So after a lot of talk, an unbelievable number of emails, a great deal of hard work by my staff and our incredible volunteers, at all levels, April 1st is the start of the Universal Membership era for the EBU.
At the time of writing we are still awaiting membership data from about 60 clubs who have signed up for affiliation, while we still wait for a decision as to their future from around 30 clubs. This clearly means that we will start the P2P process on April 1st with some clubs not quite ready to go....however we will work with those clubs to get them in a position to catch up - it should not be a problem.
We owe a huge "thank you" to the countless club volunteers who have worked with us to collect the membership data over the last few months. It is (or was) an onerous "one off" requirement; once complete it does mean that the EBU database will be of major use and benefit for clubs for maintaining their membership data. Also, thanks to so many of you for helping us with testing our processes before we go live; your help has been of great importance.
I am sure that many of you have been sitting on a plane waiting to take off and that we have all made rude statements to our travelling companions when the pilot comes on to explain the one hour delay and says "thank you for your patience", as if you have a choice! Well, I am going to ask for your patience in advance. We are embarking on something very new, for all of us, and changing the habits formed over many years. We are almost bound to have made some trivial mistakes in the process, normally because we have no idea that "such and such" does that particular thing - I have already come across my weekly allowance of such things this week and it is just Tuesday!
I hope that those of you who have a need to interact with our computer systems will see and feel that we have made strenuous efforts to make things easy. Once we get going we will be reviewing what we do and how we do it as well as reviewing the whole P2P process so that we can improve on it in year 2, where possible.
Some of you may be wondering what is happening to the "National Grading System". It is still our intention to deliver the NGS as soon as we can. Unfortunately this has been substantially delayed due to the illness and recent unfortunate passing of Dr John Carter, who had been leading this project since it started. He is a hard act to follow but we intend to fill the gap as soon as we can and move forwards. In any event, we always needed a considerable amount of "real data" in order to verify the mathematics that will lie behind the NGS and this will now be provided and available when we are ready to progress.
A reminder about receiving the EBU magazine, English Bridge. Our new members will receive their first magazine in June, as the advanced schedule of printing and distribution meant that we will not have had your details available to us for the April issue, which has already been delivered. All members will receive the June, August and October issues, which includes the EBU diary with the August issue. Thereafter magazine entitlement will follow the rules laid down in this document available on the EBU website - http://www.ebu.co.uk/pay2play/magazine%20points.pdf.
I must thank a number of people and groups for helping us get this far:-
Stephen Bligh (Scorebridge Owner/Author) for a serious amount of work he has contributed, in helping us with the data collection from most of our clubs and in making the necessary changes to his program which is used by the vast majority of our clubs.
Jeff Smith, who has also helped us along the right path with his advice and guidance and also his scoring software (which is extensively used by the EBU for our events).
Chris Stableford (until recently, Chairman of Surrey County) who authored a very comprehensive file structure for use in Bridge Administration (for the nerds among us it is called USEBIO XML), which we have used in our software development.
To the EBU Clubs and their members who have decided to go forward with the EBU into the future, mostly with great patience and understanding, all of which you will need to continue to demonstrate!
My staff in general at our Aylesbury office for coming to terms with a massive change in their working life, answering a serious number of questions posed by our members on the phone and by thousands of emails answered.
Finally to Michael Clark, who is our IT man and the person who has designed and written all of the software that will be in use after April 1st. His quiet, thoughtful way of doing his job has got us to where we are with a minimum of fuss and apparent bother. I know he has lots of other ideas that he will work on in the future, once we are past this watershed moment of "going live" with Universal Membership via Pay to Play.
Tuesday, 16 March 2010
Thursday, 25 February 2010
Blog 41 - Almost there...
Here we are in late February and things are going well with our preparation for pay to play and the IT changes that will occur.As of today we have processed around 250 clubs membership data. Unfortunately, there are still around 350 clubs who have still not sent us any information, which will be required before they can submit result files after April 1st. Please help us and our mutual members by providing us with the information as soon as you can. We do understand that for most clubs this is voluntary work and it is a chore; if you need any help please call our office and we will do our best to assist.
A reminder; after April 1st only paper master points printed before that date will be acceptable for processing as all new points will be supplied electronically. Once again, if you need any help, just let us know.
Thursday, 10 December 2009
Blog #40, Busy year coming....
Writing these year end blogs seem to be about five minutes apart, not twelve months. I am told this is something to do with my age....
The New Year will usher in the EBU's year of implementing change. The past two or three years have been full of consultation and discussion ABOUT change, now it happens. During the first three months of 2010 we will be collecting Universal Membership information from all of our affiliated clubs so that the new pay to play processes can begin on April 1st.
However, this is just the start. The volunteers working on the EBU's new National Rating System will produce a specification for that new service as soon as they are able and we will implement it as soon as practical, bearing in mind other priorities.
The Tournament Committee have recently approved an innovation for our clubs and our own events. We will be introducing the facility for clubs to stratify their club games.
Clubs will (optionally) be able to separate their games into three stratification levels, A, B and C.
Purely as an example, clubs could choose something like the following stratification levels -
C up to Master
B up to Regional Master
A above Regional Master.
The game will be played and scored in the usual manner, but the resulting master point awards will be made taking into account the stratification levels. For example, this means that if a "strat c" player has a good day they will, of course, win the master points at their highest level of achievement, but if they were not that successful but still able to finish in the top part of their own stratified level there will still be a master point award. When this possibility was considered by the interim Club Committee they were extremely enthusiastic. I would hope that we would be able to introduce this facility into our clubs (and some EBU events) during the 2010-2011 playing year, but it will be dependent upon various software authors being prepared to make the necessary changes to their software. We should be in a position to specify those requirements during the first quarter of 2010.
We will also be introducing new Club teacher training during 2010; keep your eyes open for more information in English Bridge.
May I take this opportunity on behalf of all at Aylesbury to wish everyone a great festive season and a Happy New Year. I look forward to receiving your patience in abundance during 2010!
The New Year will usher in the EBU's year of implementing change. The past two or three years have been full of consultation and discussion ABOUT change, now it happens. During the first three months of 2010 we will be collecting Universal Membership information from all of our affiliated clubs so that the new pay to play processes can begin on April 1st.
However, this is just the start. The volunteers working on the EBU's new National Rating System will produce a specification for that new service as soon as they are able and we will implement it as soon as practical, bearing in mind other priorities.
The Tournament Committee have recently approved an innovation for our clubs and our own events. We will be introducing the facility for clubs to stratify their club games.
Clubs will (optionally) be able to separate their games into three stratification levels, A, B and C.
Purely as an example, clubs could choose something like the following stratification levels -
C up to Master
B up to Regional Master
A above Regional Master.
The game will be played and scored in the usual manner, but the resulting master point awards will be made taking into account the stratification levels. For example, this means that if a "strat c" player has a good day they will, of course, win the master points at their highest level of achievement, but if they were not that successful but still able to finish in the top part of their own stratified level there will still be a master point award. When this possibility was considered by the interim Club Committee they were extremely enthusiastic. I would hope that we would be able to introduce this facility into our clubs (and some EBU events) during the 2010-2011 playing year, but it will be dependent upon various software authors being prepared to make the necessary changes to their software. We should be in a position to specify those requirements during the first quarter of 2010.
We will also be introducing new Club teacher training during 2010; keep your eyes open for more information in English Bridge.
May I take this opportunity on behalf of all at Aylesbury to wish everyone a great festive season and a Happy New Year. I look forward to receiving your patience in abundance during 2010!
Friday, 20 November 2009
Blog #39 - Further Pay to play IT progress report
Things are progressing well with our development. We have now set up a web based "forum" for providing a place to receive and provide information online about the progress of our development and testing of club downloads. If you wish to participate in this forum, please contact michael@ebu.co.uk and he will advise you how to register.
We are about to open up testing to P2P file submissions from those clubs that have already been testing their data submission with us. If any other club wants to commence their testing of data and file submissions please also contact michael@ebu.co.uk. We are not in a position to take everybody on just yet but would be happy to take a few more. We will be opening up testing to everybody in January.
We have now tested files produced from Scorebridge; it would certainly be a good idea for those clubs who are using other scoring software programs to ensure that their files are tested before too long.
Details of how to test submission files will be provided on the Forum, so watch out for those details appearing as this will indicate that we are ready for you.
However, before doing so, it will be necessary to send us your membership information as otherwise we will not have database entires to test against. Indeed, by doing both of these things clubs will have tested almost everything that will be necessary for them to "go live" with Pay to Play from April 1st.
We are about to open up testing to P2P file submissions from those clubs that have already been testing their data submission with us. If any other club wants to commence their testing of data and file submissions please also contact michael@ebu.co.uk. We are not in a position to take everybody on just yet but would be happy to take a few more. We will be opening up testing to everybody in January.
We have now tested files produced from Scorebridge; it would certainly be a good idea for those clubs who are using other scoring software programs to ensure that their files are tested before too long.
Details of how to test submission files will be provided on the Forum, so watch out for those details appearing as this will indicate that we are ready for you.
However, before doing so, it will be necessary to send us your membership information as otherwise we will not have database entires to test against. Indeed, by doing both of these things clubs will have tested almost everything that will be necessary for them to "go live" with Pay to Play from April 1st.
Tuesday, 29 September 2009
Blog 38 - P2P Computer Systems update
I thought it timely that this blog provides an update on the progress of the Pay to Play computer facilities.
The EBU uses a “package” system for managing its membership, known as Enterprise. This system has been in use at Aylesbury for quite a few years and it works well. However, it does not do everything we require it to do when we change over from an annual subscription to a Pay to Play subscription. Our resident IT expert has therefore been hard at work writing an internet based “add on” to Enterprise which will be entirely under our control but will still use Enterprise as required.
Current Position
We have written and tested the software that synchronises the Enterprise package with our Database. As IT people love to label everything this is now called “MUSE”, which stands for “Michael’s Utility for Synchronising Enterprise” – no prizes for who created that name!
We have developed and tested a standard file description for transmitting Pay to Play session data to the EBU. This standard was originally developed by Chris Stableford, the Chairman of Surrey CBA (thanks Chris!) and an IT consultant. We still occasionally liaise with Chris to make minor adjustments but this is becoming rare. Currently more than a dozen scoring system authors (including all the major ones) have responded positively to our contacts saying that they will be updating their programs to cope with Pay to Play and a number of these have sent us test files already.
We have tested “real” membership data from a number of clubs now and this has gone well. This involves checking EBU numbers against our database for accuracy, looking up names and addresses of those without EBU numbers to see if they are or were members, checking postcodes and generating full addresses. There are a number of things that can be wrong with the file, e.g. 10% of the postcodes one club submitted were invalid, and we are developing a way to swiftly and clearly relay these back to the club so that they can correct them and resubmit.
We are now working on the “beautification” of the web site access that clubs and counties will use, modifying it from the very utilitarian way of doing things that IT people are happy with!
We are very grateful to Jeff Smith, who, as a member of the Universal Membership Project Board, provided valuable start up advice to us when we started the development.
Future Schedule
By approximately the end of September we will have completed work on the early version of the website interface. This may still be cosmetically sparse, but functionally complete.
In early October we will start detailed testing with the help of a small number of interested parties.
During the rest of October and November we will commence testing with a group of volunteer clubs using real-life data in real-life situations.
By the end of December we will have completed work on what will be the “go live” version of the website interface. We will then prepare the website database with live data and start synchronising it with Enterprise on a daily basis and release it for public consumption.
From January to March we will undertake large-scale testing of all aspects of the system with both individual members and clubs. Clubs will start to submit their membership data to us and will be able to play around with the system until they’re satisfied with its operation. Obviously, any Pay to Play files submitted during this period will be wiped off towards the end of March in preparation for the launch.
On April 1st 2010 we will “Go live”!
Health Warning
In my previous career my business developed software commercially. I must have been involved in more than 60 system implementations over 20 years. They almost all went live without major problems, but they almost all had minor ones! This is unfortunately normal. The computer can only get it right if we tell it the right things to do. We are working hard to get it right first time, but problems do occur, which is what the testing stages are all about, as we hope to trap most of the issues at that stage.
With the help of the key staff at Aylesbury, and the many willing volunteers who have offered their help and support we expect to get most of it right. However, even after more than three years in my job almost every week throws up another way of doing things that we knew nothing about; this means that we can be pretty certain that we will trip over one of those as we start up the new system!
We have been offered the voluntary services of more than 20 people who will be happy to assist any clubs who need some computer support. So, well in advance of going live, I ask for your patience. With patience and good humour we will get all of the changes through and move forward smoothly!
The EBU uses a “package” system for managing its membership, known as Enterprise. This system has been in use at Aylesbury for quite a few years and it works well. However, it does not do everything we require it to do when we change over from an annual subscription to a Pay to Play subscription. Our resident IT expert has therefore been hard at work writing an internet based “add on” to Enterprise which will be entirely under our control but will still use Enterprise as required.
Current Position
We have written and tested the software that synchronises the Enterprise package with our Database. As IT people love to label everything this is now called “MUSE”, which stands for “Michael’s Utility for Synchronising Enterprise” – no prizes for who created that name!
We have developed and tested a standard file description for transmitting Pay to Play session data to the EBU. This standard was originally developed by Chris Stableford, the Chairman of Surrey CBA (thanks Chris!) and an IT consultant. We still occasionally liaise with Chris to make minor adjustments but this is becoming rare. Currently more than a dozen scoring system authors (including all the major ones) have responded positively to our contacts saying that they will be updating their programs to cope with Pay to Play and a number of these have sent us test files already.
We have tested “real” membership data from a number of clubs now and this has gone well. This involves checking EBU numbers against our database for accuracy, looking up names and addresses of those without EBU numbers to see if they are or were members, checking postcodes and generating full addresses. There are a number of things that can be wrong with the file, e.g. 10% of the postcodes one club submitted were invalid, and we are developing a way to swiftly and clearly relay these back to the club so that they can correct them and resubmit.
We are now working on the “beautification” of the web site access that clubs and counties will use, modifying it from the very utilitarian way of doing things that IT people are happy with!
We are very grateful to Jeff Smith, who, as a member of the Universal Membership Project Board, provided valuable start up advice to us when we started the development.
Future Schedule
By approximately the end of September we will have completed work on the early version of the website interface. This may still be cosmetically sparse, but functionally complete.
In early October we will start detailed testing with the help of a small number of interested parties.
During the rest of October and November we will commence testing with a group of volunteer clubs using real-life data in real-life situations.
By the end of December we will have completed work on what will be the “go live” version of the website interface. We will then prepare the website database with live data and start synchronising it with Enterprise on a daily basis and release it for public consumption.
From January to March we will undertake large-scale testing of all aspects of the system with both individual members and clubs. Clubs will start to submit their membership data to us and will be able to play around with the system until they’re satisfied with its operation. Obviously, any Pay to Play files submitted during this period will be wiped off towards the end of March in preparation for the launch.
On April 1st 2010 we will “Go live”!
Health Warning
In my previous career my business developed software commercially. I must have been involved in more than 60 system implementations over 20 years. They almost all went live without major problems, but they almost all had minor ones! This is unfortunately normal. The computer can only get it right if we tell it the right things to do. We are working hard to get it right first time, but problems do occur, which is what the testing stages are all about, as we hope to trap most of the issues at that stage.
With the help of the key staff at Aylesbury, and the many willing volunteers who have offered their help and support we expect to get most of it right. However, even after more than three years in my job almost every week throws up another way of doing things that we knew nothing about; this means that we can be pretty certain that we will trip over one of those as we start up the new system!
We have been offered the voluntary services of more than 20 people who will be happy to assist any clubs who need some computer support. So, well in advance of going live, I ask for your patience. With patience and good humour we will get all of the changes through and move forward smoothly!
Thursday, 9 July 2009
Blog #37 - ...even Jean will like this one...
I was recently invited by the Chairman of Exeter Bridge Club (and an EBU TD, Steve Quinn) to visit with them for one of their summer Friday Swiss Pairs evenings, so I went toddling off with Mrs C for a day.
I found a super club, with fantastic facilities, shared with an indoor bowling centre. Interestingly, this facility belongs to the City Council as a benefit of some sort of “planning gain” during a development by a supermarket chain. The resulting facility is a huge benefit to the local population, and it surely must be a wonderful model for clubs around the country, if they can get involved in a similar scheme.
The club has also been successful with Lottery funding and has obtained a dealing machine as a result. Many clubs have now followed the lead set by Alan Boyes at Pershore Bridge Club in obtaining funding and I hope many more can achieve some benefits in this way.
Why the title you may ask? Well, when I arrived at the club one of the members told me that she hated my blog! I enquired as to how she could hate all 36 of them, but she never answered, just smiled. I considered during the return journey how I could ensure that Jean likes at least one of my blogs.
This is the result!
I found a super club, with fantastic facilities, shared with an indoor bowling centre. Interestingly, this facility belongs to the City Council as a benefit of some sort of “planning gain” during a development by a supermarket chain. The resulting facility is a huge benefit to the local population, and it surely must be a wonderful model for clubs around the country, if they can get involved in a similar scheme.
The club has also been successful with Lottery funding and has obtained a dealing machine as a result. Many clubs have now followed the lead set by Alan Boyes at Pershore Bridge Club in obtaining funding and I hope many more can achieve some benefits in this way.
Why the title you may ask? Well, when I arrived at the club one of the members told me that she hated my blog! I enquired as to how she could hate all 36 of them, but she never answered, just smiled. I considered during the return journey how I could ensure that Jean likes at least one of my blogs.
This is the result!
Monday, 8 June 2009
Blog #36 – Bits and Bytes
In the recent past the subject of the EBU’s results service has arisen at two different meetings I have attended, so I thought I would try to explain the issues that we have and why we cannot easily be compared to the fabulous service now available at some clubs.
As I have been reliably informed by Max Bavin, the EBU was a very early adopter of the use of technology for scoring its events. This has proven to be a real mixed blessing at times as technology has advanced. This is because many of our requirements are extremely unusual and none of the available “everyday” scoring programs will do what we need. Thus we have had to make do with existing (and ancient) code and then take the results of that and translate them into a format that can ultimately be displayed on a web page.
This has frequently required specialist input from EBU staff that is not always available at congress events and have thus had to wait for a working day to be resolved. Over recent years we have been able to do better than that on occasions as one of our staff, Ian Mitchell, is a whiz with Microsoft products and has produced a scheme that automates some of our requirements.
Over the last year or so, we have been very fortunate to start using specialist software developed by one of our members, Jeff Smith. He has, on a purely voluntary basis provided software that enables us to automate all but the most obscure of our congress and tournament events AND to utilise Bridgemates where possible as well, which happened for the first time at Brighton last year.
We are now hoping that Jeff can help us automate the provision of most of our results to our web site, so that we can subsequently report all of our results actually at the event, without specialist involvement. When Jeff has done this for us we will, as we run our events all over the country, still find that some venues provide little or no internet service for us to use. We have acquired mobile broadband “dongles” so that we can hopefully link up that way, but even that sometimes does not work!
We will continue to do our best to provide a contemporaneous results service, but 100% success cannot be guaranteed in the immediate future.
As I have been reliably informed by Max Bavin, the EBU was a very early adopter of the use of technology for scoring its events. This has proven to be a real mixed blessing at times as technology has advanced. This is because many of our requirements are extremely unusual and none of the available “everyday” scoring programs will do what we need. Thus we have had to make do with existing (and ancient) code and then take the results of that and translate them into a format that can ultimately be displayed on a web page.
This has frequently required specialist input from EBU staff that is not always available at congress events and have thus had to wait for a working day to be resolved. Over recent years we have been able to do better than that on occasions as one of our staff, Ian Mitchell, is a whiz with Microsoft products and has produced a scheme that automates some of our requirements.
Over the last year or so, we have been very fortunate to start using specialist software developed by one of our members, Jeff Smith. He has, on a purely voluntary basis provided software that enables us to automate all but the most obscure of our congress and tournament events AND to utilise Bridgemates where possible as well, which happened for the first time at Brighton last year.
We are now hoping that Jeff can help us automate the provision of most of our results to our web site, so that we can subsequently report all of our results actually at the event, without specialist involvement. When Jeff has done this for us we will, as we run our events all over the country, still find that some venues provide little or no internet service for us to use. We have acquired mobile broadband “dongles” so that we can hopefully link up that way, but even that sometimes does not work!
We will continue to do our best to provide a contemporaneous results service, but 100% success cannot be guaranteed in the immediate future.
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