School Chess Manager

What the platform is for

This platform helps instructors, teachers and clubs run chess tournaments without Excel or paper. You create your structures, add your players, launch a tournament, enter results and get rankings automatically.

Account and login

Create an account with your email address, then log in. Your language (FR/EN) and all your data stay tied to your account. Verify your email if you are asked to.

Structures

A "structure" represents the entity you manage. There are three types:

• › 🏫 School — a school with classes (First name, Last name and Class recommended).
• › ♟️ Chess club — a club or association (First name and Last name).
• › 👥 Free group — a workshop, class or informal group (First name and Last name).

My structures

The "My structures" page groups your schools, chess clubs and free groups into three distinct sections. Each card shows the number of groups and players, plus the list of groups. Use "Add a structure" to create a new one.

Creating a structure

Click "Add a structure", choose the type (school, club or free group), enter the name, then the city and region if relevant, and the instructor's name. The page labels adapt automatically to the chosen type.

Creating groups

Inside a structure, create groups (classes, levels, time slots). A school can contain CM1 A, CM1 B, CE2; a club can have "Juniors" and "Adults". Players and tournaments are always attached to a group.

Adding players

You can add players in three ways:

• › ✏️ Manual entry — add players one by one.
• › 📄 Passion'n'Élan PDF import — drop a compatible PDF; players are extracted with a preview before saving.
• › 📊 Excel / CSV import — required columns: First name and Last name; Class is recommended for schools.

Creating a tournament

From "Create a tournament", reuse an existing structure and group with their players, or import players if the group is empty. Then choose the tournament type. A single group can only have one active tournament of each type at a time.

Tournament types

Two formats are available:

• › 📈 Progressive ranking tournament — an evolving, motivational internal rating.
• › 🏆 Prize tournament — for cups, medals and final rankings.

Progressive ranking

The progressive ranking is an internal rating designed to motivate students. It starts at 1200 and evolves based on game results. It is not an official FIDE rating.

Prize tournament

The prize tournament focuses on the final standings: cups, medals, podium. It does not use the progressive-rating logic.

Round Robin / Berger table

In Round Robin, each player meets every other player. The platform automatically generates the Berger table, the official order of matches. You don't have to calculate anything: just follow the suggested pairings round after round.

Attendance and absences

Before each round, mark players present or absent. Players present keep playing; the remaining matches are organized from the official games not yet played. The official Berger table stays unchanged.

Entering results

For each match, enter the result: win, draw or loss. Scores and rankings update automatically after you save.

Results and rankings

The standings show each player's points, number of games played and rank. When relevant, tie-breaks are applied to separate players who are level.

Exports

Export your rounds, your rankings and your pairing tables (Berger) in PDF or Excel format, for printing or archiving.

Admin space

An admin space exists only for the platform owner. Normal users do not see it and cannot access it. In the current version (Phase 1) it is read-only: global statistics and monitoring, with no editing actions.

Mobile usage

The platform is mobile-first. Pages adapt to small screens. Large tables (rankings, pairings) can scroll horizontally inside their own box, without affecting the rest of the page.

Common mistakes and fixes

A few common situations and how to solve them:

• › PDF not recognized — only PDFs generated by Passion'n'Élan are supported.
• › PDF already imported — the same PDF is blocked to avoid duplicates.
• › Excel columns — check the First name and Last name headers (Class for schools).
• › Cannot replace — you cannot replace players during an active tournament.
• › No players in the group — add or import players to unlock tournaments.
• › Duplicate active tournament — only one active tournament of each type per group is allowed.