Overview

Placing Points rewards race results over a season. At every meet, swimmers are placed against the others in their age group in each event, and earn points for where they finish — more for 1st than 2nd, more for 2nd than 3rd, and so on, with participation points making sure every swim counts. Points accumulate across the season into leaderboards, overall and by age group.

If you've ever run a school swimming carnival, you'll recognise this as the classic age champion calculation — the swimmer with the most placing points in each age group at season's end is your age champion. Clubs give the resulting award different names — Age Champion, Age Aggregate, Club Championship Pointscore — but the calculation underneath is the same.

How Places Are Worked Out

This is the most important thing to understand about Placing Points: places are calculated by the app, not taken from the finishing order on the day.

For each meet, the app takes every swim in an event and ranks swimmers by race time within their age group and gender. A 9-year-old girl's place in 25m Freestyle is her rank among the 9-year-old girls who swam 25m Freestyle at that meet — regardless of which heat she swam in, and regardless of who touched the wall first in her heat.

Each place earns points. The default point values are:

Every value is adjustable when you create the season (and later, via Edit). With the defaults, every completed swim earns at least 1 point — swimmers are always rewarded for racing.

A Worked Example

Six 9-year-old girls swim 25m Freestyle at a club night, in two different heats. The app pools all six times and places them:

The same happens for every event, at every meet in the season. Each swimmer's season total — the sum of all their placing points — is what appears on the leaderboards.

Before You Start

What You'll Need

• Club Admin access — only club administrators can create, edit, or export Placings Seasons. Switch to your Club Admin role if you have more than one role.
• Completed meets with results — the meets you want to include should have results recorded. You can also create the season at the start of the year and add meets as they're completed.
• A think about point values — the defaults suit most clubs, but see Choosing Your Point Values if you want to tune how top-heavy the scoring is.

Creating a Placings Season

Setting up a season is a short wizard — six quick screens, each with one decision. Tap a step to jump to its instructions:

You can move back and forth between the screens without losing your selections — nothing is saved until you tap Save on the final screen.

1Open Placing Points and Tap "+ Points"

Tap the Results tab at the bottom of the screen, then tap PLACING POINTS (labelled For place in event). Any seasons already created for your club appear here, sorted by their most recent meet.

Tap the + Points button at the top right to start a new season.

5Set the Point Values

This screen lists the points for each place, 1st through 16th, plus Participation points for swims placing beyond 16th. Tap any row to change its value.

The defaults (shown in How Places Are Worked Out) suit most clubs, so it's fine to tap Next and move on — and you can change values later, with the whole season recalculated automatically.

Choosing Your Point Values

The defaults are deliberately top-heavy — 10, 8, 6, 4, 2 for the top five, then 1 point everywhere else. Here's how to think about tuning them:

Viewing the Points

Tap a season card in the list to open it. The points are shown in three tabs:

• ALL — every swimmer ranked by total points, highest first.
• GIRLS BY AGE — a card per age group, each ranking the girls in that group. The top of each card is your age champion so far.
• BOYS BY AGE — the same for boys.

Swim-by-Swim Breakdown

Tap a swimmer to see where their points came from: every swim in date order, showing the event, date, race time, place (with gold, silver and bronze markers for 1st–3rd), and the points earned, with the season total at the bottom.

Parents can view their own children's breakdowns, even without admin access (provided the season is visible to everyone) — so "how did she end up on 134 points?" answers itself.

Interclub Meets: My Club vs All Clubs

If any meet in the season involved more than one club, an extra control appears at the top of the season screen (admins only):

• MY CLUB — only your club's swimmers are placed and earn points. Visiting swimmers' results are left out, so your swimmers' places aren't affected by guests. This is the default.
• ALL CLUBS — swimmers from every invited club are placed together and appear in the leaderboards.

Switching takes effect immediately and recalculates the whole season — and because visiting swimmers can displace your swimmers into lower places, expect the points to shift when you flip it.

For a season-long club pointscore, MY CLUB is almost always what you want. ALL CLUBS is the tool for scoring an interclub carnival: create a season containing just that carnival — if the carnival ran over several sessions set up as separate meets in the app, include all of those meets — and switch to ALL CLUBS. You now have the carnival's placings and points across every competing club, ready to read out on the day or export. It also suits a standing interclub series where several clubs contest one trophy across a season.

Exporting to a Spreadsheet

Open the season and tap Export (top of the season details, admins only). Confirm, and a spreadsheet with the results will be emailed to you.

The spreadsheet contains one row per swim, with the event, date, place and points earned, the seed time, race time and change, plus each swimmer's name, gender, and age (calculated on both 31 December and your season's age-up date), and millisecond columns for easy sorting. Open it in Excel or Google Sheets to total, filter, or double-check anything before your awards night.

Editing or Deleting a Season

Open the season and tap Edit (admins only). From the Edit screen you can change:

• Name
• Who can see these points (Only admins / Everyone)
• Age-up Date
• All seventeen point values (1st–16th and participation)
• Meets — add or remove meets, e.g. add each meet as the season progresses
• Excluded Events

Tap Save to keep your changes, or Cancel to discard them. Any change recalculates the leaderboards automatically.

Deleting a Season

To delete a season, open the Edit screen, scroll down, and tap Delete Season. You'll be asked to confirm — deletion is permanent.

Tips for Awards Nights

Troubleshooting

The app's place doesn't match the place from the night

• That's expected — places are calculated by comparing times within each age group and gender across all heats, not by heat finishing order. See How Places Are Worked Out
• Also check the age group: meets group swimmers by age on race night, while the season uses its fixed age-up date — a swimmer with a mid-season birthday may be placed against a different age group here than on the night

A swimmer's points look too low

• Check all the season's meets are ticked in Edit → Meets
• Check Edit → Excluded Events — excluded events earn no points
• Remember relays and disqualified swims never earn points, and a swim needs an official recorded time to count
• Tap the swimmer to see their breakdown — it shows every counted swim, its place, and its points

Visiting swimmers are showing up (or missing) in the leaderboards

• Check the MY CLUB / ALL CLUBS control at the top of the season screen — it decides whether swimmers from other clubs at interclub meets are included

A swimmer is in the wrong age group

• Check the season's age-up date — a swimmer's age group is their age on that date, not on race day
• Check the swimmer's date of birth in their profile

The leaderboard changed after I edited the season

• That's expected — points are recalculated from the results whenever the season is viewed, so changing point values, meets, excluded events, or the club toggle updates all standings, including past meets

Members can't see the points

• Check the season's visibility — if it's Only Admins, regular members won't see it. Change it to Everyone via Edit

The export email hasn't arrived

• Check your spam or junk folder
• Wait a few minutes and check again
• Still nothing? Email us at ad***@*************ct.com

Common Questions

Are places taken from the results on the night?

The race times are — but the places are recalculated by the app, ranking swimmers by time within their age group and gender for each event at each meet. Heat finishing order doesn't matter; only times do.

What happens if two swimmers record exactly the same time?

They're given consecutive places (for example 1st and 2nd) rather than a shared place — the app doesn't currently award dead heats. With times recorded to the hundredth of a second, exact ties are rare.

Do relays count?

No — relays are team events, so they're ignored automatically. You don't need to exclude them.

Do disqualified swims count?

No. A swim needs a valid official race time to be placed and earn points.

What earns "participation" points?

Any counted swim that places 17th or beyond in its age group and gender. With the default of 1 point, every completed swim earns something.

What if an age group has fewer than 16 swimmers?

Then every swimmer lands in a scoring place — six swimmers means places 1st through 6th. Participation points only come into play in age groups large enough to have swimmers placing beyond 16th.

How do interclub meets work?

You choose: the MY CLUB / ALL CLUBS control on the season screen either limits placings to your club's swimmers (the default) or ranks everyone from all invited clubs together. See Interclub Meets.

Can I score a single carnival rather than a whole season?

Yes — a season can contain just one meet, so create a Placings Season for the carnival alone. If the carnival ran over several sessions (set up as separate meets in the app), include all of them in the season. For an interclub carnival, switch to ALL CLUBS to place everyone together.

Why does a swimmer's age group here differ from the meet results screen?

Meets group swimmers by their age on race night, while a Placings Season uses one fixed age-up date for the whole season. A swimmer whose birthday falls mid-season can therefore be placed against one age group on a meet's results screen and a different one here. Both are correct — the fixed date keeps every swimmer in a single age group for the season's awards, which is what a fair season-long trophy needs. If you're scoring a single meet and want the placings to match that meet's results screen exactly, set the season's age-up date to the meet date.

What about swimmers who have left the club?

Points earned while representing your club still count and the swimmer still appears in the leaderboards, even if they've since moved to another club.

Can I run more than one Placings Season?

Yes — seasons are independent, each with its own meets, point values, and settings, and the same meet can appear in more than one season.

Does creating or deleting a season change any results?

No. Placings Seasons only read your existing meet results — creating, editing, or deleting a season never changes any recorded times.