Creating a Meet from a Meet Link

Start a new meet from a link a meet or registration site gave you. On the home screen, under Import a meet, copy the link, then press Paste link. 2Timer takes the link from your clipboard. If your browser asks, allow 2Timer to see the clipboard. If it can’t, or the clipboard holds no link, a box opens: paste the link there and press Get meet.

There are two kinds of link:

• An Open Meet Exchange link brings the whole meet: the events, the teams, the athletes, and their entries, in one step. Sites that offer one, such as QuickMeet, show it as a link to copy or a button to send to your timer. A meet file the site lets you download works the same way: drop it on Import a meet or press Choose file.
• A meet’s page on MileSplit, RunSignUp, or Athletic.net fills in the new meet’s details, and on RunSignUp its races. The athletes come in afterwards, from an entries file. See A meet link from MileSplit, RunSignUp, or Athletic.net.

Create a meet from an Open Meet Exchange link, step by step

The steps are Link, Details, Systems, Review, and Done. 2Timer opens New meet from a link and reads the meet from the site.

1. Link: paste the link into Meet link and press Get meet. 2Timer reads the meet straight from the site and shows what it found: events, teams, athletes, and entries. To use a file instead, open it under File. If a meet on this device came from the same meet, the step says so, with Open that meet preselected and Start another meet beside it.
2. Details: the meet’s Name, dates, and location, filled in from the site. Check them. If a meet with that name already exists, choose Use the suggested new name, or Open the existing meet instead. Settings the site suggests are filled in and marked Suggested by the site; change any that your meet does differently.
   • Cross country: Team scoring shows the scorers, displacers, and tie-break. Displacers include the scorers, so 5 scorers and 2 more displacers is 7.
   • Track and field: Score teams, ticked unless the site says the meet isn’t team scored, then the points for each place and how many athletes from a team score. Heats and lanes are yours: seed the meet as you would one you built by hand, from the seed times and marks the site sent.
   • Road races: whether overall and age group places go by gun time or net time.
3. Systems: how you’ll time the meet, and its results and scoreboard, the same step as a meet started from scratch (see Saved Systems and New Meets). The Registration line names where the entries come from, for example Entries come from QuickMeet’s Open Meet Exchange link, and offers no other registration system: a second one would bring every entry in twice.
4. Review: what will be created, the meet’s systems, and what 2Timer won’t carry from the site’s meet yet. Nothing is created until you press Create meet.
5. Done: Go to the meet. When the athletes arrived without bibs, Assign bibs is the next step.

Cancel on the Link step goes back to the home screen. Any Open Meet Exchange file given to Import a meet opens here, whatever it is called.

A meet link from MileSplit, RunSignUp, or Athletic.net

Paste the meet’s own page, the one with the meet’s number in its address. 2Timer opens the new-meet wizard for the meet’s sport, the same one as Start from scratch, with Filled in from the meet’s link at the top. Everything filled in can be changed before the meet is created.

• The sport isn’t certain: 2Timer asks Which sport is this meet? first. MileSplit lists road races as outdoor meets too, so for a meet MileSplit calls outdoor, Outdoor Track & Field is preselected and marked “Probably outdoor track: MileSplit lists it as an outdoor meet.”
• RunSignUp events that aren’t races on foot, such as a virtual race, volunteers, or a T-shirt only option, are left out and listed by name. Add any of them back on the Events step. A race whose distance 2Timer can’t read is listed too, for you to fill in.
• RunSignUp registration: when this device is signed in to RunSignUp and your account holds that race, the Systems step sets Registration to it, with each RunSignUp event paired to its race. When the account doesn’t hold the race, the line says so, and you can choose later.
• Athletic.net entries: after the meet is made, export the entries from Athletic.net (the meet’s Entries → Export) and bring the file in with Import a meet (Add to a meet I already have) or the meet’s Import page. See Importing Data.
• The site doesn’t answer, or you’re offline: “MileSplit didn’t answer, so fill in the meet’s details yourself.” The wizard opens with the sport, when the link says it.
• The site has no such meet: “MileSplit has no meet 770445. Check the link.” Nothing opens; press Paste another link.
• The meet is already on this device: You already have this meet names it, with Open that meet and Start another meet.

The new meet keeps its id on that site and the link it was started from. The meet’s Setup page shows the id under The meet on other sites, and the link on a Started from line below it (see Meet Setup). A RunSignUp race id there is the race the meet’s RunSignUp connection uses.

When the link doesn’t work

• 2Timer couldn’t reach the site: the link may be wrong, or the site isn’t letting browser apps read it yet. Press Copy details and send them to the site; the details never include the secret part of the link.
• Your link’s quickmeet.run address doesn’t work in a browser, so 2Timer used www.quickmeet.run: the link works at its www. address, so 2Timer read it there and keeps it. Nothing for you to do. Copy details gives the reason, if you want to pass it on to the site.
• The site doesn’t recognise this link: check that you copied all of it.
• The link has expired or was turned off: ask the meet director for a new one.
• Meet links start with https://: ask for the secure link.
• That’s a MileSplit page, but not a meet’s (or an Athletic.net page, or a RunSignUp page that isn’t a race’s): paste the meet’s own page. For Athletic.net or RunSignUp you can instead export the entries file and choose it under Import a meet.
• That’s a Google Sheet: in Sheets, choose File → Download → Comma-separated values (.csv). Start the meet from scratch, then bring the file in on the meet’s Import page.
• This file came from a timing system: the file came from a timing system, such as another 2Timer’s export, not a registration site, so 2Timer won’t build a meet from it, even if no race has run yet. Entries come in from a registration site and results go out to a meet site, never the other way. To move a meet you are timing to another device, use a backup: see Importing a 2Timer Backup.

What an Open Meet Exchange link brings

The meet’s name, dates, and venue; its divisions and events, each with its distance and start time; the teams; the athletes with their grades, ages, and bibs; and each athlete’s entry. A site that sends no bibs leaves bib assignment to you: until bibs are assigned, Data Issues lists the athletes missing them.

• Track and field: the track (its length, lanes, and whether it is banked), sessions, field events with their implement weights, hurdles with their heights, relays with their runners and alternates, seed times and marks, and multi-events. A Decathlon, Heptathlon, or Pentathlon is built with its usual events, and each athlete is entered once, on the multi-event.
• Road races: award groups with how many places each awards, waves with their start delays, and each runner’s chip, on their bib.

When the site asks for results back, the Review step says so: Results go to QuickMeet after each race goes official. Creating the meet approves it; see Sending Results to a Meet Site.

The Review step lists anything in the site’s meet that 2Timer didn’t carry, so nothing goes missing without you knowing: for example a field event 2Timer has no preset for, created as a custom event, or a multi-event 2Timer has no preset for, which you set up yourself.

2Timer reads Open Meet Exchange 0.9. A file in another version is refused, and 2Timer says which version to ask the site for.

Changes made on the site afterward

2Timer reads an Open Meet Exchange meet once, when it builds your meet. It doesn’t read it again, so a late entry, a scratch, or a corrected name made on the site after that won’t appear in 2Timer. Make the same change in 2Timer yourself. Results still go back to the site as each race goes official.

Where the link is kept

2Timer keeps an Open Meet Exchange link on this device, encrypted, because it can carry a private code. It is never in a backup and never sent to 2Timer. A meet restored from a backup starts without the link.

A MileSplit, RunSignUp, or Athletic.net link is a public page, so the meet keeps it and Meet Setup shows it as Started from. Anything after a ? in the link, such as a tracking tag, is left off.