[FF]: Draft Organization Stuff To Do
 

As I mentioned in this post, I think some of the programming for future organization/draft running/scoring stuff should be done collectively. This is intended to be the organization thread. There's quite a few tasks to be done, improvements to be made, and all that good stuff.

So, there are two main categories. There's the Draft Assistant project, mainly in Excel macros (Visual Basic and the like), which is a big one but easily breakable into smaller chunks, and there's several smaller projects that one or more people can take on. If you want to work on something, put your name down on that so we know what still needs to be covered.

Draft Assistant V3 (EricH, coordinator)
-Rewrite original macros for speed/optimization. (EricH--I'll be modifying the code to set and use certain variables throughout the program, rather than having to reset 'em all, as the key part of the process)
-Rewrite for dynamic placement of team list. (Note: This ought to be pretty straightforward, so I might get to it when I do the other rewrite. Right now, it'd be a pain in the behind.)
-Add a 4th-round option, as that might be useful in the future. (There's an existing macro or two that can be modified to make this easier.)
-Incorporate list picks.
-Incorporate random picks.
-Incorporate error-checking.
-Automate format changes and error-checking.
-See if the various macros etc. work in Google Docs, or can be rewritten for same.

General Organization
--Work out single scoring sheet with alliances/scores--location, layout, automation level, all the gory details.
--Automatic team list pulling from FRC site.
--Automatic scoring (by team or by player)--I think there's an existing method, but IIRC it didn't work properly when I checked it for this year.
--Automatic waiver processing--if anybody wants to be so bold.


The plan on the Draft Assistant is: If someone wants to get a jump on it, there's a copy in CD-Media; I'll point you to it if you've forgotten (or you could search for me as the uploader). I'll use the development version, which is slightly different and do the above-mentioned rewrite there, then publish that (and I'll make sure to comment a lot within the macros). At which point, y'all see the list, y'all have some fun, and if you complete a section that seems to work, drop it on over to me and I'll republish the whole sheet.

Re: [FF]: Draft Organization Stuff To Do
 

I could work on general organization; I'll have a lot of free time over the next couple weeks or so.

Re: [FF]: Draft Organization Stuff To Do
 

I have uploaded the rewritten Draft Assistant to http://www.chiefdelphi.com/media/papers/2881, under the "Group Development Copy" paper. ("Clean" setup versions remain available.)

I took care of the first two rewrites and added some comments.

Re: [FF]: Draft Organization Stuff To Do
 

I can help with the general organization also.

Re: [FF]: Draft Organization Stuff To Do
 

I will take a look at this. Google spreadsheets just recently went through an overhaul and some new things were added.

Re: [FF]: Draft Organization Stuff To Do
 

I'll take this on. Any specific ideas or requests?

Should I set it up so that you can look up points on teams by entering team number and week? i.e. like a get function such as get_points(2495,4) and it spits it right out? Any features you'd like to see?

Re: [FF]: Draft Organization Stuff To Do
 

I'd go with a couple of different data access methods, namely by event, by team, and by team and week/event. There are various reasons to pull each of those.



What I'm currently working on: That random list pick. I think I can get it working in the next couple of weeks.


New projects, under Organization:
--I was just thinking it might be nice to be able to maintain an archive of all the drafts.
--And, for some of the Excel wizards out there: A method for updating an event's team list on command, highlighting new and removed teams.
--Something I might be able to do in off time would be to make a draft runner coverage calendar. Essentially, who's likely to be available on what night(s), and who's actually taking on the drafts, and who's NOT available. Low priority, mainly because it's pretty quick to set something like that up.



Question for going forwards: I've been thinking of tackling the list picks after I deal with the random list. Would folks prefer to view those in vertical or horizontal form, and would you rather have 'em on the main player list, in a separate tab, or right next to the drafting tier? (BTW, I don't think it'll be an issue to take lists in and swap 'em between vertical and horizontal. Excel has a method for going one way, I have a method for going the other way somewhere in an archive if I can find it.)

Re: [FF]: Draft Organization Stuff To Do
 

If a database is created through the draft managing program and uploaded somewhere easily accessible, that would be nice. That could further be combined with the scorer to create a live-updating ranking webpage

Re: [FF]: Draft Organization Stuff To Do
 

Status update: I *think* I have the random list pick functional. I'll pull a draft and see what it does before too long (read: sometime next week). If it works as planned, I can do some simplification elsewhere in the code.

OK, by "functional" I mean that it runs around and gets stuck on an empty list. Haven't tried it with teams or a draft loaded. I'm also trying to get the formatting to play nicely this time around.

Re: [FF]: Draft Organization Stuff To Do
 

First run of the scorer, currently scrapes all the data needed using TBA API and builds it into a single array. I just need to start the actual scoring process. Replace the year and the event code with any valid combo. Please try to break it, and let me know if you find any inconsistencies or errors.

Planned features: Different scoring systems per year, each system is setup in an ini file. You'd be able to choose, for example, to look at the 2012 results with the 2012 FF scoring system or the current (2015?), whatever floats your boat.

Once the event scorer is done, I can create separate 'functions' such as pulling up only a specific team, ect. Suggestions welcome.

Because I'm flying by the seat of my pants and learning php as I go (this is my maybe my 3rd php project overall), criticism is welcome from anyone more knowledgeable. Source.

Re: [FF]: Draft Organization Stuff To Do
 

Autodraft looks possible with Gdocs. Will investigate further. Sheets can remain hidden (I think) depending on who you are logged in as.

However if people have a problem with having a google account, that may be a problem.

Re: [FF]: Draft Organization Stuff To Do
 

How is the drafting program going to work? Is there any chance it could output the alliance(s) for a FF team into somewhere I can scrape it from? I'd be willing to work with whoever to make it happen

Re: [FF]: Draft Organization Stuff To Do
 

I'll see what I can do as far as getting the "backbone" in Excel macros. Found a trick the other day that ought to work wonders as far as automating some of the formatting/positioning. If hidden sheets can be done, it might be a good idea to have a "list input" sheet that will dump to a hidden sheet, if that can also be done.

That would probably depend on exactly how it was set up. As-is, without an online component, I can probably set up a .csv file dump; copy/paste into a Gdoc, or some similar method. With an online component, shouldn't be too hard to rig one Gdoc to scrape another--bet I could do it with Excel, too, in terms of picking up data and dropping it off in a sheet.



BTW, random team macro testing has been delayed. I'll try and get to that later this week, then upload that version.

Re: [FF]: Draft Organization Stuff To Do
 

I was considering having each FF team having their own hidden sheet so that they could make edits after without confusing the draft runner.


Yeah, I will look at scraping from on g-doc to another and if that is possible.

EDIT

So it seems hidden sheets are a no-go. However I did end up getting scraping working, so each team can have their own submission sheet. Currently I can pull from one sheet to another, and it updates pretty quickly, have a look.

Sample submission sheet #1
Sample submission sheet #2
Autodraft Testing

EDIT 2

I have it automatically removing already picked teams from the list for each team's first picks. It's not pretty work, but it's functional

Re: [FF]: Draft Organization Stuff To Do
 

Any chance you can translate that into an Excel function, once you get the rest of the picks as well? That's on the to-do list--matter of fact, it's in a macro, but the macro never triggers for some reason, so I disabled it.

Re: [FF]: Draft Organization Stuff To Do
 

It's actually not a macro, it's a formula. So yes, entirely possible. It's pretty ugly though. All picks are working now, and it's fairly easy to add lists and such. Actually, it's probably easier than making a macro.

I pull all of the picks and put them in one column, then check for a match. If a match, display "PICKED" if no match (essentially an error) display original # located in the dump sheet (sheet that pulls the list from other gdocs)

The MATCH function only works in columns or rows, so I had to just link the data into one column, with plenty of blanks (to deal with different sized tiers with different numbers of players)

So currently an "auto list crosser-offer" is what this is. Which is still super useful, and makes drafting much easier. Especially if teams want to submit through gdocs. It's also easy to copy/paste lists, so submissions by PM or perhaps a Gform are still very much compatible.

I'm thinking it would be nice to implement a section for the randoms where it checks each team list with your random list. If that team isn't on the random list (eg not attending the event) the team is removed from the team's pick list automatically.

Also I may be able to run a duplicate pick checker and such.

Unfortunately, macros aren't a thing in Google spreadsheets.

Re: [FF]: Draft Organization Stuff To Do
 

Ah. And most of the setup program is done in macros. For Brandon and others: I think I'd best make an addition to the list of stuff to do to the draft setup/running, namely: add an "export" button to send the whole thing to a .csv or .txt for transfer to Gdocs/archiving.

One thing I generally do with the setup/running is to verify each pick. I don't care how many times you put 254 on your list for L.A., if they aren't showin' up, you don't get 'em! And then when you do make a valid pick, the first check is a verification that they are in fact available. (Actually, on the first draft runner I wrote, at one point I specifically asked folks to put some incorrect teams in among their lists for an actual draft. Those teams didn't make it into the draft.)

Re: [FF]: Draft Organization Stuff To Do
 

Update on random stuff:

Turns out that the last release--the rewrite--had a couple of bugs, that severely affected the random selections. I've got those fixed, but now I'm chasing down a couple of bugs in the random pick code that get the macros stuck in infinite loops, or allow a double pick. I'll try to get those chased and squashed over the weekend and re-release the sheet. (I'm also cleaning up some unused macros.)

Re: [FF]: Draft Organization Stuff To Do
 

And FINALLY! Ya know, it really helps to reset your search variables if you know you're about to start another search for some reason.

The random pick functionality is active and ready to go. And no, it won't dish out the same random pick twice, even if the team is somehow on the random list twice.

http://www.chiefdelphi.com/media/papers/2881


And to update the draft assistant list:
Draft Assistant V3 (EricH, coordinator)
-Add a 4th-round option, as that might be useful in the future. (There's an existing macro or two that can be modified to make this easier.)
-Incorporate list picks.
-Incorporate random picks.
-Incorporate error-checking.
-Automate format changes and error-checking.
-See if the various macros etc. work in Google Docs, or can be rewritten for same.--Brennan already found out that this isn't an option, so it'll be a total rewrite if it happens.
-Automate team removal from the tier lists if picked up. Add to random macro.


Next up for me is probably the format changes, while I still remember how to do that/find how to make it work--might be able to tweak some stuff so you don't have to select the next slot. Also, I seem to have picked up a bug that splits the player list when generating random player lists, so I'll have to deal with that. Anybody want to take a stab at some of the other parts of the list?



[Edit] OK, I lied. I automated team removal instead. I'll be able to use the same macro when I do list picking, too. (35 lines of code, and about half of that is either whitespace or comments.)

Re: [FF]: Draft Organization Stuff To Do
 

This question hasn't been answered yet. I'd like to go ahead and tackle the list picking, but I'd like to know the answer in case something goes haywire and people need to actually look at the lists.

Re: [FF]: Draft Organization Stuff To Do
 

Vertical is much better in my opinion, and would rather have the pick lists of to the side within the specified tier if possible. (as you are thinking) Though vertical lists aren't necessary, it's much easier to see many team numbers in a small amount of space, so less scrolling. (Just because of how excel formats the sheets)

Manually entering teams that are selected is no biggie, the hard part with running a draft is crossing of teams that have been already selected.

Re: [FF]: Draft Organization Stuff To Do
 

You got a point there. I'll see ya, and raise ya one (untested--downloader beware!) list-picking button, now active. Just have to put the sheets on the same tier tab as the players they're on, and I think tomorrow is going to be "dig out the old program and adapt code" day to pre-set the player names for list placement.

Oh, and http://www.chiefdelphi.com/media/papers/2881 has been updated with the changes.

So now what's left in the Excel sheet?
-List picking
-Set up spots for lists with draft setup
-Automatic format setting (royal pain to do every time by hand) [Coded, not tested]
-Adding manual team removal buttons (somebody picks manually, enter team and hit button) [Coded, not tested]
-Error checking on manual entries [Coded, not tested]
-Data dump: pull the tiers to a single location for sending to a Gdoc or similar selection archive (probably an "easy grab for Gdoc copy" sort of thing). [Button placed, not coded or tested]
-Clear Data (empty all team and tier tabs to set up for another draft) [Coded, not tested]
-Beta release--I'll clue Ed in and see if he wants to give it a spin for IRI.

I'll see how far down the list I can get in the next couple of weeks. A lot of the core code is already written, just needs adapting (famous last words!)

Re: [FF]: Draft Organization Stuff To Do
 

Quick update on my to-do, with some testing functioning:

So now what's left in the Excel sheet?

-Set up spots for lists with draft setup (weekend! or maybe sooner, depending on how I'm feeling tomorrow night after work)--I have code that will need to be modified, but I know that that code works. At least, in current state...
-Automatic format setting (royal pain to do every time by hand) Works like a charm.
-Adding manual team removal buttons (somebody picks manually, enter team and hit button)
-Error checking on manual entries Enter an already-picked team, and watch the spot turn red to indicate a problem.
-Data dump: pull the tiers to a single location for sending to a Gdoc or similar selection archive (probably an "easy grab for Gdoc copy" sort of thing). [Have code... but it likes to throw errors.]
-Clear Data (empty all team and tier tabs to set up for another draft) This one's working too--first time, every time.
-Bug hunt: the randomizing shuffle appears to have gone on the blink. Can't get a different order of players or teams for some reason. I'll have to take a good look at it.
-Beta release--I'll clue Ed in and see if he wants to give it a spin for IRI.

Re: [FF]: Draft Organization Stuff To Do
 

I'm ALMOST done with the major development on the Excel draft-running sheet. Almost...

-Set up spots for lists with draft setup (weekend! or maybe sooner, depending on how I'm feeling tomorrow night after work) This works, at least on the first tier. Gotta run a couple of tests with multi-tier events as guinea pigs, but that shouldn't be a problem.

-Data dump: pull the tiers to a single location for sending to a Gdoc or similar selection archive (probably an "easy grab for Gdoc copy" sort of thing).Looks like it's working. Again, needs a multi-tier event test.

-Bug hunt: the randomizing shuffle appears to have gone on the blink. That rewrite I did early on affected this too. Should be the last time I have to deal with the effects, though--problem is solved.

-Beta release: Currently looking like 1 week out, absolute max... could be really soon, like this weekend.

I haven't uploaded the current version yet. Thinking I'll wait until the beta release to get all the current bugs and glitches out.


EDIT: The Beta Release has happened. http://www.chiefdelphi.com/media/papers/2881

If someone happens to be running a draft or two for an offseason, it could use some testing...

Re: [FF]: Draft Organization Stuff To Do Update
 

And with the Excel version of the draft assistant officially released to beta, here's what's on the list for someone (or in process by someone).

--GDocs draft assistant (BrennanB)
--automatic scoring (Brandon_L)

--Work out single scoring sheet with alliances/scores--location, layout, automation level, all the gory details. (Note from the Excel sheet side: It dumps the entire draft out based on draft order in all tiers, then that needs to be copy-pasted to wherever.)

--Automatic team list pulling from FRC site.

--Automatic waiver processing--if anybody wants to be so bold. Or a new waiver system.

--A method for updating an event's team list on command, highlighting new and removed teams. (I think I could work something up to work with the above single scoring sheet, or leave that for someone else.)

--Draft running calendar, probably on Gdocs or something similar as well: Who's available, who's NOT available on any given night. I'd like to not overwork the draft runners this time around. :o (EricH, to be started AFTER the main league gets underway)

Re: [FF]: Draft Organization Stuff To Do Update
 

As I've said before, as long as I can scrape the FF teams three picks from some source not only can the scoring sheet be automated but it can be live updating as the events happen and displayed in a nice pretty table on a website (fantasyfirst.com anyone?) easily accessible for any device. It's a simple addition to the scorer that I already have running.

In the long run the fantasy first system can slowly move it's way into a neat independent website where drafts could be run, scores automatically updated, and some neat statistics and whatnot. It'll just take some work.

These are pretty much one in the same and can be tackled with some more php if you'd like me to.

For those who have not seen it yet, here's a look at the auto scorer so far. I'm working on a pretty interface (a nice table display of teams and points) at the moment, so this is all raw output you're going to see.

http://www.team2495.com/fantasy_firs...eadable=tr ue

Php arguments in the URL:

Event = event code for the specific event. An index of events and event codes can be found on frc links or the blue alliance.

Year = the year of the event to be scored. If no year is given, it defaults to the current calendar year.

Readable = just a Boolean to not make it a jumbled mess that's painful for humans to read, defaults to false.

Re: [FF]: Draft Organization Stuff To Do Update
 

Hmmm... Lemme see if Brandon Martus still has the (remnants of the) CD FF site somewhere in the dark corners of the server, or can put another one up. Yep, one used to exist, but it didn't have much of anything going on, still under development.



BTW, I'm feeling very bold, so I'm going to tackle automating waivers. System is getting a facelift and a revamp and all that, if possible. And... there will be a change to the requested format for claims. At this point, that's all I can actually say for sure, because I just barely started on that today, so I haven't gotten very far at all.

Re: [FF]: Draft Organization Stuff To Do
 

Here's a more user-friendly version of the scorer

Re: [FF]: Draft Organization Stuff To Do Update
 

And... not up. Looks like we'll probably be working off GDocs primarily. Too much hassle to get back up, though I wouldn't rule out getting a lot of stuff moved back over in the distant future.


I've gotten a bit farther, just working out a few infinite loops and other monkey business in the code, which is all written but definitely not all troubleshot. (Two down, infinitely many to go?)


As a quick heads-up, the league will go live using "Traditional" as its distinguishing label shortly after IRI ends. Just to put a touch of "motivation" in there. (And I just might be tempted to check out the scoring portions with the 2015 events that are posted. Might be.)

Re: [FF]: Draft Organization Stuff To Do Update
 

Do we want to run using G-docs/new system for the IRI draft? If so I gotta get it set up :S In order for data transplant to occur, each individual list has to be shared with one central account, and it takes a bit of time to set up the data pull to work. Do we want a draft runner Google account? Or just have one person in charge of forwarding all the lists each time?

Re: [FF]: Draft Organization Stuff To Do Update
 

I figure that Ed's got IRI well in hand--one draft is a lot easier than the 90+ we had last year. (And the 50+ we'll probably have this year... gulp.)


I think that one person forwarding all the lists will work, provided that they can spare the time. I'm not sure how to set up a single Google account to allow multiple people access to "what they need to know"--be nice if that were set up. The other alternative would be to have a single Gdoc, shared only with draft runners, with links to all the online lists. I don't plan to do online lists, per se, but I'll probably be PMing or otherwise dropping 'em in inboxes.


After signup starts, I'll see what I can do to get some organization in on the draft runner side in terms of schedule with a Google Calendar so known "I can't make it" dates can be put in. (Should probably start blocking out events by draft week... seeing as some are already up.)

Re: [FF]: Draft Organization Stuff To Do
 

The IRI draft showed up a couple of weaknesses with the drafting program. One was fixed on the fly, the rest will take some time and brainpower. Don't worry, quick fix, sort of.

1) When teams were removed from the available list, all the lists in that range jumped one step to the left. Fixed "on the fly"; will be included in the next full release.

2) Program stalls up when non-attending teams are input, more specifically when it can't find 'em to remove 'em. This one'll take some time. I gotta figure out a way to stop non-attending teams from getting that far. [Edit] Or not. There's a check built-in now, and it does work. To be released once I finish #3's complete fix.[/edit]

3) I had to break out of the code a couple of times for some other reason--I want to say similar to #2, but probably having to do more with a "special case" I had to put into the code. Hopefully it gets fixed when I work #2; if not I'll have to revisit later. (Might be the case where a team was already picked, dropped, and I forgot to drop 'em back into the list. I'll test and see if that's it; if it is I think I know how to deal with it.)

4) There's a couple of minor tweaks to make to formatting, too, and where stuff "ends up" after major moves. Won't take long at all. [Edit: To put it mildly, it didn't. A couple of "go here" commands in the right place and it's already done.]

5) Addition to deal with what I think the root cause of #3 is: A button to remove a team from the draft (and dump 'em into the right spot in the team list). That's done.

Re: [FF]: Draft Organization Stuff To Do Update
 

IT's still around but it's a secret forum. There's only a handful of users who can actually see it. Me being one of them.

Re: [FF]: Draft Organization Stuff To Do
 

As a heads-up, I got the bugs out of the sheet. It's been posted in a new location (http://www.chiefdelphi.com/media/papers/3042) to distinguish ready-to-run and beta sheets.