Considering and REALLY need help.

[Mongoose]

The program seems awesome and I am considering this expense for my sons travel baseball team. I have a few questions on how best to approach this please:
1) Do most just use their Iphones for this? As a coach I wanted to have a parent keep the stats so I can focus on the game but really do not want someone having my phone. How do most of you handle this?
2) Is the Ipad much better? How does the information get to the website? Do most use the 3g or is it uploaded once you get home?
3) I noticed you can do live games webcasted to others but then I assume you MUST have the 3G phone or Ipad....is it reliable and fast?

Sorry but more information exists on once you buy the program but I want to know more of how it works BEFORE I buy it please......also would love to see some team websites that have alot of information.

Oh one last one is does this have an email or message feature to inform parents. Thanks everyone.

[FTMSupport]

People use a mix of iPhones, iPod Touches, and iPads. It seems that people that are trying to coach and also score might be better off using the iPhone version since it is compact. For those that have someone that can sit and keep score, the iPad version is nice because more detail is available on the main scoring screen. The same information is available on the iPhone version, but sometimes you have to drill through a few screens to get to it.

The data gets to the website by doing an "export" when the game is over. If you have internet connectivity at your field (3G or otherwise), then you can do the export immediately following the game. If you don't, you can export when you get home.

Yes, the live iScorecasts require an internet connection (3G or otherwise) in order to view the games live. Viewers will be able to follow the game "live" (can be a 5-15 second delay depending on your internet connection).

You can see some sample websites of real customers at:

http://iscorebaseball.com/gallery/" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

[Mongoose]

Bought the Ipad today and am buying the app shortly. Thanks for your help!!!!

[OhioTex]

Mongoose.

Great. Big investment. Hope they appreciate it!

I use iPhone/iTouch when in dug out and on the field and use iPad when in the stands. Some tips..

#1 ) The high contrast iPad screen works best for most folks with the alternate “light background dark text” (select it in option menu.)

#2) Who you get to score matters, poor scoring spoils the downstream benefits, suggest they
1) pay attention to the game - show up before the game in enough time to do line up, pay attention to every pitch and not get distracted along the way,
2) have a basic scoring understanding, and review the online tutorials ( I find the learning curve to be the easiest of the requirements)
3) have a temperament to deal with electronic scoring idiosyncratic behaviors, accidents and bugs can happen.

#3) Paper book back up is not a bad idea, I suggest until comfortable, and perhaps even after, have them or some one else also do a paper book back up. I do either myself or a coach in the dug out, why - b/c Accidents do happen..

#4) iPad overheating can be an issue. iPad works best in the shade .. even in low 80s, in direct sun light, it tends to shut down.. (no worry , cool it off (shade or inside a cooler) and back it comes in <5 min). Also even in shade as temperatures hit 100, can shut down. Keep it cool if you can. Good news is battery life is much better than iPhone , good for a full day of games.

#5) data plan - If you think you have folks who want real time updates, I have gotten by with the 15$/month 2GB data plan. Try it first, iScore is not a data hog even when iscorecasting

#6) if you want an easy no frills way to quickly post game scorecards and stats, the 20$ team web site is very easy to update after any game. connect to internet, export and email scorecards. done. If you want more robust website, then it is a more subjective decision.

#7) learn to love league filters.. ( and team web sites. ) they do wonders.

Benefits..
Sounds lot a lot but what you gain in the end is worth it, in my opinion.. .. to name a few of the benefits.. you get better more detailed, more legible scorebooks than you probably had before and they can be quickly sent to others at end of game, no more photo copying,
stat creation and updating is so much faster and easier, available real time, manual excel time is cut dramatically or out entirely, remote friends and family can get pitch by pitch updates (no more constant texting) when away from park. plus with team web site you also get an always available sortable view of stats and ability to drill down and export to excel for further analysis. plus much more..


Feel free to review and post back to the forum as you get into the iscore action.

regards
ohiotex

P.s. Again, I know it sounds tiered, but highly recommend reviewing the on line u-tube video tutorials, although based on iPhone (you will see a few minor variations) - it will save you hours of frustration do

[Mongoose]

Very useful information.
1) Do many people track multiple teams? For example can I track my softball and my sons travel team on the same app or am I asking for headaches?
2) We tracked a softball game for practice on the app but did a poor job. How can we delete those stats and start over?
3) Your "website" comment intrigued me. Are you saying there are better website programs? Do you know of any? The "Bears" iscore site is awesome....are they for hire

I love the detail and feel the program will be great! Thanks for your time providing such elaborative comments!!!

[danmcc]

Tracking multiple teams is no problem however each team would have it's own website. I track my son's baseball team but I also put as much data as possible for the opponents that we play as we play the same teams frequently. Having their stats and hit charts come in handy.

Deleting the practice games will delete the stats associated with them. After you delete them go to options:export to update your database. You may have to go to iscorecentral and delete as well but I'm not 100% sure.

The website offered through iscore is awesome for a beginner such as myself or seasoned veterans to building sites as you see in the showcase. For $20 bucks I don't think you can beat it anywhere on the web. All the stats load from your device which is incredibly convenient.

[OhioTex]

Mongoose

LEAGUES
You will want to learn and use leagues. Leagues are a flexible way to manage multiple teams, tournaments, seasons, and years. Leagues are simple a way to create logical groupings of defined teams, games, and or players so you can organize and view stats in those logical groupings. Very powerful, very flexible. See the FAQ posted for a longer explanation. viewtopic.php?f=3&t=1531" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

DATA SHAREING
One problem I do have scoring multiple kids/teams, is the physical logistics of being in two places at one time. After doing this for a while, missing a game and its associated stats is very disapointing. The painful solve is to score from coaches paper book after the fact, but is not as robust as doing it live. The ultimate solve is to talk someone else into scoring 'the other game' too in iscore. If so, then you can use the options >data sharing> web database feature to share games between trusted friends. It is fast and easy and works like a charm.
See FAQ for more on data sharing viewtopic.php?f=3&t=1307" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;


WEB SITES
Part of the beauty of the FTM web site subscription is the simplicity of updateing it after each game, and how it then integrates and displays all the different outputs (box score, play by play, scorecard, iscorecast) in a logical manner, in one place for anyone who knows the web address and the right password. Not to mention The ability to consolidate stats, drill down and sort by game, and/or player, or league.. All for 20$ a year.

if you think other parents/kids/ coaches would want to see the stats on the web, I suspect you will want a team site for each of your kids teams. Try one out, and you will quickly see the strengths and limitations of this simple site model, how easy it is to update after each game and how often people use it. Then later, if you want a fancier look and feel, any good web developer can build you an independent web site and integrate the 'iframes' /pages generated by the FTM web site into it, so you can update after each game using iscore export instead of having to upload/ FTP excel sheets after each game .


DELETING
Deleating a test game is fine (as danmcc says). However, in the future try not to delete any 'real' game, or 'real' team (even if you have generic names on the opponent). Deleting means, it really goes away, no undue. You will get tempted to delete opponents, (teams and players ) don't, it does not take up much space and it can cause goofy things with any game they were associated with. Trust me on this one. Just don't delete unless a pure test game.if you want to hide them, create a special league to archive old opponents and players instead of deleting

HIT CHARTS
Just to clarify, both your team and opponents hit charts are available in a printer friendly format from the "admin web site", not from the paid team web site. You do not need to pay extra for admin web site, it is free, it comes with your app/device. ( go to options> admin web site to activate)

P.s. I sent you PM message...

[Mongoose]

The most impressive part so far is the forum. Hope I can contribute once I learn. Thanks.

[us6krums]

Have had the app for a year and used it for my son's travel baseball. Worked great and I wish we had done the website, would have been so much easier. But I was overruled. Not this year!

Yes, OhioTex and others are very supportive and over the past year I found the customer service was even better than app and the app is AWESOME.

Hopefully, a little more flexibility will come to the website, and knowing FTM, they will take all suggestions in and continually develop.

Challenge this year is to find some more people to score. My wife did a great job scoring last year (she did all what OhioTex suggests), but she has her own soccer team to coach this year....

[Mongoose]

One part of the question is still unclear. Is there an easy way to have two distinct apps running? This way I can have one for softball and one for my sons travel team which is ten main purpose without cluttering it up with each others players. I guess I could score one from the iPad and one from the iPhone? Apple going to get richer!!!