HandicapMaster.org

Changes in Version 9.2 - 2018 Edition

What's New in HandicapMaster 9.2

HandicapMaster Editions

The following changes are introduced to the HandicapMaster product line:

New 'hosted' Editions

The HandicapMaster 'Club', 'EGA-Club' and 'Society' editions are now available in 'hosted' versions (in addition to 'Network' and 'EGA-Network', currently available).
The HandicapMaster hosted offering allows customers to access HandicapMaster remotely via the internet. It does not require a customer to set up their own servers and eliminates the need to purchase additional hardware.
When the HandicapMaster database is hosted, the database is installed on the high-availability servers provided and run by Microsoft, rather than on a computer at the club.
Customers may then run HandicapMaster on any Windows PC (provided it is connected to the Internet). They have full access and control of the HandicapMaster system from any location (such as from home), as well as from the club computers.
The hosted Society edition (called 'Society-Network') is subject to an annual renewal payment, and can be chosen to be run with the Subscriptions, Invoices and Payments option additionally installed.

Player Entry

This facility is now included in all editions of HandicapMaster as standard.

Logins to HandicapMaster

The option to define separate 'Users' with separate passwords and potentially separate access rights in HandicapMaster is now included in all editions of HandicapMaster as standard.
You may now copy an existing User, creating a new User with the same attributes.

Golf Courses

The 'Golf Courses' place is changed to list Clubs and Courses which have had one or more course scorecards added to the system.
You may now record 'Course Scorecards' for any tee colour for either gender. Therefore, this means that you may now enter different Pars and Stroke Indexes for either gender when played from the same Tee boxes (sometimes referred to as 'Genderless Tees').
Additional Tee Colours per course are added to Club and Society editions.
The minimum 9-Hole Scratch Score value accepted is increased from 40 to 54. (CONGU Editions only).
Golf courses

E-mail

A new HandicapMaster E-mail service is added. This service can be used to replace third party e-mail service providers. Note this service is only available to registered users of HandicapMaster.
E-mails are now sent out as HTML format, with a basic page layout and a heading applied.
When sending e-mails it is now possible to interrupt and cancel the sending of e-mails.

Competitions

Competition Results Reports

Results Reports
Selecting a competition in the 'Closed Competitions' list now shows a list of associated results reports. You may change or add reports for a competition without undoing the competition.
  • You may use different names for each report, e.g. where Nett and Gross results have different named trophies.
  • Different limits to the number of results listed can be configured. There will always be a report showing the full nett results (for reference).
  • Where appropriate, Divisions may be defined separately for each report, allowing a mix of reports with and without divisions, or with different division boundaries.
  • When applying Divisions to a result report you may now set division boundaries to give approximately the same number of players in each division. HandicapMaster will calculate the number of players required in each Division to have 'Balanced Divisions', and offer these as the suggested divisional boundaries.
  • For Singles competitions, the competition results can be filtered to produce a result using a subset of the players, e.g. a Ladies-only result from a mixed competition or a Juniors result from a larger competition.
  • You may create a report of a competition result based upon strokes taken over only a limited selection of the holes played. This might be useful to create a 'hidden holes' prize, for example.
  • Highlighting of players in the report is extended to allow multiple highlighting criteria.
  • Results reports are preserved when undoing and re-applying the competition (e.g. to correct a scorecard).

Mixed Team Competitions

A new option is added for Mixed Team competitions where each player plays their own ball (for example, Four-Ball Better Ball competitions). You may now elect the scoring to be based upon the Pars and Stroke Indexes relating to each player's Tees, rather than limited to either the Men's or Ladies' Scorecard only.
That is, you may have a mixed team when the man's score is using the Men's Pars/S.I.'s and the lady's score is calculated using the ladies' Par/S.I.'s. In this situation, the Pars and Stroke Indexes displayed on the scorecard screen change accordingly as the cursor is moved between columns.
The 'Scorecards from a Competition' report is redesigned to show the different course details where applicable.

Entering Scores

The Tees played from by each player in a team competition are now displayed on the scorecard screen. Where a player plays from one set of tees, but the scoring is based upon Pars and Stroke Indexes from a different set of Tees (such as can happen in mixed Foursomes and mixed Greensomes, for example), the tee played from are now shown in brackets.
Tee shown on Scorecard screen
The 'Enter Scorecard' screen is improved to prevent prompting on exit when no change has been made.

Match Play Knock Out Draw

When a Knock Out Chart is to be produced, you will now be asked how the report is to be drawn. In addition to Paper Size, you will be able to select the font size used for text in the report. You will be able to select whether the chart is drawn on Portrait or Landscape orientated paper. You may also choose which rounds are displayed on the report, allowing you to customise the charts according to the KO draws more easily.
By default, matches with byes are no longer displayed in the draw sheet where these occur in the first round (to improve the readability of the chart). Original behaviour may be restored by selecting new option 'Show Byes in first round'.
Text for long names is no longer reduced in size on the KO Chart. The same size of text is now used for all players, improving the presentation of the Chart.
When creating a new Chart and requesting player's telephone numbers are included in the report, these are now listed on a separate page of the report.
You may now limit first names on a KO Chart to initials only for singles competitions (in addition to pairs competitions as previously).
You may now elect to create a 'single round only' draw with only one round of matches listed. This may be helpful where a separate draw will be made after each round of the competition.
Settings for how the Chart is to be produced are removed from REPORTS -> LAYOUT AND OPTIONS.

Other

You may now choose to run a 'Florida Scramble' (sometimes called 'Step-aside Scramble') through HandicapMaster. This is similar to a Texas Scramble, but the player whose ball is chosen to be the one played 'steps aside' and does not play the next shot.
Competition names, including Match Play Knock-out competitions, may now be up to 80 characters in length.
Division boundaries are now declared to one decimal place in Competition Templates.
Mixed, Men's-only and Ladies'-only competitions are now highlighted by colour in the 'Opened Competitions' and 'Closed Competitions' lists.
When re-applying scores for a competition previously closed and undone, the previous 'Handicap Qualifier' status is now retained (rather than using the current 'Handicap Qualifier' status in the competition template that was originally used to open the competition). Likewise, the 'Ladies Medal' status is also now retained.
When viewing a 'Start Sheet' report and exporting the contents to csv file, the data in the csv file now lists the players in the Start Sheet in more machine-friendly format. An export in the previous format may be achieved using the 'Copy Text from Document' button on the toolbar above the report instead.

CONGU® Handicapping Changes

The following amendments to the Unified Handicapping Systems have been introduced by CONGU and are included in HandicapMaster:

CONGU 'Club' and 'Disability Golf' Handicaps retired

A simplification of the Unified Handicapping System is introduced through the removal of 'Club' and 'Disability Golf' handicaps. In place, CONGU handicaps for all players (of both genders, including Juniors, etc.) are available up to 54.
The limit of 28 (men) and 36 (ladies) is removed, with handicaps for all progressing upwards to 54 as required.
Common handicap categories and handicap adjustments are introduced for both men and ladies.
Handicap category 6 is revised for handicaps above 36.4, with a new 0.6 decrease in handicap for each stroke lower than the Competition Scratch Score in this category.

Initial Handicap Cards

A change is applied to the calculation of Initial Handicap Cards, limiting scores on each hole to 2 times the Par of that hole, when a player returns a card for Handicap. The separate calculation for calculating an initial 'Club' handicap, previously specified by CONGU, is withdrawn.

Supplementary Scores

  • CONGU has withdrawn the option for clubs to choose to restrict players from entering more than one Supplementary Score per week.
  • Category 1 players may now return up to three Supplementary Scores to regain 'competition' handicap status, if their handicap is 'non-competition' at the start of the season. Also, these scores may now be returned any time of the year. Previously this was allowed for players in England, but is now extended to all countries. Scotland retain a variation for players with handicaps between 2.5 and 5.4.
  • Players with handicaps in Categories 2, 3, 4, 5 and 6 may now return an unlimited number of Supplementary Scores each season.

Competition Scratch Score

  • Players' adjusted gross scores are now used when calculating Competition Scratch Scores for stroke play (Medal) competitions. That is, players' scores are adjusted under clause 19 ('Stableford Adjustment') and these adjusted scores are now used in the Competition Scratch Score calculation.
  • A new section is added to the 'Competition Scratch Score' report, which for stroke-play (Medal) competitions lists any players whose score was outside of buffer zone but adjusted to within buffer zone or better after the application of clause 19 (and hence now included in box E of the CSS calculation).

CONGU Annual Review

A new 'Statistics' report is added. You may run this to view the calculated values for all home members, including those who have not been included in the main report and do not have a handicapping adjustment recommendation. You may wish to use this report to view the calculated values for players that are not included in the main report to better understand why they have not appeared in the main report.

CONGU Continuous Handicap Review

This report is changed to a new design specified by CONGU, including the addition of the 'date of most recent score with Nett Differential below buffer zone' and most recent score 'in buffer zone or better' for each player being reported. Following the revised recommendation of CONGU that the Continuous Handicap Review should take place quarterly, not monthly, the alert to remind users to run the report will now only display in January, April, July and October each year.

One Stroke Limit (Clause 20.10)

The one stroke limit for increases in a calendar year is no longer applied to Category 1 handicaps. Note: Ireland is the only country to adopt this UHS clause; this does not affect players' handicaps in other countries.

CONGU 9-Hole Competitions

  • 9-Hole Opens
    CONGU has withdrawn the limitation that 9-hole handicap qualifying competitions must be limited to members-only competitions. You may now run 9-hole Open competitions as handicap-qualifying competitions, accepting entries of visitors (non-members).
  • 9-Hole Medal Competitions
    You may now elect to run 9-hole Medal competitions as handicap qualifiers. It should be noted that whilst the competition scoring and results will be based upon medal scoring, for handicapping purposes players' equivalent Stableford Points scores will be used. This means that 9-Hole Medal competitions will be recorded as 9-Hole Stableford competitions in player's handicap records, in line with CONGU regulations.
  • Events in which Competitors play from different sets of Tees
    New guidance from CONGU advises that adjusting handicap allowances where players are applying from different sets of Tees (CONGU UHS Appendix O) is not necessary or applicable when the competition is being run using CONGU 9-hole handicapping. Option to adjust handicap allowances in this way for CONGU 9-hole competitions is withdrawn.

Bookings

Support is added to enable bookings for competitions placed through the 'Tee Times 4 You' service to be imported into Start Sheets.
General Bookings; Names of partners are now included on list of bookings for a booking schedule, and also included in the report covering the booking schedule, where partner names have been recorded.

Handicap Records

Change of Player's Home Club

When you change a player's home club, their past handicap records are now retained with no entry for the player being created in the 'past members' list. Their past scores remain available for Eclectic, Best of Series and Order of Merit calculations.
An exception is where the player moves to a new country and their records require to be restarted to remain compatible with the national CDH service (CONGU Handicapping Editions).
The player's Handicap Record now shows the change of Home Club (including past records when scored with a previous Home Club), where the change in Home Club has been recorded using this update of HandicapMaster.

Team Scores

The printable version of a player's Handicap Record now shows all team event scores. These scores are now included in the player's record report with more consistency (CONGU Editions).

CONGU Handicap Records

The CONGU Handicap Record report now shows 'year' values below the corresponding entries (i.e. in strict chronological order), in order to best meet latest CONGU licence requirements.

Best-of Series, Eclectics and Order of Merit

Where you change the Home Club of a player in the middle of a series, the player's Best-of Series, Eclectic and/or Order of Merit result is no longer split into two entries.
Selecting division boundaries is made easier in the Best-of Series, Eclectic and Order of Merit wizards.

Central Databases of Handicaps (inc. GOLFNET in Ireland)

Netherlands Golf Federation

Customers in the Netherlands may now publish players' membership information to the NGF national system.

Player Entry

The 'Player Entry' facility is now included in all editions of HandicapMaster as standard.
You are no longer limited to Supplementary Scores being played on one specific course and one set of tees, per gender. Scores from players are now accepted from any home club course and any configured set of tees. When configuring Player Entry to allow members to record Supplementary Scores through Player Entry, you may elect to limit which courses players may play and/or you may elect to restrict which Tees they may play from (CONGU editions).

Reports

A new 'Orientation' button on the Report Toolbar is added to allow reports to be changed from portrait and landscape. Note some reports are in a fixed orientation and so cannot be changed.
Report Orientation button
Improved presentation of data in reports. For a number of reports the report will attempt to reduce the font of items to ensure the data fits in the page. If the data is still too large then the data is truncated, with ellipsis to indicate the data has been truncated. For some reports, you may change the orientation of the report to landscape to accommodate the data.
When uploading a picture into HandicapMaster to act as a logo on reports, you no longer need to resize the picture to thumbnail first; HandicapMaster will now do this for you.

Handicap adjustments at Score Entry

This competition report now offers the choice of either home or away member adjustments to be displayed.

Notes

This membership report's layout is redesigned to better handle larger quantities of notes being recorded in member records.

Handicap Records

'H/cap Adj' column is added to handicap records reports for 'Away' players.

CONGU Supplementary Scores (Summary)

The column 'Available' is removed from this handicapping report. The time taken to generate this report is reduced.

CONGU Annual Review (CONGU Editions)

The time taken to generate this report is reduced.

Players with Club and Disability Golf Handicaps (CONGU Editions)

With the removal of 'Club' and 'Disability Golf' handicaps from the Unified Handicapping System, this report is removed.

Subscriptions, Invoicing and Payments option

A new Notes section is added to the subscriptions tab in 'Edit Member'. You may use this to record subscription and account notes for a member. The Accounting Notes data will only be visible if the HandicapMaster user account has update access to Accounting data (Premier and Network editions only).
Changed 'Outstanding' status to 'Due'.
Player Import - You may now import 'ACCOUNT NOTES' when importing player details. The maximum length of data that may be imported as a note is 4096 characters.
You may now publish member's Competition Fee Purse balances to Master Scoreboard website.
Accounting Export - When the export file is created a prompt to view the file is displayed, saving time locating the file.
Direct Debit Extract - When the extract log file is created a prompt to view the file is displayed, saving time locating the file.
Overdue Subscriptions Wizard - When using a custom letter the letter field now contains the status of the payments.

ClubWebsite

You may now choose which 'theme' is used for the website pages, and change this theme anytime through the ClubWebsite program.

Integration with External Membership Systems

Account ID report - When the Account ID file is created a prompt to view the file is displayed, saving time locating the file.

General Data Protection Regulations (GDPR)

Personal data export and personal data erasure facilities are added to HandicapMaster to allow users to meet their forthcoming obligations under the European Union General Data Protection Regulations (GDPR). These regulations are being introduced in EU countries during 2018.
A new 'Data Protection' sub-menu item is added to the 'Players' menu, and includes 'E-mail Correspondence Opt In' facility and 'Personal Data Export'.

General

Add and Edit Member Windows

'Cards & Locker' tab is removed with CDH number, Card number and Locker number items moved to 'Details' tab.

Player Import

You may now add and update 'NOTES' when importing player details. Notes may be added up to a maximum length of 4096 characters.
Records are skipped where the player is 'Away' or 'Visitor' and the player's home club is set to the system home club as away members or visitors at the home club are not valid.

Player Export

When the export file is created a prompt to view the file is displayed, saving time locating the file.
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