This user guide describes how to seamlessly integrate the Roster Athletics platform with the FinishLynx timing system.


This guide is divided into a few sections below:


What do you need to do to set up the integration?

 

The RosterAgent program is a small program that allows communications between the Roster platform and FinishLynx so that they can stay in sync with each other during the competition for start lists upload from Roster to Lynx and results download and sync from Lynx to the Roster platform (and immediately in the app).

 

Now you should have everything ready to start the integration. Make sure you have the following three programs open: 

  1. Roster Athletics in a browser
  2. FinishLynx running
  3. RosterAgent running

 


Integration type


The RosterAgent shares information data between Lynx and Roster by using shared LIF files. It works if you are using the same computer or a shared file folder between computers (e.g. one computer running Roster/Roster Agent and another running FinishLynx).


To start integration, you must select the Input directory (start list updates) for EVT files and Output directory (result files) for LIF files. These directories NEED TO BE THE SAME as the input and output directories FinishLynx uses for transferring data between Roster and Lynx (see below on the Lynx setup). 


TIP: the input and an output directory should be folders or sub-folders on a drive (e.g., C:) and you should avoid adding the folder directly to your desktop. 


 

Now let’s go to the FinishLynx setup before returning to load the configuration in Roster. Go to the FinishLynx program.

 

Open the Options menu under File in FinishLynx. 


 

Ensure the Input Directory and Output Directory point to the same directories you set up in the RosterAgent. Additionally, you must ensure that Code set and LIF Code set are set to Unicode.


Please note: if the directories differ between Roster and Lynx, the data will not be transferred, and you will not get the expected results. Please double-check these directories.

 

 

You will only need to change these settings the first time you set up the integration, after which they will come up by default.



Starting integration


1. Choose participants you want to export from Roster Athletics to FinishLynx. You can find this setting in the Timing system integration section on the meet/meeting Details.

You can export all participants or exclude participants with DNS and SCR statuses (e.g. when you already know before the competition that the athlete will not show up but do not want to remove him/her).



2. In the Exported events field, you can choose an option for the category of events you want to send to FinishLynx for timing. You can export all events or exclude finished events so that they will not appear in FinishLynx.


3. In the same section below, choose the display format that will be visible and used within FinishLynx when viewing events.



There are 3 Event description format types to choose from. Events will be displayed in FinishLynx as follows:


  • Detailed format: event time, event name, gender (if more than one gender), age group (if more than one age group), event title (if a title is assigned), group/heat number (if they have been assigned).
  • Simple format: event name, gender (if more than one gender), age group (if more than one age group). group/heat number (if they have been assigned).
  • Custom format: allows you to choose your event format to be displayed within FinishLynx.



The Custom format field allows you to pick the event descriptors and order to be displayed. Click on the descriptors of your choice to add them to the field. Erase by simply deleting them. Please note that the field format requires colons around each descriptor, and a single space must separate the descriptors. Thus :EventName: :Gender: would display only the event names and gender for each event in FinishLynx. The options are as follows:

  • Age group: always display the event age group
  • Age group opt.: display the event age group if only there is more than one age group in the meet/meeting (Note: recommend to choose either Age group or Age group opt., but not both)
  • Combined prefix opt.: display the combined parent event if a combined event is used
  • Date: always display the event date in YYYYMMDD format
  • Event label opt.: display the event title if one exists for the event
  • Event name: always display the event name
  • Gender: always display the event's gender
  • Gender opt.: display the event gender only if there is more than one gender in the meet/meeting (Note: recommend choosing either Gender or Gender opt., but not both).
  • Group opt.: display the group/heat number only if they are used for the event
  • Stage: always display the event stage
  • Time: always display the event time


If you need to reset the Custom setting, press the Default symbol to return to the initial set of recommended default parameters.


3. Now, you can load and integrate your meet/meeting data.

 

Open the relevant meet/meeting and go to Details. On the left-hand side, click the Agent config button and select FinishLynx.



This will download an authentication .roster file for your specific meet/meeting that lets the RosterAgent know to use this meet/meeting to connect with Lynx. Save the file in a place where you can easily find it again. 


Please note: You must use the LAST downloaded authentication file to load into the RosterAgent. Otherwise, the permissions will not match, and you cannot connect to your meet/meeting (“Can’t connect - permission denied”).

 

Once the authentication file is downloaded, go to RosterAgent. Click on Load configuration and select the latest .roster file (e.g., meeting-xxx-auth.roster) for this meet/meeting that you downloaded (as soon as you load the configuration, a ".roster" file will be saved. This file stores the directory information so you don't need to enter directory settings every time.).


Click Start. FinishLynx and Roster Athletics are connected if the Result monitor status is Active, and the Connection status is Connected.


Stop will stop the connection, and Quit will exit the program completely. To change a configuration file or input/output directories, the connection must be stopped (i.e. no active connection).


 

If you have Show notifications enabled by default, you will see status messages such as:


 

You can disable notifications by pressing the Show notifications button, which will appear as a lighter shade button.


When the Roster Agent is running, pay attention to the Result monitor and Connection statuses:


Result monitor:

  • Active - normal operational mode
  • Idle
  • Initialising
  • Stopping


Connection:

  • Connecting
  • Connected - normal operational mode
  • Disconnecting
  • Disconnected
  • Reconnecting - the agent will automatically attempt to reconnect
  • Invalid - using the outdated configuration file: try to re-download and then reload the config file


Once you have prepared your start lists in Roster Athletics, go to FinishLynx. Click on the Select event icon, and when you see the dialogue, click on Load Schedule. When you have done so, click on the drop-down menu, select the event you want to time, and click OK.


 

Now the synchronization setup is complete, and a particular event's start lists are loaded into FinishLynx. FinishLynx is now ready to go, and the event can commence in the standard FinishLynx procedure. Once the event has finished and FinishLynx has the marked results, click on File → Save. You can go ahead and use the default event filename when saving. Note that Save will save the LIF and event files, including camera images. After saving, wait approximately 10 seconds or less while syncing the data to Roster Athletics.



Please note: if you choose to save files separately (instead of File → Save), the order of operation should be:
  1. File → Save LIF
  2. File → Save as... (event files saved into the folder or networked folder to be shared)


Now you can go back to Roster Athletics and see the times and rankings for the athletes updated from FinishLynx. The results are also immediately available in the Roster Athletics App.


Important note: every time you update the start list in Roster Athletics, it is automatically pushed to the Roster Athletics Agent, but you still need to Load Schedule in FinishLynx to load these changes. Also, field events are not supported by the standard version of FinishLynx.


If you have a wind reading in FinishLynx, this information will be automatically transferred to Roster Athletics. 


BIB numbers: If you have added BIB numbers in Roster Athletics, you will find them under the field Id. If you have not added BIB numbers, the Id field in FinishLynx will have an automatically generated athlete ID.


OPTIONAL: If you want BIB numbers in a different field, you need to enable an additional field in FinishLynx as follows: (i) Select User 1 under File → Options... → Results, (ii) select User 1 under Fields and (iii) click Enable. You will now be able to transfer BIB numbers, as shown below. 



Reaction times: If enabled in FinishLynx, reaction times will be transferred back to Roster Athletics.


Competitor status: in FinishLynx, the status for each athlete can be set under Place → `right click` → Status. These status options translate to Roster in the following manner:

  • Valid → OK
  • Did Not Start → DNS
  • False Start → DQ (+ selection of DQ rule)
  • Did Not Finish → DNF
  • Scratched → DNS
  • Disqualified → DQ (+ selection of DQ rule)
  • Advanced is not used since qualifying Q/q rules are set in the Roster Schedule, and qualification is handled entirely in Roster (either auto Q/q or manual q's)


DQ rules can be added in Roster but not directly from FinishLynx.


Precision: we recommend using Thousandths as results precision in FinishLynx. By setting to thousandths, all results will be sent to the Roster system with 1/1000 precision, allowing Roster to assign the correct places automatically. When setting to thousandths, the Roster app and .pdf results printouts will still show hundredths except for when there is a tie in the hundredths place, in which case the thousands place will be used to calculate place and shown accordingly, for example, when two athletes from two different heats have the same result. To set the default precision, click on Results → Options... → Results → Default Precision.



Troubleshooting Tips & Tricks


  • Ensure you are running the latest version of the RosterAgent (please see the Download and install RosterAgent for the latest version number).
  • If a message of "Can't connect - permission denied" message pops up while trying to connect the RosterAgent, make you have loaded the latest version of the meet/meeting agent configuration file. This file is downloaded from meet/meeting Details → Agent config.
  • If you are using shared folders and your connection status is good but either a.) your start lists in Roster are not updating to Lynx or b.) your saved results in Lynx are not being updated to Roster, make sure you carefully check your paths on both the RosterAgent and FinishLynx (File → Options → Database) to see that both the set of input and output directories are pointing to the exact same location and that the settings described above for set-up (File → Options → Database) are all followed precisely.
  • The Roster Agent has the ability to queue up saved FinishLynx results if you lose connectivity (e.g. bad or very slow internet). If you lose the connection, the saved LIF files will be queued up and uploaded automatically once the reconnection has been detected and re-established by the Agent. The upload queue is visible in the RosterAgent and will normally be empty when there are no connection issues or cleared once any queued results are automatically uploaded.