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 Support.
This manual covers POWER PLAY! Please read this manual before installing software for the first time.
Note: POWER PLAY FANTASY users - This manual is also used for your product. The only differences are in the SETUP program and in the Cumulative and Weekly stat summary reports. All other operations are the same. Please read "Power Play Fantasy" everywhere "Power Play" is mentioned in this manual.
The files LEAGUE, SKATERS, GOALIES, INFO, STATS, and FARM cannot be edited. INET is modified when you configure your Internet Setup under the File Menu.
After running the application PPSETUP, use Windows File Manager to check your directory for all these files. POWER PLAY! will not run without all of these files.
If at anytime you have a question on installation, please follow the directions for Obtaining Technical Support.
QUICK START GUIDE
If you are already familiar with POWER PLAY! (PP), 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 Installation.
1. Install POWER PLAY! on your computer system (see "Installation").
2. Run PPSETUP (see "Setup"). Be careful to follow the correct directions
for Expansion Leagues or Renewal Users.
3. Run PPWIN (see "Main Menu").
4. Select Owner from the menu bar and enter your league's team and owner
information (see "Owner - Owner Information").
5. Return to the Main Menu and save your league information by selecting
File and the option Save (see "File - Save").
6. If you are going to use the Internet capabilities of POWER PLAY! to
email reports or post reports to a league web site, configure your Internet
Setup using the "Internet Setup" choice from the File menu (See File Menu - Internet Setup).
7. Exit the program by selecting File and the option Quit.
8. Create a backup of the league information (see "Weekly
Backups").
9. 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 (see "Downloading Instructions").
10. Run PPWIN.
a). If it is 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 (see "Transactions").
NOTE: Periodically as you do step 9, exit to the main menu and save
using File/Save.
11. 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.
(See IMPORTANT TRANSACTION INFORMATION).
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")
12. When the rosters are correct for Draft Day, return to the main menu.
Exit the program by selecting File then Save.
13. You are now ready for week 01 's stats. However, before you process week
01, make a backup of your data files! (See "Make a
Backup"). To
process each week's stats, follow the Weekly Routine for running
POWER PLAY!
WEEKLY ROUTINE
Before you begin each week, make sure you have a complete backup of the previous week (see "Make a Backup").
1. Download the current week's stat file, i.e. the file NHLIBMnn.EXE where nn is the week number (see "Downloading Instructions").
2. Decompress the stat file - it contains the SKATERS and GOALIES file. (See "After Downloading Stats".)
3. Copy the SKATERS and GOALIES files into the directory containing your POWER PLAY! files (if you did not download the weekly stat file to your PP directory).
4. Run PPWIN.
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! and then make a backup copy of your league data
before you continue.
6. Post/update stats using Post (see "Post - Updating Stats").
7. Print stat summary, team total and any other reports you plan to use for the week by using Reports OR use the "Print Post Reports" menu option to do an entire set at once(see "Reports").
8. Enter the transactions which take effect in the current week using Trans (see "Transactions").
9. Print a transaction list, then updated rosters and free agent lists using Reports OR use the "Print Transaction Reports" menu option to do an entire set at once(see "Reports").
10. Save the new week's updates using File (see "FILE - Exit").
11. Make a backup copy of the league data after exiting POWER PLAY!. (See "Make a Backup".)
Following 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 (see "PPFIX").
1. If you have downloaded the program from our internet site or obtained
by email, see the instructions accompanying the file to uncompress it so
you can run the install program called INSTALL.EXE.
or insert the disk labeled POWER PLAY! in the disk drive. Install POWER PLAY!
software from either your floppy drive or by running INSTALL.EXE.
2. Once the INSTALL program has finished, you will need to run the setup program to initialize POWER PLAY!'s datafiles correctly. To do this, select PPSETUP or PPFSETUP from your PP program group.
3. The setup program begins. Follow the prompts and see the section below or PPSETUP for more details.
4. If you are licensed for more than one league, repeat step 1 for each league.
Be sure you install each league to a different directory and also name the program
group differently for each separate league.
On your working disk/folder, all the files listed should now appear except for LEAGUE, TRANSC, STATS, GOALIES and SKATERS (which are created by PPSETUP). You are now ready to continue by running PPSETUP.
The application PPSETUP gets your league ready for the season. Expansion POWER PLAY! users need only run PPSETUP. Renewal POWER PLAY! users should be aware that they may need to copy last season's LEAGUE and FARM files before running PPSETUP.
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!. 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
3. Valid values for weights are 0.0 to 9.99 for POWER PLAY! ,
-99.99 to 99.99 for POWER PLAY FANTASY.
4. Any stat weighted 0.0 will be ignored.
5. Double check your selections before you click OK.
6. At most 15 stats may be selected.
VIEW and UPDATE Owner - allows you to view and update if necessary a current
owner's information.
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 two phone number fields at 18 characters each. If filled in,
the email address(es) can be used if reports are sent by email. Email
addresses can be up to 100 characters long. If there is no email address for
a particular owner, leave the field blank.
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 24 teams in a
league.
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.
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 a player on to
only one Fantasy team at a time.
Select all the players to be drafted from the list of available Skaters and
Goalies - you can click on more than one player at a time. Then select the
team they are going onto. When you are satisfied
click OK. Then you can enter each player's position, salary, contract and
status. By clicking "Default" you can set the salary and/or contract for
all drafted players, thus you need not enter those field(s) for every player.
PLAYER ATTRIBUTES:
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's
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 Tech Support a call.
Trades
To enter a trade, select "Trade" from the Trans menu. Then select the 2 teams
that are doing the trade. At this point, all players on both teams, including
farm systems will appear. Click on the players from each team that are being
traded and click OK to consumate the trade.
The "Other" field in the trade screen gives you an opportunity to type in
what the "other" trade is for. You are allotted 20 characters to type in
what exactly you would like the transaction log to reflect. Examples are:
"Swashbucks 4th pick", "Royals waiver move", or "Rag's Grandmother."
At any time, click Cancel to abort the trade.
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 NHL cumulative
stats. It will show for any selected player both his cumulative stats
ending the previous week and his cumulative stats ending the current week.
This is helpful if you need to make a quick correction using PPFIX.
TO PRINT (for printer or fax modem):
If you wish to print reports to a fax driver, be sure you set your current
printer to the fax driver via the Printer Change in the File menu. Consult
your fax software manual for more information on how to fax.
A summary of the reports...
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.
Print Post Reports - prints out as one set the Cumulative Stat Summary,
Weekly Stat Summary, and Team Total Reports.
Select POST from the main menu bar. POWER PLAY! 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 seven selections - Printer Change,
Internet Setup, Save, Make a backup, Restore a backup, About PP and Exit.
Printer Change - Allows you to select the printer where all reports
should be printed. POWER PLAY! uses the Windows Print Manager for printing.
You can select a fax modem driver (if installed) or go to a text file. Consult
your Windows manual for more information on the Print Manager.
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!
Internet Setup - This is where you will configure PP for use with the
Internet.
Make a Backup / Restore from Backup -
As with any software product, Power Play! is not immune to hardware/disk
drive glitches. CFS strongly recommends you make a backup of all files each
week.
Whether you use a hard drive or floppies, please make a weekly backup onto
a floppy or other hard/network drive.
CFS has heard many horror stories of hard drives crashing.
There is no "quick fix" to a system or disk crash.
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 - and you will be forced to start your season
from week 00!!! It is up to you to ensure the safety of your
data for your league. You should also keep a special week 00 backup
throughout the season as recommended in the Quick Start Guide in case of
such catastrophes.
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 have at least
three weeks of backup using this method. Some users have been known to
make a backup for each week of the season. If you have the extra disks,
you may wish to do this, but it is definitely not required!
We provide 2 different methods for backups. First from within PP there are 2 options
under the file menu "Make a Backup" and "Restore from Backup". These menu options make
and restore a backup file that is created through PP.
Make a Backup - You first will be asked if you want to save league
info. If you have made changes and haven't saved them, answer Yes. Then
you will be asked to give the backup a filename... if you are using
floppies, be sure to switch the drive letter to that drive. Lastly you are
asked to give a short description for the backup. You could just put the
date, or give a short phrase describing the state of the backup (for
example, you could say "After Post 4/15"). The backup will then be created.
Restore from Backup - NOTE: If you go thru with this operation,
all league info will be replaced with that from your backup! Be sure you
really want to do this before continuing!!! To restore the backup, select the backup file you want to restore from. The
program will then restore the archived league info. You will then have to
quit (without saving any league info) and then rerun PP for the restore
info to load into the program.
The second form of backup is from within the
the PP program group. There are 2 icons for backup (Backup to drive A or B) and
2 icons for restore (Restore for drive A or B). To make a backup disk, click on the icon
for backup to drive A (if your floppy is A) or drive B (if your floppy is B). Insert a disk to the drive and follow the prompts.
To restore from your backup, put your backup floppy into the drive, and click on the
restore for drive A (or B) icon. Note: PP must not be open when making or restoring a backup
using this method.
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!
Quit - Quit exits Power Play!. Before you quit Power Play!, you are
asked if you wish to SAVE.
Internet
Via FTP
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
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.
7. The stat categories we support are:
Power Play!
Goals
Assists
Points
+/-
Power Play Goals
ShortHand Goals
Game Win Goals
Game Tie Goals
Game Win_Tie G
Goal Score%
Goalie Pts
Save%
Goals Against Avg
Penalty min<
Penalty min>
Penalty Dev
Special Team Pts
Win
Shots On Goal
Lg Penalty Dev
Goalie Shutouts
Goalie Pts + SO
Goalie Saves
Winning %
Power Play! Fantasy
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
MAIN MENU
After you finish running PPSETUP, check to see that you
have all the files listed on page 4. You should now be able launch POWER
PLAY!. 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! 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 Information
There are two (2) options for Owner 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.
NOTE: ONCE YOU create A TEAM, IT CANNOT BE DELETED unless you start over
and reinstall Power Play!!
TRANSACTIONS
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.
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.
Additional use for Salary/Contract fields: PP does not differentiate DL'ed
players from other reserved players. If you need to differentiate certain
players (such as a taxied player versus a DL'ed player), you can add
special characters such as + or * in front of a player's salary to
distinguish these players from others. If you do not use contracts, you
may wish to use the contract field instead.
4. Status - players' status are Active, Reserved, Waived, and Released. Once
a player is waived or released, he must be drafted as a free agent to become
active on his old team or on any other team.
CAUTION: If a player is currently reserved and a team wants to activate him
for the sole purpose of releasing/waiving him immediately; DO NOT reactivate
him then release him. Treat this transaction as a RELEASE/WAIVE only! Failure
to complete this transaction in this manner will lead to losing the accumulated
stats for the player involved.
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 Fantasy Team the player(s) is currently on.
3. Select the Player(s) or use the scroll bar to go thru all players.
4. Change attribute(s) on each player as needed.
QUERY
REPORTS
When you print a report, you will be given 5 options as to what can be done
with it... you may select more than 1 option at a time!
Note: For E-mail and WWW, you must have setup PP for the Internet using
the
Internet Setup in the File menu AND you must have an active internet
connection while in PP.
All reports print to the currently selected printer.
If you save a report as a text file, be sure you use a monospaced font such
as Courier or Courier New in order to achieve "good looking" report when
importing into a word processing program. We recommend
Courier New at 8 or 9 point.
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.
Raw Team Stats Breakdown - This report prints the composite and current
week's team total stats for each team on one report.
League Rosters - Roster list shows the Active, Reserved, and Farm players
for each team in a handy format. Six teams are printed per page.
Free Agent List - This printout tells you who is not on a roster and
gives their cumulative stats. Only players who are not on fantasy rosters
and played in the NHL in the past week show on the list. Be careful, traded
or disabled players may still show up on the list.
Reserved Player Stat List - This report lists all players who are reserved
on fantasy rosters. For each player, composite (year-to-date) and current
week stats are printed. This report is handy for discussing trades on reserved
players who you have not owned for an entire season. Also this report can
be used to determine if any players have been reactivated by their NHL team
and subsequently need to be reactivated by their fantasy team.
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.
Draft Day List - lists the NHL roster. Can also be used for various purposes
including drafting.
Owner Mailing List - prints a report of owners, addresses, and contact
info such as phone numbers and email addresses.
Print Transaction Reports - Prints out as one set the League Rosters,
Standard Free Agent List, Reserved Player Stat Report and Current Week
Transaction reports.
Before attempting to use any of Power Play's! internet features you
must tell Power Play! some important information about your internet
service.
Setting up for use with web pages
Please note the username and password fields are case sensitive.
Setting up Power Play! to email reports
To complete this section you may need the help of your ISP
or local lan administrator. Please do not call Center Field
Software asking what to put in these fields. ONLY YOUR ISP
WILL KNOW THE ANSWERS TO THIS. We have no way of knowing
your email user name or password.
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.
The address of our site is ftp.cfld.com - please note that lower case
IS important.
The address of our WWW site is www.cfld.com - again, please note that lower
case IS important.