Community Server

 The dogs/favs is based on the point spread, so it only shows if you have that option set. Could also go off of the team records with a little work. But I like the idea of users setting up personal rankings.

 ya faves based on a pre-ranking the user sets up on their profile. Not a necessity though, I like what you have now with home, away, random(just need points randomized too). random should only be within a certain range though. because random number coming to 100 wouldnt work. maybe 3-60?

Hey Mike,

 Like I mention before:

"Hey Mike,

I feel that the the Auto Picks should be a User Preference that the user setup on there profile.  If the user does entry there picks during the week, than the set user preference for the Auto Pick should kick in.  So if they never enter there picks for the year, than there user preference would apply for the  whole year.

Auto Picks

1.)  Select all home teams

2.)  Select all visiting teams

3.)  Random Generator to pick between home and vistor

4.)  Ranking System per team.  So if you rank a team 3 that plays a team ranked 5.  The Auto Pick would be the team ranked 3

5.)  Over and Under for that week

6.)  Trend

7.)  Better Record/NFL Power Ranking

Just to name a few criteras for Auto Picks.  The user would be able to pick the one the want to be used/applied for that week.  They  could set it in head of time, and have different ones for different weeks.  I am Currently working on 1-4 and will have it available at the end of this week.

"

The design and implementation I am working on is like this.  I have a UserPreference table (new).   I thought about extended the User table with a couple of additional columns, but I wanted it to be more flexible.

So the user/admin would set up there profile in the user profile (may a seperate user preference page in the future).  The page would have the different auto picks rules to select from.  With the User Preference table idea, you would be able  to plug and play other rule-base conditions as we develop them.  So the User Preference table has a RuleCondition column to define the rule for that AutoPick Preference Type.  So for what I will be releasing this weekend, it will have AutoPick Preference Types:

1.)  Pick All Home Teams

2.) Pick All Visiting Teams

3.)  Complete Random for Team Selection (Visitor and Home)

4.)  Use a Rank System setup by the user (not Random Generated)

*** AutoPick Preference Type 1-3 will auto generate Points and TB

The user/admin will be able to set this up for the whole year or weekly (just like you allow them to chose there picks in advance). 

The user/admin could set different AutoPick Preference Type for each week.

When the user go to the Weekly Entry Form for that week, it will automatically pre-populated it with the Auto Pick Preference for that week (if they have one set and no manual entries for that week).

If a user or users forget to enter there picks for that week, when the Admin enter the first score or scores for that week it will trigger the No Picks function to get the AutoPicks for that user or users.  So this design will cover both the manual and automatic case.  The user will not be able to change a AutoPick Preference once a game/week is lock (keep anyone from cheating).

The reason I had mention the Ranking System to Mike was because someone emailed that request directly to me and sent a donation to help with the development of it..  I think it is a good idea as well.

As far as the TB range.  The range techinally should be 0 - 100 since a game can end in a scoreless tie if you are the Browns and Bills playing.  But I address that with the user defining there own range when they set up there AutoPick Preference Type for that week.

We are both doing some of the something (maybe in a different design way, but the same thing).  The design I have would allow us to add more Rules/Conditions for AutoPicks.  It is kind of a Rule-Based Engine we can Plug-n-Play into.  Because there are so many ways to trigger AutoPicks.

Thanks,

Charlie J. 

 Good work Charlie. Sounds complicated but just what everyone is looking for. Thanks for your work.

 this topic kind of died off didnt it? Any updates we could get?

Hey drizzt09.  I have started an Open Source project to do some of the extensions to the ASP Football pool.  Been recovering from the flu this week, but I should be able to update my version soon.

Thanks,

 Charlie J.

 kewl thanks for the update. That flu that's going around is pretty nasty. hope you got rid of it with minimal damage.

 Got that same bug myself. Fortunately it only lasted a day (but it was a pretty bad day).

 I'm trying out a quick-pick feature which you can play with on the test site. I'm calling it quick-pick since it's all manual for now, but it covers a lot of the ideas mentioned.

 Users can set their own team power rankings. Then they can use those to make their picks and, if used, assign confidence points with a simple click. It also gives the option to pick based on point spreads, all home teams, all away teams or randomly.

 A couple of notes: I added an option to show point spreads even if the option to make picks against the spread is not active. Also, when using confidence points, it can assign points based on the relative team ranks or point spread and will adjust the assignments based on the pick. For example, if you pick a heavily favored team (based on the point spread), it will assign a high point value but if you pick the underdog in the same game, it will assign a low point value.

 Try it out if you get a chance and let me know what you think. Like I said, it doesn't fill in missing entries but that would be the next step.

Great Work. Thats a really cool idea. I esp. like the rank feature that gives our more experienced user a nice feature for when they forget; and boy to they forget lol.

Also, the option to view spreads even when they are not being used is nice. Very useful.

Are any on the new entry form, auto pick, use of spreads for reference only in the new download? Also, I am running version 3.0 Is it easy to upgrade to 3.1 latest download with team themes?

 The 3.1 download has instructions for upgrading from 3.0. Then you can add the team themes once you have 3.1 working.

None of the pick features on the entry form are in either of those however.

 did the autopicks ever get finished?

 Just the manual version (where users/admin can fill in the form by clicking a link). I haven't done anything as far as generating entries for players automatically but it's on the table for next year.