A category allows you to create criteria that determine the exact bracket of a registration. You can create as many criteria as necessary to select the most appropriate bracket for a registration. A criterion is expressed by the components of a category on the system. A category comprises one or more of the following:
The actual structure of a category depends on the criteria you want to express. Figure 2 shows two examples of how modules, fields, and field items are used within the category.
A module is a group of fields that appear under the same label on the registration form. Technically, there is no need to have more than one module. But if you want to make the registration form more intuitive for the person entering the registration, you should create more than one module.
The best use for a module is to use it to model a criterion of a bracket. You can have one module for each criterion of a bracket. A category can have as many modules as required. If you have only one criterion that determines the bracket, then you use only one module. For example, if your event separates its brackets only by age group and no other criterion, then you need only one module to model the different possible age groups.
If you have multiple criteria that determines the bracket, then you should create more than one module. For example, for an event that separates brackets based on skill level, age group, and weight range, then you create a module to represent the skill level of a bracket, a module to represent the age group, and a module to represent the weight range.
To determine the number of possible brackets created by a category, you multiply the total number of items for each module. In Figure 2, Category A has 72 possible brackets because Module 1 has 3 items, Module 2 has 3 items, and Module 3 has 8 items (3x3x8). Category B has 18 possible brackets because Module 1 has 3 items and Module 2 has 6 items.
A category field is a method of collecting data on the registration form, and its field items are the possible values for a category field. The field type describes how a field displays its field items on the registration form.
There are four different types of fields:
The only field type that can be used to model a criterion of a bracket is the “Select” type. The other three field types are used only to collect additional information related to a category, but have no direct bearing on the selection of the bracket. The field items of a “Select” field represent the choices available for the criterion of a module. Section 4 describes in details how “Select” fields are used to create the brackets of a tournament.
