 3,075	Thanks for the interest. As I said, I thought it was about a yr. ago that I created this, but it was actually 2 (ootp13). I had completely forgotten how I did it. When I finally figured it out, I found some formula errors that needed to be corrected and since I'm not the sharpest tack on the board, took all day to fix them. I want to spend a little more time experimenting with it, but I should have it posted by Sun. eve. or earlier..I'll pm you when it's available. thanks for your patience.

03-09-2014, 11:05 AM	#7
GiantYankee All Star Starter Join Date: Apr 2010 Posts: 1,104	I would love to get a copy as well. Thanks for sharing!

03-09-2014, 11:00 PM	#11
Bigrod OOTP Stats Master Join Date: Mar 2009 Location: Maine Posts: 3,075	Sorry bout the delay, but here it is. Link is in post 1. http://www.ootpdevelopments.com/boar...ml#post3654016 It's an Open Office spreadsheet file only. OO can covert it to Excel, but I don't know if all formulas will work. Since it uses many formulas and not all are protected, You must make a copy of the original and use your copy to create the schedule. You can unprotect the sheets and mod any of the protected sheets/cells. There is no password. I'm horrible at writing so there is no read me, however if you see a little red square in the top left corner of a cell, hover your mouse over that cell to see the comment/help. You can also PM me and I'll gladly give you my phone #. I'm pretty much available any time and can teach you how it works in just a few minutes. This is just a beta. It works and with help and suggestions, I'm sure we can make it better. Since it contains hundreds of formulas, it may load slow and some of your inputs may take a few seconds to show depending on your system as each time you add an entry, delete, change, all formulas have to recompute to update all the other sheets. I used it to create a test schedule for 300 teams (NCAA D1) and it handled it fine on my system.. Do Not change the order or delete any sheets as it'll really mess things up. I think I have all the necessary cells and sheets protected, but I'm old and very forgetful so you never know Thanks and enjoy. Hope it makes schedule creating a little easier. I look forward to your feedback..good or bad. Rod Edit: Once you complete your schedule and are ready to save it, you need to manually add the closing xml tags to the bottom like this: </GAMES> </SCHEDULE> Haven't figured out how to do it automatically yet. Also, you can create a new sheet or new spreadsheet and paste in your completed schedule to create the .lsdl file. To do so, make sure your sheet (Newly created one) is selected (OO will only save the sheet selected and ignore others) and follow these steps: 1. Use ctrl+shift+S to save as 2. Where it says Save as Type, click the dropdown and select Text csv 3. Uncheck Automatic filename extension and change the filename extension from .csv to .lsdl 4. Check Edit Filter Settings and click save 5. When the box pops up, click Keep Current Format 6. In that popup, Set Character set to Western Europe (ISO 8859-1) 7. Set Field Delimiter to Space 8. Very Important...Delete the " (Quotes) from the Text delimiter selection 9. Click Save and if all went well, the schedule should load into ootp just fine. Edit: Told you guys I was forgetful. Note: Skip the below instructions if you're not going to use a new sheet to create your final schedule. When copying from your schedule to the newly created sheet, you must use ctrl+shift+V (paste special). When the box pops up, In the selection area. Deselect paste all and formulas, make sure the others are checked then click ok. No need to touch anything in the other 3 areas. If you don't do this, It's gonna also paste the darn formulas and mess up your final schedule.. Last edited by Bigrod; 03-12-2014 at 01:47 AM.

03-10-2014, 05:34 AM	#12
The Game Hall Of Famer Join Date: Feb 2012 Location: Inside The Game Posts: 30,807	thanx. i will play with this on wednesday when i am off. __________________ Go today don't wait for tomorrow It isn't promised, all the time you get borrowed Don't live your life for other people Don't bottle your emotions till they crack and fill a couple just sorrows Take your mind and refocus go get a paper write your goals out Throw your middle fingers to all your haters "Stay Strong"

03-11-2014, 08:49 PM	#13
Bigrod OOTP Stats Master Join Date: Mar 2009 Location: Maine Posts: 3,075	A big Thank-you to Ike348 and Oman for running this through it's paces and finding probs..thanks to them, I've fixed up some things and changed the way the Schedule sheet works. Beta 1.1 fixes/changes: Fixed off days showing up in the schedule. You no longer have to manually delete them and when you sort the schedule, blank entries due to off day are ignored and game days will be in the correct order. Deleted/fine tuned a bunch of formulas to increase processing/loading time. Added auto filling of dates and Game day # to the Template sheet. Beta 1.1 posted 3/12 In the works: Add a tutorial on how to set up schedules and use the program. Set conditional formatting to Highlite all away teams in Red so one can distinguish the difference between the Home and away team when setting the matchups. Add tracking of Number of Home and Away games vs. each team to the Grid Add Totals for Home, Away, Div., Non Div., and Interleague games to the Grid. Add ability to inport any .lsdl schedule, convert the team="" to your team name so you can easily change times and matchups. These and others will be slow coming as I need to finish up my duties for ootp 15 first. As always, your help, comments and suggestions are greatly appreciated. Last edited by Bigrod; 03-21-2014 at 03:32 PM.

03-11-2014, 11:43 PM	#16
oman19 All Star Starter Join Date: Jul 2009 Location: Metro Detroit Area Posts: 1,305	Was just about to call you Rod to get a tutorial on how to use this. Maybe I'll wait until the next one build is out and I can figure it out with the tutorial. __________________ GENERATION 10: The first time you see this, copy it into your sig on any forum and add 1 to the generation. Social experiment. My OOTP wishlist: http://www.ootpdevelopments.com/boar...-wishlist.html

03-12-2014, 01:33 AM	#17
Bigrod OOTP Stats Master Join Date: Mar 2009 Location: Maine Posts: 3,075	Beta 1.1 upped and link posted in first post. Enjoy. Since this now works as it should I hope...I'll work on a tutorial next. I don't have any fancy tools so it'll be in MS Rich doc. form. It's gonna take a while as I still have ootp 15 stuff to finish and get to Markus. Last edited by Bigrod; 03-12-2014 at 01:51 AM.