Organizing a tournament

You organize a tournament under Tournaments. You first create the tournament itself, then add the participating teams — your own teams and guest clubs without an account — and have the app generate a schedule and, later, a knockout bracket.

Step 1: create a tournament

Click New tournament. Give it a name, the tournament days (one day or several), a start time, and choose the format: groups, then knockout, groups only or knockout only. For groups you also set the number of groups.

The tournament opens on the Participants tab. Under Settings at the bottom you set the fields (one name per line — the generator spreads matches across these), the slot length and break between matches, the minimum rest per team, and what time the match day ends (the generator won't schedule matches after that time). You'll also find the points system (win/draw/loss), how many teams per group advance to the knockout stage, and whether a third-place playoff is played.

Step 2: add teams

Under Participants you add teams in two ways:

• A team of your own — pick an existing group from your club. Name and logo come along automatically.
• A guest club — type a name, optionally upload a logo and fill in a contact person. A guest club has no member account in 4planning; it gets its own link instead.

Every team automatically gets a team link (visible next to the team) — send that to a guest club's contact person so they can report a result themselves without logging in (see step 5).

Step 3: let the app generate the schedule

Go to the Schedule tab. Above the generator is Wishes for the schedule — type something like "Zwaluwen really wants field 3, JO11-1 and JO11-2 should never play each other, nobody before 10am" and click Convert wishes. Planny turns that into constraints and shows what it recognized; anything it couldn't place is listed separately, so you know what to check yourself.

Then click Generate schedule. The app spreads the teams across the groups, builds a full round robin per group (everyone plays everyone) and schedules each match on a field and time slot. A "must be in the same group" or "never against each other" wish is honored where possible; if that occasionally isn't possible (too few groups, conflicting wishes) you'll see it as a warning on the proposal — never silently dropped. A wish about a fixed field or a time window is a soft wish and may be dropped if the schedule can't fit around it; that too is reported.

Don't like the proposal? Adjust your wishes and click Generate schedule again — that costs no new Planny request as long as you don't change the text. Click Activate schedule and the schedule becomes real; participating own teams see it (with a notification, if they have that turned on).

Step 4: the knockout stage

Once the group matches have a standing, go to the Bracket tab and click Generate bracket. The app qualifies the configured number of teams per group and pairs them up so that two teams from the same group don't immediately meet again in the first round. Click Activate bracket to make it final.

Step 5: entering results

Under Results you enter the score of each match. If a team advances through the bracket to the next round, the app fills in that side automatically as soon as the result is confirmed — you don't have to link that yourself.

A guest club can report a result themselves via their team link, without logging in. Such a report gets the status reported until you confirm it; you'll see it on the same tab. Turn on the Result reported by a team notification under My account → Notifications to get a push message about it.

Step 6: timeline and highlights

The Timeline tab automatically shows the tournament's start time as the first entry. Click Add highlight to add your own moments — an award ceremony, a great play, a photo — with a title, time and optionally a description or photo. Editing and deleting works via the same row; the start time itself can't be changed or removed, it follows automatically from the tournament settings.

Step 7: sharing the public link

Under Settings you'll find the public link — share it with guest clubs, parents and supporters. Without logging in, they see the schedule, the current standings, the bracket and the timeline, and can't change anything themselves except with their own team link (step 5).

Who can do this?

Managing a tournament is available to an environment administrator or system administrator. Participating members of your own teams get a notification as soon as the schedule is ready or changes (configurable under My account → Notifications); guest clubs have no account and communicate via their team link.

Frequently asked questions

• Can I still move teams to a different group later? Yes, manually; the generator leaves a group you've already arranged alone and only fills in the rest.
• What happens if I regenerate the schedule after results have already been entered? Only matches that haven't been played yet are rescheduled; a match with a confirmed result stays put.
• Does adjusting my wishes always cost Planny credit? No. Only converting new text costs credit; regenerating with the same (or no) wishes is free.
• Does a tournament match also show up on the regular matches page? No. Tournament matches have their own schedule here, separate from the regular competition program.
• Can a guest club just overwrite a result? No. A guest club can only report a result via their own team link; it gets the status "reported" and you're the one who actually confirms it.
• Does the referee planner also assign referees to tournament matches? No, that doesn't happen automatically here — tournament matches are arranged separately from the regular referee scheduling.