WHS & ISV Issues (Please post only if you are a handicap secretary or involved in admin at your club)

[rulefan]

For HowDidIDo users - attestation test.

We did a live test this evening of the new functionality in HDID for both competition and General Play Rounds. The results were somewhat surprising.

Have you reported it to HDID? What was their response?

 

[Griffsters]

I think this is more of a mindset issue. We were/are willing to accept what was written on a card. There will be those that manipulate the system but that has always been the case.

As you posted, it has been sanctioned. I personally think it has been introduced a year early for comps (possibly due to COVID) and should have been used just for casual rounds for now.

Yes I agree. That transition period to change the norm is going to be a difficult one tho. The process of inputting scores via a mobile device seems to create errors with some members (fat fingers!) and the mindset is to just press next when presented with the option rather than check what they have entered is correct.

id like to see a kind of 'hybrid' period where the new way of entering scores is implemented so members can become familiar with it but ultimately the card is still king during this hybrid or transition period. I'm hoping to do some work on this in the off season to see what the best options are for our club. We use ClubV1 / How DidIDo btw.

I like what you say about just for casual rounds but I don't think there is an option for that in ClubV1? Might be worth a quick email as a request

 

[Deleted member 30522]

I like what you say about just for casual rounds but I don't think there is an option for that in ClubV1? Might be worth a quick email as a request

Why would they develop that? General Play rounds are for handicap only, handicaps are not stored by 3rd party vendors, seems pointless and confusing

 

[Griffsters]

Why would they develop that? General Play rounds are for handicap only, handicaps are not stored by 3rd party vendors, seems pointless and confusing

The option to enable it for all score entry is there - so no extra development of note. As a feature I think it would be valuable for customers to have the option to enable it for General Play rounds only - allowing members (and committees!) to become familiar with it before being overwhelmed with errors in comps.

 

[wjemather]

Yes I agree. That transition period to change the norm is going to be a difficult one tho. The process of inputting scores via a mobile device seems to create errors with some members (fat fingers!) and the mindset is to just press next when presented with the option rather than check what they have entered is correct.

id like to see a kind of 'hybrid' period where the new way of entering scores is implemented so members can become familiar with it but ultimately the card is still king during this hybrid or transition period. I'm hoping to do some work on this in the off season to see what the best options are for our club. We use ClubV1 / How DidIDo btw.

I like what you say about just for casual rounds but I don't think there is an option for that in ClubV1? Might be worth a quick email as a request

Mobile score input is no different from asking players to enter their scores via a PSI - people will always make errors putting scores in, and they don't them check properly because they only look at the totals (points/gross/nett) and not the hole scores.

Even with apps that function in accordance with the requirements of rule 3.3, there is no obligation for the committee to accept them - they remain able to rule that the physical scorecard is definitive; most will do just that, and there is no reason to believe that will change any time soon.

 

[Deleted member 30522]

Mobile score input is no different from asking players to enter their scores via a PSI - people will always make errors putting scores in, and they don't them check properly because they only look at the totals (points/gross/nett) and not the hole scores.

Even with apps that function in accordance with the requirements of rule 3.3, there is no obligation for the committee to accept them - they remain able to rule that the physical scorecard is definitive; most will do just that, and there is no reason to believe that will change any time soon.

Regarding the latter, agree completely, the authorities (USGA/R&A) are not going to throw out paper scorecards however much individual unions want to (SG are rabid about the App), cards speak, and can be readily checked, plus we are a lot of years away from universal smart phone usage, it's simply not practical.

However I don't agree with your first point, we had no issues when we used the PSI terminal, but when we switched to the App this year it was a disaster, when we gave up and went to score entry via the SG system on an ipad we eradicated issues immediately again. Now part of that I grant you is how buggy the SG App is, nevertheless the difference was stark, to such a degree we have no desire to go back to App scoring.

 

[Griffsters]

Similar experience Mr Buddha regards PSI input compared to mobile app. PSI has a nice big screen and pressing bigger buttons maybe that is why. *shrugs*

I can't see physical scorecards will be replaced anytime soon however, the times they are a changin'.

 

[tobybarker]

People make it seem like cards good, computers bad, but how often do people fail to fill in cards correctly either?! Some people just never seen to care that their cards aren't vaguely legible....better embrace the tech sooner rather than later, cos pound to a penny cards will disappear within, I dunno, 5 years.....I hope so anyway

 

[Deleted member 30522]

People make it seem like cards good, computers bad, but how often do people fail to fill in cards correctly either?! Some people just never seen to care that their cards aren't vaguely legible....better embrace the tech sooner rather than later, cos pound to a penny cards will disappear within, I dunno, 5 years.....I hope so anyway

Very rarely, we'd use the red pen on average less than once per competition, but by the time we gave up on the App we'd regularly a third of the field not verifying.

 

[Swango1980]

People make it seem like cards good, computers bad, but how often do people fail to fill in cards correctly either?! Some people just never seen to care that their cards aren't vaguely legible....better embrace the tech sooner rather than later, cos pound to a penny cards will disappear within, I dunno, 5 years.....I hope so anyway

If a player gets a 5 on a hole, and they type a 4 on the computer, it is easily done. Fat finger hit the wrong button. If the player is writing the score on a card, it is much harder to write down a 4, when you (marker) knows it was a 5. If you did write down a 4, then you simply mis counted the stroked, and the error would exist whether it be put on a card or the computer.

Also, I find with cards, every single player is in the habit of exchanging cards afterwards, and confirming scores. Plenty of times there is a disagreement, and both players go through each hole and then they get to the bottom of it. With computers it is different. No marker that I remember stands over a players shoulder, watches them input their score and then confirms the final result before they click OK. And they certainly do not watch them enter the score in their phone. So, if a mistake is made, picking it up relies on 3 things:

1. The player themselves realising the mistake. This frequently does not happen (with final scores being anything from 1 shot out to about 30-40 points out because they did something really crazy like enter their stableford points, not number of shots)
2. A player in their group needs to spot the mistake AFTER the results are published
3. The Committee need to check the scores in the system, or at least the top scores, before closing the comp. They do this by using the physical scorecard.

I'm in no doubt electronic scoring will become the norm. But as it stands at the moment, and the mentality of players, it is prone to more errors I believe, and I think it is something we'll just need to accept

 

[Deleted member 30522]

^^Swango nails it there, good post

 

[mikejohnchapman]

Have you reported it to HDID? What was there response?

Yes I did report it and ended up spending some considerable time on the phone explaining what we had done and what the results were (or weren't).

The chap I spoke to was going to recreate the scenario I outlined before getting the development team involved. I did ask if he had access to the test scripts and results they must have used for pre-release acceptance testing - he didn't.

I await their feedback.

 

[rulefan]

I await their feedback.

Oops. I can't spell. Or at least my spell checker can't

 

[nickjdavis]

For HowDidIDo users - attestation test.

We did a live test this evening of the new functionality in HDID for both competition and General Play Rounds. The results were somewhat surprising.

For competition rounds you are asked to enter the name of the person whose card you are marking and also who is marking your card (fair enough). We then entered scores for each player and marker which disagreed with each other so nobody had a matched score with their marker. In each case the players score was taken and no error message was forthcoming. The name and signature of the marker was included in the scoring record for the competition. We then closed the competition and the players scores were transmitted to WHS. In other words the markers scores were ignored and no errors flagged.

For General Play, the marker was asked for and both scores entered. Again no errors were detected and the players scores were sent through to WHS unchallenged. No details of the marker were included in the GP analysis of the round - no name, signature or score.

Frankly, we were left a bit baffled by the results as the input looked to be perfect to perform the checks for attestation - but nothing happened. Our conclusion was that in the current form it was unusable as all the additional effort for no results wasn't justified and we turned it back off.

Has anyone else tried it?

I guess it depends on what the vendors have interpreted that "attestation" means.

It appears to me that, the way things have been implemented, attestation is simply "I agree with the scores that the player has entered"....whereas the expectation, from your (not unreasonable) point of view, is that attestation should involve the automated cross checking of marker v. player scores and flagging any errors, if the score data is there to support such a thing.

As I understand it in the England Golf app (and in the MasterScoreboard App...front end of HandicapMaster) there is absolutely no compunction on a player who has been nominated as a marker by someone else, for that player to enter his own scores, or those of the player he is marking for, in the App.....so there can be no automated cross checking by the "system". Thinking about it....I'm not sure why would it work this way....its perfectly possible for someone to play in a comp with someone who is not in the comp and for that player to act as their marker.

What was the new "attestation functionality" advertised as being able to do?

 

[Swango1980]

I guess it depends on what the vendors have interpreted that "attestation" means.

It appears to me that, the way things have been implemented, attestation is simply "I agree with the scores that the player has entered"....whereas the expectation, from your (not unreasonable) point of view, is that attestation should involve the automated cross checking of marker v. player scores and flagging any errors, if the score data is there to support such a thing.

As I understand it in the England Golf app (and in the MasterScoreboard App...front end of HandicapMaster) there is absolutely no compunction on a player who has been nominated as a marker by someone else, for that player to enter his own scores, or those of the player he is marking for, in the App.....so there can be no automated cross checking by the "system". Thinking about it....I'm not sure why would it work this way....its perfectly possible for someone to play in a comp with someone who is not in the comp and for that player to act as their marker.

What was the new "attestation functionality" advertised as being able to do?

Good question as to how can attestation be most affective using IT.

I know that, when using the MyEG App, if you enter your scores as you play the round and the person you play with does the same, if either of you type in conflicting scores, you get a warning to check it. I thought that was an excellent feature. Of course, it requires both of you to be entering scores for this to work, and there is no requirement for the marker to be needing to do that (they may not even be playing golf themselves).

I wonder, however, if someone has been named as a marker, can there at least be a requirement (in the future), for them to enter the scores into the App themselves for the person they are marking the score for (regardless on whether they are putting their own score in as well). The player also puts in their score, and so there is always 2 scores to compare? It might be an interesting idea. Some issues to get around may be that the marker may not be a member or registered / paid for the MyEG App. So either the person who can mark a score needs to be more tightly defined, or possibly an option for a "Guest" marker, who can still upload MyEG (or other App) and enter scores without having to register with igolf or be a club member (although I think a lot of clubs demand the marker is a member anyway, my club apparently states a marker must be a member of the club with a handicap)

 

[Deleted member 30522]

I guess it depends on what the vendors have interpreted that "attestation" means.

It appears to me that, the way things have been implemented, attestation is simply "I agree with the scores that the player has entered"....whereas the expectation, from your (not unreasonable) point of view, is that attestation should involve the automated cross checking of marker v. player scores and flagging any errors, if the score data is there to support such a thing.

As I understand it in the England Golf app (and in the MasterScoreboard App...front end of HandicapMaster) there is absolutely no compunction on a player who has been nominated as a marker by someone else, for that player to enter his own scores, or those of the player he is marking for, in the App.....so there can be no automated cross checking by the "system". Thinking about it....I'm not sure why would it work this way....its perfectly possible for someone to play in a comp with someone who is not in the comp and for that player to act as their marker.

What was the new "attestation functionality" advertised as being able to do?

One of the few things Scottish Golf have got correct then, you cannot validate another players scores until they align in cross checking. Any that don't agree get highlighted and you have to go back and amend.

If this is not part of the process in HDID/EG, then it's a huge flaw, and absolutely no replacement for paper scorecards

 

[wjemather]

Some issues to get around may be that the marker may not be a member or registered / paid for the MyEG App. So either the person who can mark a score needs to be more tightly defined, or possibly an option for a "Guest" marker, who can still upload MyEG (or other App) and enter scores without having to register with igolf or be a club member (although I think a lot of clubs demand the marker is a member anyway, my club apparently states a marker must be a member of the club with a handicap)

I think you are confusing yourself. MyEG already requires that the marker must be a registered user of the MyEG app, otherwise they wouldn't be able to attest a score.

 

[wjemather]

What was the new "attestation functionality" advertised as being able to do?

HDID is specified as alerting both parties to mis-matched scores, with submission not being done until such issues have been resolved. From the release notes...

"At the end of the round, it will validate all our scores against each other, flag any discrepancies and the scores won't be able to be submitted until they all tally up.

• At the end of the round the first player to submit their score will proceed back to the Today's Golf page with their "Score Entered - Pending Confirmation".
• When the second player completes their round all the scores will be validated against the scores player 1 has submitted, if all the scores validate then player 2 will proceed as normal and both scores will be submitted.
• If the scores don't validate, then for player 2 we will show a 'Discrepancies' modal for the scores which don't match between the player and marker.
• If the second player has the incorrect score they will select 'Edit' at the bottom of the 'Discrepancies' modal and they will then be able to go to any incorrect holes, edit the score and resubmit.
• If player 1 has entered the incorrect score they will be able to select 'Edit' on their pending score and they will then be able to go in and edit the scores and resubmit. In this case Player 2 will then be able to select 'Re-check' on the Discrepancies modal to check the new score submitted by player 1, if all the scores now match then both scores will be submitted."

 

[Swango1980]

I think you are confusing yourself. MyEG already requires that the marker must be a registered user of the MyEG app, otherwise they wouldn't be able to attest a score.

Good point, I got ahead of myself there. So, I assume MyEG could require the marker to enter the players score as well as the player themselves anyway? I'm not sure if that demand is currently there, I've only ever used it with another guy who is also entering a score. I assume if he wasn't, MyEG would simply send him a notification to verify the score that I enter. Therefore, he could just assume "it'll be alright" and hit accept without actually checking very hard. That is my mentality when I get a notification from any app these days, act in a way that makes it disappear as quickly as possible.

 

[nickjdavis]

HDID is specified as alerting both parties to mis-matched scores, with submission not being done until such issues have been resolved. From the release notes...

"At the end of the round, it will validate all our scores against each other, flag any discrepancies and the scores won't be able to be submitted until they all tally up.

• At the end of the round the first player to submit their score will proceed back to the Today's Golf page with their "Score Entered - Pending Confirmation".
• When the second player completes their round all the scores will be validated against the scores player 1 has submitted, if all the scores validate then player 2 will proceed as normal and both scores will be submitted.
• If the scores don't validate, then for player 2 we will show a 'Discrepancies' modal for the scores which don't match between the player and marker.
• If the second player has the incorrect score they will select 'Edit' at the bottom of the 'Discrepancies' modal and they will then be able to go to any incorrect holes, edit the score and resubmit.
• If player 1 has entered the incorrect score they will be able to select 'Edit' on their pending score and they will then be able to go in and edit the scores and resubmit. In this case Player 2 will then be able to select 'Re-check' on the Discrepancies modal to check the new score submitted by player 1, if all the scores now match then both scores will be submitted."

Fair enough....that's pretty clear and plainly obvious from MJC's post that it isn't working as "advertised".