The Manubrium app

Manubrium is a phone app for running a tournament from the playing hall. Its home screen is the current round: tap a board, tap the result. It keeps working when the hall's signal does not, and sends what you entered once it can. The organiser and editors can also pair the next round, change the pairings by hand, publish, look at the standings, change players and the settings an arbiter touches mid-event. An arbiter on the tournament enters results, logs incidents (with a photo if you like) and confirms or rejects what Manubrium Lite phones entered.

One app can hold several servers - pairings.cloud, a club's own server, the desktop copy on the hall's laptop - and switch between them.

Connecting the app#

1. On the server, open your account page (your name, top right, then Account) and go to Manubrium app.
2. Click Connect a phone. A QR code appears, with the same thing as a link under it.
3. In the app, tap Add a server and scan the code. If the camera cannot be used, copy the link and paste it in instead.
4. The phone appears in the list on the account page, with its name and the last four characters of its token.

The code works once, for ten minutes, and is shown only that one time. If it runs out, click Connect a phone again. Each phone gets a code of its own: two phones cannot share one.

A connected phone can do what your account can do, in the tournaments you work in, and nothing more. If someone takes you off a tournament, the phone loses it at the same moment.

On a desktop copy#

The desktop version has no accounts and listens only on the computer itself, which a phone cannot reach. So connecting takes one step more:

1. In any tournament, open Phone QR and switch on Let phones on this network connect. Pick the computer's address on the hall's network.
2. Then make the code on the account page as above. The code points the app at that address, not at the computer's own one.

The phone has to be on the same network (the hall's Wi-Fi). Without the switch, the account page refuses to make a code and says why.

What the app can do#

Results entered without a signal wait on the phone and go when it can. If somebody else changed the same board in the meantime, the app does not overwrite it: it shows what the board says now and leaves the decision to you. Everything else - pairing, hand edits, publishing, players, settings - needs a connection, and the app says so.

Some questions are answered at the desk, never from a phone: the pairing-number question, leaving FIDE mode, bye exclusions, pairing while a round's hand edits are still open, a round robin's schedule, and team events. The app says which one and leaves the round unpaired.

A new tournament#

The app can start a tournament of your own: name, dates, place and venue, pairing system, number of rounds, time control, federation and whether it is FIDE-rated. It is made exactly as New tournament on the server makes it, from your own defaults for new tournaments (Account, New tournaments), and every round is dated to the first day, with the last round on the end date if that is a different day. Refine the dates on the Dates page later. Team tournaments are started on the server.

Players, check-in and byes#

Adding from a list. Search the FIDE list by name or FIDE ID; with the Belgian player lookup switched on (Features) and the Belgian list downloaded, the Belgian list can be searched as well. Type at least three characters. Picking a player fills them in exactly as picking them in the Players page's add form would, rating from the tournament's main list included. Someone already in the tournament is marked as such and cannot be added twice.

Check-in. A player's present switch is the Players page's Pr. column: a player who is not present is marked absent for the whole event and not paired until you switch them back.

Requested byes. The rounds a player asked to sit out are listed with their kind: where the tournament asks the bye type, a half-point, zero-point or full-point bye, otherwise simply absent. The app can change them for the rounds not yet paired, with the same questions the player dialog asks (a second half-point bye, a round already sent for rating). A round that is already paired is changed on the round itself.

Sharing and hall boxes#

A tournament on the results site has its OpenResults link in the app, to share however you like. With live boards in the hall, each board in the round shows what the box saw (playing or finished, the number of moves, the board's result) and marks it when that differs from the entered result. The box never enters a result; you do. The organiser and editors can list the boxes' codes, make a new one - with a name of your choosing, which the list then shows; the full code is shown once, to scan or type into the box - and withdraw one, as on the Boards settings page.

Changing the pairings by hand#

The same hand edits as on the Pairings page (Pairing a round), from the round screen:

• Swap two players. Tap a board, Change the pairing, Swap with another player, and pick the other one: on another board, on the same board (a colour swap), or someone not on a board at all (a substitution).
• A player is not playing. Not playing this round empties the seat. Where the tournament asks the bye type, pick it; otherwise the player is absent.
• An empty seat. Tap the board: give the remaining player the bye, fill the seat from the players not on a board, or swap them elsewhere.
• Not on a board. Under the boards, tick two players to pair them on a new board, or one to give the bye. An empty last board can be removed.
• Finish hand edits checks the round, as at the desk. If the pairing checker would pair it differently, the app shows its boards and keeps yours only when you say so; the difference is recorded with the round.

When the desk would ask something first - the round is not the latest, it was already sent for rating, the new boards break a pairing rule, a second half-point bye - the app asks the same question with the same sentences, and changes nothing until you answer. Team events are changed at the desk.

Results from Manubrium Lite phones#

A result entered on a Manubrium Lite phone shows on its board with Phone, and a line above the boards counts how many wait for a look. Tap the board: it says which phone entered what. Confirm keeps it and marks it checked; Reject clears the board, and the audit trail says which phone's result you turned down. If the board changed in the meantime, the app says what it shows now and does nothing. Results you, or another arbiter with the app, enter are your own and need no confirming.

Incident photos#

When you log an incident, Take a photo adds one: the camera on the phone, shrunk before it is sent. It waits with the incident if there is no signal. The organiser and editors can add a photo to an incident logged earlier (More, Incidents, Add photo) and look at one (Photo). An incident has at most one photo; only JPEGs of a sane size are taken. Photos are never public, and an arbiter's phone can send one but not open anyone's.

On the desk, Incidents has Mark handled for each incident: it stays on the list but loses its highlight, and can be opened again. Remove deletes an incident with its note and photo after a confirmation; the audit trail keeps a line saying it existed.

Settings from the phone#

More, Settings, Change the mid-event settings: the time control, the chief and deputy arbiter, the venue and city, the number of rounds, what the pairing bye scores, whether the bye type is asked, shared places and the tie-breaks. Anything the tournament has locked by now - in FIDE mode the rounds, the bye's value and the tie-breaks once round 1 is paired - is shown greyed out, and the server refuses it with the same sentence as the Settings page. Everything else in the settings stays at the desk.

Signing a phone out#

On the account page, under Manubrium app, click Sign out beside the phone. It is refused from its next request on; results it had not sent yet stay on the phone, unsent. The app can also sign itself out. Do this for a phone that is lost, sold or handed to somebody else.