Match director checklists
Four checklists: before match day, match morning, each stage, and closing the match. The two that matter most if anything is ever questioned are saving every target, even ones that look empty, and photographing every target face. Print this page, or tick the boxes on your phone.
Before match day
A lighter access point saves strings faster, opens the page faster and survives a crowd. The "% full" it shows is how close a backup comes to not fitting in its memory. In our testing, a full one with 40 pages open ran out of memory during a backup and stopped. Do this on a quiet day, with nobody else connected.
Most important
- Turn the access point off and on, so it starts with its memory clear.
- Export the prior years' strings from the strings list, one year at a time. Each file is small, so the access point builds them easily.
- Take a full backup. If it won't finish, the yearly exports are your copy; go on.
- Erase the strings from before this season (the access point can erase everything before a date).
- Take one more full backup. It's quick now, and it keeps the settings, calibration and squadding that string exports leave out.
- Keep every file in two places off the access point, such as your computer and a cloud drive.
- Check the access point's software version on the System screen, and update it if it isn't the latest. RotFL's live reading needs 1.20 or newer. This is the standard ShotMarker software: if your range's system has been specially customized, with different equipment or software, stop and ask whoever set it up. Take a full backup first. While you have internet, download the update file to your phone or computer, and don't open or extract it. Then join the ShotMarker Wi-Fi, tap the globe icon to open the System screen, tap Software Update, choose the file and confirm. Wait 20 seconds, reload the page and check the new version. ShotMarker downloads · Video: updating the software
- Charge the Sensor Hubs.
Also good to do
- Decide which hub goes on which frame, and write each hub's number on its frame. The number is on the back of the hub.
- Try your keyboard's microphone with your phone in airplane mode. If it doesn't work, download your language for offline voice typing while you have internet.
- Save this year's rulebooks to your phone, so they're there with no internet: CMP rulebooks, NRA rulebooks.
- Update RotFL to the latest version on your phone, and have everyone who will be an official that day do the same, from the App Store or Google Play.
Match morning
First turn on the access point, then the Sensor Hubs soon after. With no hub connected, the access point shuts itself off after 3 hours.
Most important
- Be the first to open the ShotMarker page, from your own phone. The access point takes its clock from the first page that connects after it starts. Check its time by tapping the globe icon. If it's wrong, tap the date there to set it from your phone, before the first shot: it moves the time on every shot. If the System screen shows the time in yellow, it's more than 10 minutes off.
- Keep the Delay setting on the System screen off. A display delay is not recommended: it hides each shot for seconds after it lands, so verifiers can't tie a shot to their shooter, and an extra or missing shot is much harder to catch while it can still be sorted out on the line.
- Lock the System screen with an admin password. On the open Wi-Fi, anyone with the page can otherwise edit or delete shots.
Also good to do
- Put a fresh face on every frame. If you can't, at least put fresh centers and pasters on the holes outside of the centers, then photograph each face before the first shot: the whole face, square on, with the target number in the picture.
- Put each hub on the frame marked with its number. If the frames aren't marked, write down which hub is on which frame.
- Set each target's number: tap the wooden target frame icon on the ShotMarker page and change Name.
- Take a backup now, while nobody else is connected.
- Tell competitors: no backups, CSV exports or strings list from their phones during the match. Those are the heavy jobs that can freeze the access point.
Each stage
Save before you clear. A target cleared without saving loses everything on it, and nothing gets it back.
Most important
- Make the line safe: cease fire, safety flags in, rifles cleared. Check every rifle.
- After the stage, photograph every face before it's patched or changed: whole face, square on, target number showing if possible. If another relay fires this stage, skip the photographs and finish by calling it to the line.
- Have shooters save their own, or save them all yourself with Clear All on the globe screen, named for the stage and relay. Save every target's string, including targets that look empty. A target can hold sensor registrations that the page doesn't show as shots. Saved, they can settle a missing-shot or crossfire question later; cleared, they're gone.
Also good to do
- Once the line is clear, tell shooters they may go forward to pick up their brass and trash.
- Make a note of anything unusual with the time and target number, typed or spoken in the app: a crossfire or missing-shot claim, an alibi, a target reset, a hub swapped.
- No backups or CSV exports until the match is over.
Closing the match
Most important
- Save every target that has any registrations, including any that look empty. Check none is left unsaved before anything is cleared.
- Wait until competitors are off the page, then take a full backup. If it won't finish, turn the access point off and on and try again, or export the match's strings instead (RotFL opens an export just like a backup).
- Copy the backup, the photos and your notes to two places off the access point, the same day.
Also good to do
- Photograph every face as it hangs at the end, before anything comes down.
- Take a picture of the squadding and keep it with the backup. It's how a target and time turn into a shooter's name.
- Turn off the Sensor Hubs and the access point.
ShotMarker's own manuals
ShotMarker's own manuals are the first reference for setting up and running the system; these checklists add what we've learned at matches.
- ShotMarker downloads: the ShotMarker Manual (April 2020) and the calibration target for cutting
- ShotMarker FAQ