Games Event Management System

The management of any large-scale International sporting event is a complex activity. Such an activity requires facilities to record and disseminate large amounts of information. During the games, when there is intense activity of a multifarious nature, the information needs from the organizing committees, press and administration are enormous. Considering the requirements of data in various forms within the shortest possible time frames, it is practically impossible to manage and disseminate the necessary information manually. Consequently, a computer based, integrated games information management system has become very much an essential part of any International Games meet.

Games Event Management System (GEMS) is CMC’s solution for Integrated Games Information Management. The major modules of the system are:

Key Modules

Data Capture
Data capture module supports capturing of data required to initialize various subsystems of the Games Management System. This includes games & venue related information, accreditation categories and access control information, etc. The module has features to record the qualification criteria for athletes of various sports. This module also helps prepare the base data for all the other modules of the system.

The basic function of Accreditation module is to provide registration for all individuals to be accredited (athletes, organizing officials, media, support/security staff, volunteers etc.), assignment of category-based access and other rights to individuals, production of the accreditation badges/cards and accreditation control. The module can effectively utilize the qualification criteria for athletes, if required. In addition, the module also supports re-accreditation; upload the data to access control systems and management reporting.

On Venue Games Results Management
Different modules of Games Results Management sub-system cater to the conduction of games based on international federation rules. Various stages that are involved in the games conduction such as draws (automatic - based on game rules), schedules, result capture, ranking (wherever applicable), medals, etc., are automated using this module.

The module also interfaces with scoring systems or timing systems wherever applicable. For example, the system interfaces with photo-finish systems in athletics and touch-pad based timing system in swimming to capture the timings and merge with the participant data to get the results in an automated fashion. The same can be extended to capture of results for any sports/games where applicable.

Games Modules that are currently supported by the system are:

The modules also support production of end of event reports and/or post-games reports consisting of consolidate summary reports and detailed reports for all the events conducted during the sports meet.

The major feature of the Games Results Management module is that it supports multiple conduction formats and has the flexibility to adapt to support any new game (which may be unique to that particular games meet) with a little customization of outer layers of the Results Management module.

Information Dissemination

Web Publishing Of Games Results
One of the major capabilities of the Games Management System is automated web publishing of games results.

This web based results system allows media persons to retrieve and print all information about the events in progress as well as events completed.

Commentators Information System
This sub-system supports commentators on latest dynamic results for the events occurring at each venue on the current day as well as previous results, athlete profiles, statistics etc. The information on the history of the Games meet, athletes, various records is captured as part of the data capture at the backend.

Scoreboard Interface
This facility helps displaying the instantaneous official results on the scoreboard in the approved format. The display is completely automated in the case of results being captured through a timing system or a scoring system. This can be extended to support display of information on any other display boards placed around the games arena.

Television Interface
This feature provides a data interface to the identified broadcasters to disseminate instantaneous official results. The broadcaster in-turn captures this data and presents it in templates before broadcasting.

Other Interfaces
The system provides results information on SMS. Further, the system can support regular dispatch of results via email to recipients identified in a predefined mailing list.

Facilities Management

Volunteer Management
This module deals with all the functionalities of the volunteers like online registration, Scrutiny of the applications, generating interview call letters, updation of selection of candidates list provided by the officials / automatic selection of candidates depending on their skill sets, training schedule generation, intimation to candidates, day wise allotment of work to volunteers, attendance capturing, generation of MIS reports etc. This would be helpful for managing volunteers totally throughout the event.

Accommodation
This module helps recording of the accommodation plans for the different types of participants. The query module would be handy for tracking accommodation allocation for various contingents. This also would be useful for the call center operations.

Transportation
This module helps recording of all the transportation arrangements made. The data includes various shuttle services being run between various venues, accommodating venues to sports venues etc. This would be helpful for call center operators to maintain the data as well as to respond to queries posted by various personnel during the games period.

Key Personnel Information
This module maintains the information regarding the key personnel deployed for various activities such as accommodation, transportation, conduction of sports for various games, protocol officials etc. This repository would be very helpful during the games as this would act as the gateway for any information dissemination.

Schedules of Other Important Events
This module captures the schedules of all the cultural and other events taking place on the side lines of the games conduction. This repository is useful for the call centre operators to meet the information needs of the sports enthusiasts.

Arrival & Departures
The primary objective of the Arrival & Departure data capture is to help the reception committee to make necessary arrangements. This repository would also be useful for various committees such as transportation, accommodation.

Information Management for Call Centre

This subsystem handles information management requirements of call centre. The information includes who-is-who, participant’s database, schedules, contact information as general information like transportation facilities, venue details.

Deployment Setup

The Deployment of the Games Management System requires H/W and N/W resources such as servers, desktop computers, printers, routers and switches, etc. CMC Ltd., will provide the complete H/W & N/W requirements for a particular meet depending on the organizers vision of deployment and based the engagement will supply, install and provide operational support as well as decommissioning support.

Deployment Services

CMC undertakes the project on total turnkey basis and thus providing services for:

Technologies

The current version of the Games Management System is available in 3-tier architecture under Microsoft technologies. This architecture is scalable to handle large deployments.

The first version of Games Management System built in 1987 was a mainframe based application on NCR Unix platform and used the Ingres RDBMS. Later, during All Africa Games, the database platform was changed to Informix – the application was still in mainframe and CUI based. This version was used until the 29th National Games (India) at Bangalore, in 1996.

In 1999, the software design was completely revamped and currently available on mix of client-server as well as web-based architecture for effective deployment. Currently substantial portion of the application is available in .Net technology.

Implementations

The Games Management System has been deployed to support various international as well as national games meets. The following is the list of Games Meets supported by CMC’s Games Management System.