The full Computer Director lifecycle — entries, seeding, and programs before the meet; the event-by-event loop on meet day; reports and archiving after. Generic enough for any summer league, with pointers to where DeckSide picks up each job.
The Computer Director leads, but the meet runs on a small crew. Know who does what before warmups — most meet-day chaos is really a role nobody was assigned.
Meet software, results, and overall computer-table operations. The most technical role on deck.
Reports to: Meet Director / Referee
The timing console, touchpads, and start system. Stores each heat and resets for the next.
Reports to: Computer Director
Leads the lane-timing volunteers and carries the backup stopwatch for any lane that misses a time.
Reports to: Computer Director
Finds swimmers and walks them to the blocks in time for their heat — especially the 8-and-unders.
Reports to: Meet Referee
The legs of the computer table. Fetches backup times and DQ slips between the lanes, officials, and the laptop.
Reports to: Computer Director
Everything here happens at home, days before anyone touches pool water. Done well, meet day is just execution; skipped, every problem surfaces at the worst time — behind the blocks.
Configure the meet in your team registration platform so families can declare availability and pick events:
.ev3 or .zip) from the host team or your league's resource page.Send families one standard email per meet: meet name, date, and location; the signup deadline; the event limit per swimmer under league rules; any special rules (qualifying times for championship meets); and the signup link. A reusable template saves you rewriting this every week.
After the signup window closes:
YYYY-MM-DD_Team_Entries.hy3.In your meet software (e.g. HY-TEK Meet Manager): import the entries, verify swimmer data, and — if you're hosting — seed the meet, assigning swimmers to heats and lanes by seed time. Confirm the pool configuration (lane count, course type: SCY / SCM / LCM) matches the actual pool. Then back up the meet database so meet day starts from a known-good file.
When the host distributes the seeded psych sheet, walk it once: your swimmers are in the right events, seed times look sane, nothing's missing. Errors found now are an email; errors found Saturday are a deck argument. Contact the host CD immediately about anything off.
All of these come out of your meet software's heat-sheet reports:
| Program | Audience | Copies |
|---|---|---|
| Shepherd sheet | Shepherds, starter | 3–5 |
| 1-column program | Referee, officials, coaches, computer table | 5–10 |
| 3-column program | Volunteers, check-in table, parents | 5–10 |
| Time sheets | Head timer → one per lane, per heat | 1 per heat per lane |
On meet day: shepherd sheets to each shepherd, 1-column to the referee and coaches, 3-column to check-in and the parent area, time sheets to the head timer — and keep extras at the computer table.
Arrive 1–2 hours before warmups: connect the laptop to the timing console, load the meet file, run a pad test, and brief the crew. Then the whole meet is this nine-step loop, repeated for every event. Click through it:
…and after step 9, the announcer looks for thumbs up and the loop starts again. Seventy-ish events later, you're done.
Each lane is staffed by three parent volunteers. When the swimmer comes in, all three stand up and watch the wall.
| Role | Count | Equipment | Job at the touch |
|---|---|---|---|
| Button presser | 2 | Timing button wired to the console | Press the instant the swimmer touches the wall |
| Lane recorder | 1 | Stopwatch, clipboard, lane recorder sheet | Stop the watch on the touch, write the backup time for that heat |
Two notes that prevent most flagged times: watch for the correct touch (breaststroke and butterfly finish with two hands; freestyle and backstroke with one), and press on the touch, not the glide. If the two button times land too far apart, the software flags the time and the correction workflow below kicks in.
A flagged time means the electronic time looks wrong — a soft touch, a mistimed button. The fix runs on the runner protocol:
Done the evening of the meet or the next day. Results aren't real until families can see them and the files are archived where next season's CD can find them.
Upload the results file (.zip or .hy3 — exported by you for home meets, sent by the host for away meets) so swimmer profiles and personal bests update. Final results only — every DQ processed, every flagged time resolved, before you upload. Then tell the head coach results are live.
| Report | What it is | Goes to |
|---|---|---|
| Meet summary | Team scores, event counts, totals | Archive |
| Scores — overall | Who won each event and the meet | Coaches, archive |
| Scores — individual | Points earned per swimmer per event | Coaches, archive |
| Ribbons | Place finishers per event (check league rules: top 3 or top 6) | Print, sort by event, ribbon table |
| Full results | Every event, heat, and time — DQs marked | League, archive |
| Improvement | Each swimmer's time vs. seed — the coaches' favorite | Send straight to the head coach |
One convention, every meet, visitor-at-home order: LEAGUE YYYY-MM-DD VIS @ HOME - Results.pdf, … - Scores.pdf, … - Scores INDV.pdf, … - Ribbons.pdf, … - Improvements Report.pdf, … - Results INDV.pdf. A season folder that sorts chronologically by itself is the gift you give February-you.
All six PDFs to the team's shared drive folder for the meet, a local copy on the meet laptop, and a fresh backup of the meet database. Log anything that went wrong in a debrief note while it's fresh — the next meet's setup starts from that list.
The five problems every Computer Director eventually meets, and the first thing to try for each.
Run the meet-software loop in the Swim Meet Trainer, click through DeckSide's director tabs in the live demo, or go back to the DeckSide product walkthrough.