Quick Start Guide

Get your first debate tournament up and running in under 10 minutes with this step-by-step guide.

Before You Start

• You will need a Google account to sign in
• Prepare your team list (4-6 participants per team)
• Have judge names and their institutional affiliations ready
• Decide on your tournament format and number of rounds

Step-by-Step Setup

Sign In and Create Tournament

Tournament Setup:

Sign in with Google (required)
Tournament name and description
Date and location details
Tournament format preferences

Important: Tournament status will change to ongoing automatically when you create the first round.

Add Teams and Participants

Create teams with the required participants. Each team needs specific information to be valid.

Team Requirements:

Team Details

• Unique team name
• Unique team code
• Institution/school name

Participants

• Minimum: 4 participants
• Maximum: 6 participants
• Individual participant details

Pro tip: Teams can be edited or deleted until the tournament status changes to ongoing.

Set Up Judges

Add judges with their availability status and institutional affiliations to prevent conflicts.

Judge Configuration:

Judge name and contact information
Availability status (can be updated during tournament)
Institutional affiliations (for conflict detection)

Judge Assignment Rules

• Each debate must have an odd number of judges (1, 3, or 5)
• System automatically detects institutional conflicts
• Judge availability can be updated round by round

Create Your First Round

Generate the first round using one of three available formats. This will change your tournament status to ongoing.

Random

Completely random team matchups for the first round

Fold

Structured pairing system for balanced competition

Power

Performance-based pairing for competitive rounds

Tournament Status Change

Once you create the first round, your tournament status will automatically change to ongoing and team editing will be restricted.

Assign Judges to Debates

Use the drag-and-drop interface to assign available judges to each debate while avoiding conflicts.

Judge Assignment Process:

Navigate to the Assign Judges page
Drag available judges to debate rooms
System automatically detects and prevents conflicts
Ensure odd number of judges per debate
Save assignments and proceed to debates

Enter Results and Track Rankings

Use the scoring panel to enter debate results. The system will automatically calculate team and speaker rankings.

Results Management:

Scoring Features

• Adaptive panel based on judge count
• Auto-calculate feature for final scores
• Easy score entry and validation

Rankings

• Team rankings: wins first, margin second
• Speaker rankings: overall and round-based
• Real-time updates after each round

Tournament Complete!

Your tournament is now fully operational. Continue creating rounds, assigning judges, and entering results. The system will handle all rankings and analytics automatically.