A new feature in BowlsLink with the update on the 5th of August 2024 is the ability to shuffle teams in a Sides game within BowlsLink.
This feature will only be available for the Home Team and the Competition administrators in BowlsLink.
Auto Shuffle is a feature that must be enable by the Competition administrator when creating the Competition. It is available under Results Settings.
Home Team #
As the home team manager, you will have the ability to be able to shuffle the teams in the BowlsLink system, instead of doing a card shuffle before the game is played.
To access this feature, it is in the same area that you put the teams and scores into.
From your My Clubs profile in BowlsLink click on Competitions.
Then you will click My Competitions or My Club Entries depending on your access level.
Click the spanner on the side that you are managing and click Manage Results.
Find the round that you are in (should be the top match), click the spanner and click View Results.
When you get into the match, the Shuffle Teams button might be Blue (selectable) or faded out Blue (not selectable).
If it is faded out, that means that players are missing from one of the teams or players in a team. You will only be able to shuffle once all teams have all the positions selected.
Tip: Teams who are playing short select UN-PLAYED from the drop down list.
Once all the players are named, you can select the Shuffle Teams button. This feature will also be available in the Live Scoring App.
The organising body may put in the conditions of play of when the home team can shuffle the teams. If not it may be best to do so when both team managers are present.
This will instantly Shuffle Teams for both Sides once you click CONFIRM.
Once done, you wont be able to press it again as the button will return to non-selectable.
The game can now be played with the team match ups in BowlsLink. After the game you can proceed to Update Results with no need to match the skips.
Competition Administrator #
As a Competition administrator, you can also Shuffle Teams in a side Competition.
Find the Competition, from the In Play tab, click the spanner and click View Results.
Find the game you want to shuffle and click the spanner and click Enter Results.
The same principle applies for a Competition Administrator, in that you will only be able to Shuffle Teams, if all the teams have positions filled.
Also you will be able to see a Result Log indicating who shuffled teams and when. It will also give you a snap shot of the shuffle if you click on the See how teams are shuffled text.
As an administrator, you can click on the Shuffle Teams as many times as you like and it will just record each time in the log.
The Shuffle Teams feature will display how the teams were set BEFORE and AFTER each shuffle
For more help on this section contact us via bowlslink@bowls.com.au