Power Play! Pool Macintosh Manual
Table of Contents
Introduction
Quick Start Guide
Weekly Routine
Installation
SETUP
Main Menu
OWNER Owner Information
TRANS Transactions
QUERY Stats and Rosters
REPORTS
POST Updating Stats
FILE Exit from Program
Downloading Instructions
Weekly Backups
PPFIX
HELP - OBTAINING TECHNICAL SUPPORTThis manual covers POWER PLAY! POOL. Please read this manual before installing software for the first time.
POWER PLAY! POOL requires 10 files for successful operation:
- POWER PLAY! POOL The main program.
- PP POOL SETUP The system/new season installation program.
- PPFIX The data correction program.
- LEAGUE Contains all Team Owner information and player rosters.
- SKATERS and GOALIES Contains NHL player stats.
- INFO Contains other necessary program information.
- STATS Contains stats and weights for the league.
- FARM Contains Farm System/misc. information.
- TRANSC Contains transaction data.
The files LEAGUE, SKATERS, GOALIES, INFO, STATS, and FARM cannot be edited.
After running the application PP POOL SETUP, check your folder for all these files. POWER PLAY will not run without all of these files.
NOTE: There are only four files contained on the floppy disk POWER PLAY! POOL PP Pool Setup, PPFix and the Info file. All other files are created when you run the PPsetup program.
If at anytime you have a question on installation, please call technical support.
If you are already familiar with POWER PLAY! POOL, you can follow the steps listed below. This guide was developed for users to quickly get started each year. Should you have any problems or questions as you go along, the appropriate section of the manual has been listed to give you additional guidance. For new users, please start with the Installation.
1. Install POWER PLAY! POOL on your computer system.
2. Run PP POOL SETUP. Be careful to follow the correct directions for Expansion Leagues or Renewal Users.
3. Run POWER PLAY! POOL.
4. Select Owner from the menu bar and enter your league's team and owner information.
5. Return to the Main Menu and save your league information by selecting File and the option Save.
6. Exit the program by selecting File and the option Quit.
7. Create a backup of the league information.
8. Once Opening Day Rosters are available from Center Field Software, download the week 00 stat file and uncompress it the files SKATERS and GOALIES are ready to use.
9. Run POWER PLAY! POOL
a). If it's before your Draft Day, you can enter protected players
or b). If it is after your Draft Day, enter all your drafted/ protected players/farm systems in.
NOTE: Periodically as you do step 9, exit to the main menu and save using File/Save.
10. Once you have finished entering your rosters, enter the Report menu and print out your league rosters. DOUBLE CHECK to see that they are correct! If there is a mistake after you post week 1 stats, you will need to use PPFIX to correct the error in stats. If you should find an error on a roster (a wrong player, that is), DO NOT TRADE the player to the correct team. Instead, from the Transaction menu, first release the player from the incorrect roster using Change Status. Then Claim the player onto the correct roster. This will leave a trail in the Transaction Log, but that is better than having the player on the wrong team's totals.
Also, at this time (when you have completed entering your drafted rosters), we suggest you make a special backup for week 00 that you do not overwrite. This will be important should you have a problem through the season and have to start over due to a hardware or other problem with your system. Having this special backup will allow you to redo your season without having to reenter your drafted rosters (and thus save you lots of time!). (See "Make a Backup")
11. When the rosters are correct for Draft Day, return to the main menu. Exit the program by selecting File then Save.
12. You are now ready for week 01 's stats. However, before you process week 01, make a backup of your data files!. To process each week's stats, follow the Weekly Routine for running POWER PLAY! POOL.Before you begin each week, make sure you have a complete backup of the previous week.
1. Download the current week's stat file, i.e. the file NHLMACnn.LZH where nn is the week number.
2. Decompress the stat file it contains the SKATERS and GOALIES file.
3. Copy the SKATERS and GOALIES files into the directory containing your POWER PLAY! POOL files (if you did not download the weekly stat file to your PP directory).
4. Run POWER PLAY! POOL.
5. Enter remaining/forgotten transactions that took effect last week using Trans. If you made changes, you must save them by using File and Save. You will need to exit POWER PLAY! POOL and then make a backup copy of your league data before you continue.6. Post/update stats using Post.
7. Print stat summaries and team totals by using Reports.
8. Enter the transactions which take effect in the current week using Trans .9. Print a transaction list, then updated rosters using Reports.
10. Save the new week's updates using File.
11. Make a backup copy of the league data after exiting POWER PLAY! POOLFollowing the above procedures will provide your league's owners with last week's stats and the current transaction list, rosters, and free agent list. Remember, a transaction entered after a post does not accumulate stats until the next post. Any mistakes can be corrected before posting the next week stats.
CFS strongly suggests you implement the following rule to your league: "An owner has until the next stats are done to verify that transactions were correctly entered onto their roster." Should an error be found, you will need to enter it before you post the new stats (see step 5 on the previous page) so that the stats will be correct. If you must make a correction after you post, you will need to run the PPFIX application.
CFS strongly recommends you create a separate folder for each league you run. We also recommend that you make a backup disk.
Install one copy of the POWER PLAY! POOL folder from the disk on to your hard drive.
If you have more than one league, install each league from its separate disk.
On your working disk/folder, all the files listed should now appear except for LEAGUE, TRANSC, STATS, SKATERS and GOALIES (which are created by PPSETUP). You are now ready to continue by running PPSETUP.The application PP POOL SETUP gets your league ready for the season. Expansion POWER PLAY! POOL users need only run PPSETUP. Renewal POWER PLAY! POOL users should be aware that they may need to copy last season's LEAGUE and FARM files before running PP POOL SETUP.
You will be asked three (3) questions when you begin the setup. "Do you wish to start a new season?" YES is the standard answer. NO will exit PPSETUP.
"Do you wish to keep current owner information?" Expansion users should answer NO. Renewal users may answer YES only if they wish to keep all current owners AND they do not need to DELETE any teams (i.e. if you had 10 owners last year, and you have 10 or more owners this year, you may wish to answer yes and then correct any owner info in POWER PLAY! POOL. If you had 10 owners and now have 8, then you MUST ANSWER NO and reenter your owner information again.)
"Do you wish to keep the current farm system information?" Expansion users should answer NO. Renewal users may answer YES only if they wish to keep all current farm system information.
Upon answering the initial questions, you will be prompted to add stat information.
To select a stat, type the correct weight or point value to replace the 0.0 for each stat you need for your league. On selecting stat weights, the standard weight is 1.00. If your league uses a stat worth 1/2 value, use 0.5 as its weight; if your league uses a stat worth double, use 2.00, etc.
When typing in weights remember to:
1. Click OK to save when you are finished. If you select Cancel all information previously entered will be deleted and the program will return you the main menu where you will need to start again with the setup questions.
2. To move between stat fields, you may either click the mouse to get to the correct field, or hit the Tab key to move the cursor to the next stat field.
3. Valid values for weights in Power Play Pool is -99.99 to 99.99
4. Once you have finished a player's stats, click OK.
5. Any stat weighted 0.0 will be ignored.
6. Double check your selections before you click OK.
7. At most 15 stats may be selected.
8. The stat categories we support are:
Power Play! Pool & Power Play! Fantasy Stat Catagories
Goals
Assists
Points
+/-
Power Play Goals
ShortHand Goals
Game Win Goals
Game Tie Goals
Shots Attempted
Penalty Minutes
Games [Skaters]
Games [Goalies]
Minutes [Goalies]
Wins
Losses
Ties
Shutouts
Goals Against
Shots Against
After you finish running PP POOL SETUP, check to see that you have all the files listed on page 4. You should now be able launch POWER PLAY! POOL The main menu bar will appear it may take a moment to load. The SKATERS and GOALIES files which are being loaded are "dummy" files. They are empty files required for POWER PLAY! POOL to run properly after installation. Do not enter any players onto team rosters until downloading the opening day rosters (week 00) or the first week statistics files.
OWNER Owner InformationThere are two (2) options for Owner information.
VIEW and UPDATE Owner allows you to view and update if necessary a current owner's information.
CREATE Owner use Create Owner to begin the process of building individual teams. Create Owner designates where you store owner information. It does not add players.
Once a team is to be added/updated, the Owner Information Screen will appear. This screen has 13 input fields. Team Name is 25 characters, Team Owners are 20 characters each, Address is a three field set of 30 characters each, and there are four phone number fields at 15 characters each.
The phone number fields do not necessarily have to contain numbers. You can use the phone number field for notes such as "Call Joe after 4pm".
Click OK to save new information or changes; or click Cancel if you don't want to add or make any changes.
You can have a maximum of 50 teams in a regular versions and 150 teams in a league in the professional version.
If you are starting a new season and have to enter the teams, use CREATE to input and VIEW & UPDATE to check the data entry. When each team has been entered, you can begin to enter rosters using the "Transactions" menu bar option.
NOTE: ONCE YOU create A TEAM, IT CANNOT BE DELETED unless you start over and reinstall POWER PLAY! POOL!!
The Transaction Menu (Trans) is where most of your weekly time will be spent. You can change a players attributes position, contract, salary and status; make trades, draft a free agent, claim a free agent, and check your farm system.
Entering Your Rosters
You will enter the rosters on or after Draft Day, using the Draft Free Agent/Free Agent Claim selection from the TRANS menu. The program will not record the initial draft as any transactions if you use the opening day roster file (Week 00) to build your roster.
If you count your goalies also as skaters (i.e. goalies skating stats count in your league), you will have to enter goalies onto your rosters as both a skater and also as a goalie. You may draft any player on any number of fantasy teams.
You will repeat the following steps until you have completely drafted all players selected for each team on Draft Day.
1. Select the type of player being claimed.
2. Select the player from the list presented.
3. Select the team claiming the player.
4. Select the position that player will occupy.
5. Add any salary or contract information you are recording.
6. Select the appropriate player status, (Active for PP Pool)
7. To save the information, select OK. You can always click on Cancel to exit at any time without saving changes.
8. Repeat the process by selecting YES. When finished, select NO to return to the Main Menu.PLAYER ATTRIBUTES:
1. Standard Positions
F, D, LW, RW, C, G
Other positions
SK for leagues that don't differentiate skater positions. For Goalies, they automatically get position G.
2. Contract A one (1) character field.
Contracts are not mandatory so this field can remain blank. However, if you want to keep track of contract status', CFS recommends using the following method: a first year player (first year bid on or claimed) is an A, second year B, third year (option year in most leagues) C. If you sign a B player to a guaranteed contract after that B year, take the letters off the end of the alphabet. If you signed him to a two year guaranteed contract, he would become an X (since you really own him for three years the C year and the two guaranteed ones).
3. Salary salary is a five (5) character field used to contain the salary of the player. It is not mandatory to fill the field. The salary field can be used for various purposes.4. Status players' status are Active and Released.
To change a player attribute such as status, position, salary or contract:1. Choose the Update Player menu selection from the Trans Menu.
2. Choose the team the player is currently on.
3. Select Player.
4. Select Player from the roster.
5. Change attribute(s).When you are finished, click on OK to save changes. Click Cancel to exit at any time without saving changes.
IMPORTANT TRANSACTION posting INFORMATION!!Transaction dates are very important. The stats you receive will be a week behind what occurs in the NHL and you must coordinate the entry of your weekly transactions and the posting of weekly stats.
For example, the Fighting Bulldogs trade Slugger Bob for Fantastic Fish' Stealin' Eddie. They call the secretary with the trade and he/she passes the trade onto you to record. The trade was made during the week ending May 5. The Fighting Bulldogs will get Slugger Bob's stats until May 5 and so will the Fantastic Fish receive Stealin' Eddie's stats. The stats you will receive on May 6 will be for the week ending May 5.
YOU MUST POST THESE STATS received on May 6 BEFORE ENTERING THE TRADE!! You may enter the trade following the posting of stats for May 6 but before you post the stats for May 13.
If you have any questions concerning when you should enter transactions, please give CFS a call.
VIEW & UPDATE FARM SYSTEM
The farm system is an area for you to enter any other pertinent information that your league would like to record. For example, various leagues may choose to record minor league players, number of waiver moves left, any of the next year's draft picks that have been traded, or any other piece of information.
After selecting View & Update Farm from the TRANS menu, you then select the team you wish to enter/change farm information for. The farm system will appear and you can record the information. Click OK to save the information, click Cancel to exit without saving.
The QUERY menu provides an on-screen view of league standings, team rosters and stats.
Select the Query you wish to view and follow the dialogs.
To print a report, there are two options print it out or save it as a text file to be imported into another program. To select a report, click on the report which you wish to print.
TO PRINT (for printer or fax modem):
All reports print to the currently selected printer in the Chooser.
If you wish to print reports to a fax driver, be sure you set your current printer to the fax driver via the Chooser. Consult your fax software manual for more information on how to fax.
TO SAVE AS TEXT (for input to a word processor, to send via email or post on a web page):
From the File menu, select "Change Print Location" and click on "File." At this point all reports that you print will be saved to text files, unless you redo "Change Print Location" and click on "Printer".. Use a monospaced font such as Courier or Monaco in order to achieve "good looking" report when importing into a word processing program. We recommend Courier at 9 point. Once saved as text files, reports can immediately be sent by email or posted to a web page with no additional work.
Cumulative Stat Summary and Weekly Stat Summary These two reports rank each team, first in an overall rating and second in each separate category. The cumulative report is for the entire season, whereas the weekly report is only for the past week. On the cumulative report you can add a message to the bottom of the listing which will print on all pages. Note: once you enter a transaction for the week, the Weekly Stat Summary report is incorrect. Be sure you print it before doing any transactions after a post.
Team Totals This printout lists each player that has contributed to the team (both cumulative and current week's stats) totals. This report prints a team per page.League Rosters Roster list shows the Active, Reserved, and Farm players for each team in a handy format. Six teams are printed per page.
Transaction Form is a special report that prints a form designed to help secretaries keep up with transactions.
Current Week Transaction List and YTD Transaction List shows who made transactions. You can print out the current week's or the entire year-to-date's (YTD) transactions.
Owner Mailing Labels prints owner addresses onto a 6 or 9 line (1 or 1.5 inch) mailing label. The format assumes the labels will be one label wide (it will not work on laser printer labels, only on dot-matrix printer labels).
Select POST from the main menu bar. POWER PLAY! POOL will ask if you have all transactions entered. If so, click YES, else click on NO. If you click YES, a bell will chime and a screen stating that stats have been posted will appear.
You cannot post twice for the same week! The program will inform you that stats have already been posted.
Under the FILE selection, there are three selections Save, Change Print Location, and Quit.
Change Print Location Allows you to select where reports go to a printer or to a text file. Your choice remains until you change it. By default, all reports go to the current printer when you start POWER PLAY! POOL.
Save selecting SAVE will save the League and Farm files. Any changes made in these files will be reflected in the next use of POWER PLAY! POOL.
Quit Quit exits POWER PLAY! POOL. Before you quit POWER PLAY! POOL, you are asked if you wish to SAVE.
For Internet downloading you will need to have access to the Internet. Access can be either from a dedicated link (such as your office or school may have); an online service such as AOL, Compuserve, or Prodigy; or through an Internet provider such as Netcom. You have two options on how you can download your files. You can either do this through FTP or via the WWW.Via FTP
The address of our site is ftp.cfld.com please note that lower case IS important.Depending how you FTP to our site, you will either be prompted for a user name or your FTP client will ask for it. Your user name and password can be found on your welcome letter. You will need to go to the appropriate sport and section (i.e. AL, NL, NBA, NHL, etc.). Then do a "GET" on the file. (Please make sure that your client is set for binary files download.) If this setting is not set correctly you will NOT be able to use the files you download! After downloading is completed, refer to the section that instructs you on how to decompress the files.
Via WWW
The address of our WWW site is www.cfld.com again, please note that lower case IS important.When you get to our main page click on the "Click here to download stats and user information". You will then see the "User Menu". You will have several choices choose the one that says "statistics download". Choose the type of stats for your software and league. A list of files for downloading is next. Click on the one that you need. You will be asked for a user name and password. These can be found on your welcome letter. After you enter this information the file will start downloading. (You may be asked what the computer should do with this type of file. You should choose the "save" option.) Upon completion of download, refer to the section in the manual that instructs you how to decompress your file.
AFTER DOWNLOADING STATSAfter you have downloaded your weekly stat file, do the following to get that week's stats ready for POWER PLAY!
1. Copy the file you downloaded to the folder/directing that POWER PLAY! POOL is in.
2. To uncompress the skaters and goalies files, run the MacLHA application that accompanied POWER PLAY! POOL From its file menu, select open and choose the file you downloaded. A window will appear listing skaters & goalies files. Click on each file and then the extract button. If you are asked to replaced the existing skaters & goalies file, answer "replace". Note: if you are asked to "smark replace", do not choose it always choose "replace". To quit MacLHA hit command-Q. Now you are ready to run POWER PLAY! POOL for the new week and resume with Weekly Routine step 4.As with any software product, POWER PLAY! POOL is not immune to hardware / diskdrive glitches. CFS strongly recommends you make a backup of all files each week.
CFS has found for best results, keep a set of at least 3 floppy disks to use for backups. The first time you create your league, backup the files to disk 1. The next week, backup to disk 2. The third week, backup to disk 3. Now you have 3 weeks worth of backups, one for week 1, one for week 2, and one for week 3 (the current week). For week 4, reuse the disk you used for week 1. For week 5, reuse the disk for week 2. You will always at least three weeks of backup using this method.
Make sure POWER PLAY! POOL is not running when you execute any backup or restore.
Whether you use a hard drive or floppies, please make a weekly floppy backup. CFS has heard many horror stories of hard drives crashing. We want you to be able to restore as quickly as possible if such a tragedy were to occur. There is no "quick fix" to a system or disk crash. Without a backup, we cannot help you restore your league to action quickly. You are responsible, to yourself and to the other league owners, to implement and do a routine backup.
If you do not do any type of backup, CFS cannot help you quickly recover from a crash or file failure. It is up to you to ensure the safety of your data for your league.PPFIX is a program that allows you to edit the stats for an individual player on a given team. The stats affected are the stats that player earned FOR the team, not the player's actual cumulative stats. Use this program sparingly, if at all. This program should be the last resort to a problem with stat numbers. The primary use of PPFIX is to update a trade or transaction that was entered at the incorrect time.
Be sure your rosters are correct before using PPFIX. PPFIX will only change the stats for a player on a fantasy roster, not make transactions. Use POWER PLAY! POOL to make any roster changes before you use PPFIX.
To use this program, click PPFIX. The program will present a title screen while it is loading the files. Once the file information has been loaded, you will be given the opportunity to pick a team. Choose the team and appropriate player.
Clicking on the Cancel button will exit you from that player without making changes to his stats.
The next window lists the player's stats FOR THE TEAM. These stats can be edited. This allows you to change the player's earned stats.
Make sure you type the correct numbers over the original numbers so that the numbers you want for that stat are showing.
Clicking OK saves the data to your computer's RAM. Properly exiting the program will save the data to the file.
IMPORTANT!!!
Before using PPFIX, please know what the player's stats SHOULD be. Compute how many goals (for example) he should have, THEN use PPFIX to update the information. If you have any questions, please call CFS.This program is very powerful. It can change the course of an entire season with a few keystrokes. PPFIX is a very useful utility. Use it only when necessary.
HELP - OBTAINING TECHNICAL SUPPORT
Should you run into problems while running our software products, Center Field Software (CFS) asks that you follow these steps to successful technical support.
1. Double check the various user manuals for the POWER PLAY! software, for your modem and its software and/or your computer. It has been CFS experience that most problems can be quickly answered by referring to the manual.
2. Should you still have a problem or question, CFS has three ways to reach technical support. You can send us e-mail detailing the problem from our internet site by using the Technical Support e-mail form (which is the preferred method) or by calling 304-487-1019 during CFS office hours (which are posted on our internet site). If you send a message via e-mail, a reply will usually be sent or posted within 24 hours. Please be sure to list the following information in any message you leave, or have it handy when you call. IBM/Compatible computers users please note the version of Windows you are using; Macintosh users should note the system version you are using. The configuration of your computer (amount of memory,size of your hard disk, baud rate of your modem, communications software used, and type of printer you are using).
3. When calling, please have your computer nearby. It significantly helps us deliver better tech support when you are located at the computer and we can walk you through the necessary steps.
4. Technical support may be arranged for a time outside of our office hours. Arrangements must be made with the CFS support staff during office hours. There will be a $15 minimum charge for off-hours technical support.
5. Be sure you have a recent backup handy. If you do not have a backup, you may have set up your league from scratch. Please make frequent backups!!
Copyright (c) 1997-2000 Center Field Software