User Guide

Tournament Admin Guide

How to set up and run a badminton tournament on BadiTournie — from creating categories all the way to handing out the winner certificates.

Version: 0.16.0 | May 2026 Audience: Tournament organisers App URL: www.baditournie.com

A note on date & time formatting: Throughout the app, dates display as dd-Mmm-yyyy (e.g. 14-Mar-2026) and times in 12-hour form (9:00 AM, 2:30 PM). Native time/date pickers in admin forms follow your browser's region setting, so they may show 24-hour if your OS is set to a 24-hour locale — that's expected.


What is a Tournament Admin?

You are responsible for managing your assigned tournament(s). You can:

You cannot manage other users' tournaments or create user accounts. Account-level administration is handled outside this guide.

Self-Service Signup, Verification, and Tournament Creation (v0.12.6+)

Signing up via the registration page is fully self-serve — no admin in the loop.

1. Sign up. Pick a plan (Trial or Club), enter your details, accept the terms. We send you a welcome email with a verification link, BCC'd to our support team so we have an audit record.

2. Verify your email. Until you click the verify link, you'll see a yellow banner across the top of every admin page reminding you to verify. The banner also has a Resend email button if you didn't receive the first one (60-second cooldown between resends). Verification links expire after 48 hours; if yours expires before you click it, just sign in and use Resend to get a fresh one.

3. Get full access. Clicking the verify link flips your role from registered to tournament_admin in one step. The banner disappears, and the full toolkit unlocks immediately:

4. Create your first tournament. Your plan determines how many tournaments you can run:

Plan Tournament Limit
Trial 1 (during 7-day trial window)
Pay-Per-Tournament (PPT) 1 per purchase
Club Unlimited (999)

You can start setting up a tournament (categories, teams, fixtures, simple-mode scoring) even before you verify — only the locked features above need verification. The tournament is yours to manage immediately; no waiting on admin approval.


Getting Started

Step 1: Open the App

Open your browser and go to: https://www.baditournie.com

Step 2: Log In

  1. Click Login in the top-right corner
  2. Enter the email and password you used at signup
  3. Click Login

First time here? Click Sign up instead, choose a plan, enter your details, and verify the email we send you. Verification flips your role to Tournament Admin and unlocks the full toolkit (see the Self-Service Signup, Verification, and Tournament Creation section above).

  1. You will see your assigned tournament(s) on the dashboard

Step 3: Open Your Tournament


Managing Your Password

Forgot your password? (v0.14.0+)

If you can't remember your password, you don't need to contact support — you can reset it yourself.

  1. On the Login page, click the Forgot password? link below the password field.
  2. Enter the email address for your account and submit.
  3. For security, you'll always see the same confirmation message — "If an account exists for that address, a reset link has been sent." — whether or not the email matched. This is deliberate, so nobody can use the page to fish for which emails have accounts.
  4. Check your inbox for the reset email and click the link inside. It opens a page where you set a new password.
  5. The link is valid for about 1 hour. If it expires before you use it, just request another one.

No email arriving? Check your spam folder first. The reset email is only sent if our mail service is reachable — if you still see nothing after a few minutes, contact your super admin, who can send you a reset link directly.

Changing your password — the My Account page (v0.14.0+)

Once you're logged in, you can change your password any time from the My Account page.

  1. Open My Account (at /admin/account).
  2. In the Change password section, enter your current password, then your new password twice to confirm it.
  3. Save. Your password is updated immediately.

You'll need your current password to make the change — this stops anyone using an unattended session to lock you out. If you've genuinely forgotten the current one, log out and use the Forgot password? flow above instead.

Changing your password also signs out any password-reset links you'd been sent earlier — they stop working the moment a new password is set.


Understanding the Tournament Admin Page

Your main working page has three key sections:

1. Workflow Stepper (Top Bar)

A progress bar showing where you are in the tournament setup. The standard workflow has 9 steps:

1. Tournament Info → 2. Categories → 3. Teams → 4. Groups → 5. Fixtures →
6. Check-in → 7. Scoring → 8. Knockout → 9. Results

Each step shows one of three icons:

You can click any step to jump directly to it — the stepper never blocks you, but you may see a warning icon if an earlier change would affect downstream data (e.g. regenerating groups when fixtures already exist).

Why is Check-in step 6? Check-in is a day-of-event activity — it belongs after the schedule is committed, not during setup. The action tile still lives in the Operations section (see below), but its position in the linear stepper sits between Fixtures and Scoring.

Alternative: pure-knockout workflow. Bracket-only events can switch to the pure_knockout template (Settings → General → Workflow template). It collapses the flow to Tournament Info → Categories → Teams → Check-in → Knockout → Results — no group stage, no round-robin fixtures.

2. Next Step Card (Below the Stepper)

A highlighted card that tells you:

3. Action Tiles (Below the Card)

Grouped into three collapsible sections:

Section Contains
Setup Categories, Teams, Groups
Competition Fixtures, Scoring, Knockout
Operations Check-in, Timeline, Export, Settings

Each tile shows a status badge — a number or tick showing how many items exist or if the step is complete.

Click the section header to collapse/expand it. Your preference is remembered. When every tile in the Setup section is done, the section auto-collapses to a summary line.


Setting Up Your Tournament (Step by Step)

Step 1: Tournament Info

This is the first card on the workflow stepper — everything else hangs off it. Open the Settings → General tab from the tile and fill in:

While you're in Settings, also check:

Full settings tabs are documented in the Tournament Settings section later in this guide.

Step 2: Add Categories

What are categories? Types of competition — e.g., Men's Doubles, Women's Doubles, Mixed.

  1. Click the Categories tile
  2. Tick the checkboxes for the categories you want (e.g., Men's Doubles, Mixed)
  3. Click Add Selected Categories
  4. Go back to the tournament admin page

Step 3: Add Teams

  1. Click the Teams tile
  2. Click Add Team
  3. Fill in:
    • Team Name — e.g., "Thunder"
    • Category — select from dropdown
    • Player 1 — first player's name
    • Player 2 — second player's name (for doubles)
  4. Click Save Team
  5. Repeat until all teams are added

Need to add many teams at once? Use the Import button to upload a CSV file.

Team registered online? If the tournament is in Registration status, teams can self-register through the public page. You will see them appear here automatically.

Alternative: Open Registration & Random Pairing Draw (v0.9.0+)

For an internal/colleague tournament where you want partners assigned randomly instead of pre-formed teams, use Open Registration & Draw. The flow:

  1. On the Teams page, click Open Registration & Draw (available on the tournament admin role by default).
  2. Pick a category and the maximum number of players (default 32 = 16 doubles pairs).
  3. Click Generate Link. You get a 6-character code (e.g. K7X2QP) and a public URL like https://your-host/register/K7X2QP. Share this with your players via Slack/email/WhatsApp/etc.
  4. Players visit the URL and self-register with their name, email, and (optional) phone. They see a live count of who's already registered (first names only — surnames hidden for privacy).
  5. When you have enough players, click Close Registration. If the count is odd, manually add one more player via the + Add Manually form.
  6. Click Seal & Draw — confirms the pairing is computed server-side and locked. No re-spin allowed once sealed.
  7. You're redirected to the Draw page. Open this on a shared screen (TV, Zoom share). Click Spin to reveal the first pair — the wheel animates and the two players are revealed together with confetti. Click Reveal next pair to continue. Remote viewers can watch live at https://your-host/draw/{code}/watch.
  8. After all pairs are revealed, click Finalise & Create Teams. The system creates one Team per pair (named "FirstA & FirstB", e.g. "Alex & Sam") and you're taken to the Teams page. Teams can then be renamed and used for the rest of the tournament workflow (groups, fixtures, scoring).
After the draw — withdrawals

If a paired player drops out before/during the tournament:

  1. Open the Open Registration page (still reachable from the Teams page CTA).
  2. In the Pairings & Withdrawals table, find the player and click Withdraw.
  3. The team is flagged "Needs substitute" but is not auto-modified — you choose:
    • Substitute the player — go to Team Management, edit the team, replace the withdrawn player with someone else (the team keeps its match history).
    • Mark walkover — go to Fixture Management and mark the team's remaining matches as walkover, awarding wins to opponents.

Why no auto-redraw? Once the tournament is in flight (groups generated, matches scored), redrawing partners would invalidate fixtures and standings. Manual substitution is the safer default.

Step 4: Generate Groups

  1. Click the Groups tile
  2. Click Auto Generate
  3. If you have multiple categories, select which one
  4. Review the group layout in the modal:
    • See which teams are in which group
    • Drag teams between groups if you want to rebalance
  5. Click Approve & Generate

How many groups? The system decides based on team count:

Teams Groups Created
4 1 group of 4
6 2 groups of 3
8 2 groups of 4
12 3 groups of 4
16 4 groups of 4

Step 5: Generate Fixtures

  1. Click the Fixtures tile
  2. Adjust Start Time, Match Duration, Break between rounds, and selected courts in the preview modal — the schedule updates live as you change inputs.
  3. Click Generate Fixtures
  4. The system creates all group-stage matches automatically and schedules them across your courts with time slots. Multi-day tournaments roll matches into the next session when a day's window runs out.

To change a match's court or time after generation:

  1. Open the Fixtures page
  2. Click Edit on the fixture
  3. Change the court number or time
  4. Click Save

Tip — Plan calculator: Before generating, you can sketch the fixture footprint using the Plan tool (/admin/plan). It tells you how many courts and how long the day(s) will run for different team counts, durations, and break lengths — useful when booking the venue. (Trial-locked feature: requires Trial / PPT / Club access.)

About Match Duration and best-of-3 stages (v0.12.17+)

The Match Duration field is the length of a single game, not a single match. The scheduler multiplies it by the number of games configured for each stage in Settings → Scoring:

A per-stage chip strip in the fixture-generation modal shows the resulting slot length per stage so you can see the consequence at a glance ("Group 12m · QF 12m · SF 36m · 3rd 12m · Final 36m"). If you want SF or Final to be single-game, change Games to Single Game under Settings → Scoring for that stage — the scheduler will collapse that stage's slot back to 1×.

This replaces an earlier behaviour where every match — including best-of-3 SF/Final — was booked into the same flat slot, causing published schedules to drift by 30+ minutes once the knockout phase started.

Step 6: Check-in (on tournament day)

Check-in is listed as step 6 on the workflow stepper because it sits between Fixtures committed and Scoring begins — it's a day-of-event activity, not a setup task. See On Tournament Day below for the full check-in workflow (QR scan + manual check-in).

The Check-in action tile is in the Operations section, but the stepper position is between Fixtures and Scoring. That's intentional — the linear stepper reflects when the activity happens; the section grouping reflects what kind of activity it is.

Step 7: Start Scoring

  1. Click the Scoring tile (or click Score on any fixture)
  2. Choose your scoring mode:

Simple Mode (Recommended for most users):

Detailed Mode (Point-by-point):

  1. After saving a score, standings update automatically

Walk-overs

If a team does not show up:

  1. Open the match for scoring
  2. Click Walk Over
  3. Select which team forfeits
  4. The default walk-over score is 21-10 (configurable in Settings → Scoring)
  5. Confirm

Step 8: Generate Knockout Bracket

Once all group matches are completed:

  1. Click the Knockout tile
  2. Click Generate Bracket
  3. Review the bracket:
    • Top teams from each group qualify automatically
    • Seeding is done fairly (1st group A vs 2nd group B, etc.)
  4. Click Approve Bracket
  5. Score knockout matches the same way as group matches

Knockout format:

Scenario Stages
1 group, 4 teams (default) Semi Finals (1st vs 4th, 2nd vs 3rd) → Final + 3rd Place
1 group, 4 teams (alt mode) Quarter Finals → Semi Finals → Final + 3rd Place. Select via Settings → Scoring → Knockout four-team mode.
2+ groups Cross-bracket seeding (1st Group A vs 2nd Group B, etc.). For non-power-of-2 qualifier counts, a Pre-Quarter Finals round is added automatically.

Run 3rd Place play-off in parallel with the Grand Final (v0.12.17+)

By default, the 3rd Place play-off is scheduled on the main court before the Grand Final, so both matches share the same court sequentially. If your tournament has two or more courts, you can run them at the same time on different courts instead — saving roughly one match-slot at the end of the day.

Step 9: Results & Export

This is the final step on the workflow stepper. It marks the tournament as completed for reporting purposes and surfaces the export shortcuts.

  1. Click the Results tile (or Export tile in Operations)
  2. Available downloads:
    • Excel — fixtures, standings, results, teams (separate files)
    • PDF — formatted versions for printing
    • Winner Certificates (PDF) — top-3 podium per category, per-player. Champion + Finalist + Bronze for every category that played a final
    • Participant Certificates (PDF) — every player who played but didn't finish top-3. One cert per player, no win/loss data
    • CSV / ICS — raw data feeds and calendar subscriptions
  3. Click the download link for what you need

About the certificate downloads (v0.12.0+)


Scoring Rules Reference

These are the defaults. Every stage is configurable per tournament via Settings → Scoring.

Stage Games Points to Win Deuce Rule
Round Robin 1 game 21 Yes — need 2-point lead, max 30
Pre-Quarter Finals 1 game 30 No — first to 30 wins
Quarter Finals 1 game 30 No — first to 30 wins
Semi Finals Best of 3 21 each No — first to 21 wins
3rd Place 1 game 30 No — first to 30 wins
Grand Final Best of 3 21 each Yes — need 2-point lead, max 30

When does Pre-Quarter Finals run? Only when the qualifier count from group stage isn't a clean power of 2 (e.g. 6 or 12 qualifiers). The bracket inserts a Pre-QF round so the QF onwards have a clean 8-team / 4-team shape.

What is deuce? When the score reaches 20-20, you need a 2-point lead to win (e.g., 22-20, 23-21). If it reaches 29-29, the next point wins (30-29).

What's configurable in Settings → Scoring?

Tiebreaker order (when teams in a group have equal wins):

  1. Points Difference (points scored minus points conceded)
  2. Head-to-Head result (who won when they played each other)
  3. Total Points Scored

Tournament Settings

Settings are split across seven tabs at Tournament → Settings. Each tab has its own form and its own Save button — changes on one tab don't depend on another.

Tab What it controls
General Tournament name, date(s), venue, organiser contacts, status, Tournament Director (cert signatory), workflow template (standard vs pure_knockout).
Schedule Default start time, match duration, break between rounds, courts list, and per-day sessions for multi-day tournaments (see below).
Scoring Points / deuce / games for every stage (Round Robin, Pre-QF, QF, SF, 3rd Place, Final). Final games toggle. Knockout four-team mode.
Notifications Match reminders, score updates, result announcements, knockout-qualification alerts. (Feature-flagged — may not be visible on every role.)
Branding Primary/secondary colour, theme (light/dark), logo URL. (Feature-flagged.)
Payment Entry fee + currency. Currency defaults to AUD (A$); other options are GBP, USD, EUR, INR. Set fee to 0.00 to disable Stripe payments.
Danger Zone Reset all scores, delete the tournament. Confirmation required.

The Notifications and Branding tabs are optional and may not appear in every account — they are enabled per-role via feature flags.


Multi-day Tournaments

For events that span more than one day:

  1. Open Settings → General and set both Start date and End date (e.g. 14-Mar-2026 → 16-Mar-2026).
  2. Open Settings → Schedule and use the Day editor to define one or more sessions. Each session is a single day with its own start time and end time:
    • Tick Enabled for days you want matches scheduled.
    • Untick Enabled to skip a day (rest day, holiday).
    • Add a new day row with the + Add day button.
  3. When you Generate Fixtures, the scheduler distributes matches across enabled sessions in order. Knockout stages (SF, Final, 3rd Place) also respect the session window — if there isn't time left in a session, the next match rolls to the next enabled day.
  4. If you don't define any sessions, the scheduler synthesises a single session from the tournament's start date and the global Start time field — effectively single-day behaviour.

Multi-day is a paid feature, available on Club and PPT plans.


Running a Club (v0.13.0+)

The Club plan gives your organisation a branded home of its own. Instead of running one-off tournaments at the standard app address, a Club gets a permanent web address like www.baditournie.com/c/acme-badminton/ — a public landing page that lists all of your tournaments, your own colours and logo on every public page, and the ability to invite co-admins and scorers by email yourself, without going through our support team.

Trial and Pay-Per-Tournament organisers don't have a Club and don't need one — everything below applies only if you are on the Club plan. If you're on Trial or PPT, nothing in this section changes how you work.

Getting on the Club plan

There are two ways to start a Club:

Sign up directly on the Club plan. On the sign-up page, choose Club as your plan. You'll be asked for one extra detail — your club name (e.g. "Acme Badminton Club"). Finish signing up, verify your email, and complete the subscription payment. As soon as the payment succeeds, you're taken to the one-time Club setup screen (below).

Upgrade an existing account. Already running tournaments on Trial or PPT? Click an Upgrade prompt (or open your billing page), pick the Club plan, and pay. After payment you go to the same Club setup screen. Your existing tournaments are automatically moved under your new Club — you don't lose anything, and the links you've already shared keep working (they simply redirect to your new branded address).

The one-time Club setup screen — choosing your address

Right after your first successful Club payment, you'll see the Club setup screen. You can't skip it — you must finish it before reaching your admin pages.

It asks for two things:

  1. Club name. If you signed up directly on the Club plan, this is already filled in from your sign-up. If you upgraded from Trial or PPT, the field is empty — type your club name here.
  2. Your permanent web address (the "slug"). This is the acme-badminton part of www.baditournie.com/c/acme-badminton/. The screen suggests a few options based on your club name — pick one or type your own.

Choose carefully — the address is permanent. Once you save it, you cannot change your club address yourself. The confirm button reads "Save permanently" on purpose. If you ever genuinely need it changed, contact support. Address rules: 3–32 characters, lowercase letters, numbers and hyphens only, and it can't be a word the platform reserves (like admin or login). The form checks availability as you type.

Once you save, you land on your Club admin home at www.baditournie.com/c/{your-slug}/admin. From now on, all of your admin and public pages live under that address. If you visit the old /admin address out of habit, the app redirects you to your Club address automatically.

The Club settings pages

Inside your Club, Settings has three Club-specific pages alongside the usual per-tournament tabs:

Page What it controls
Settings → Club Your club name and general club-wide details.
Settings → Branding Your public-page colours, logo, header tagline, and the "Powered by BadiTournie" footer toggle.
Settings → Members Your co-admins and scorers, and pending email invitations.

Branding your public pages

The Branding page lets you put your own identity on every public page your spectators see — your Club landing page, tournament pages, standings, fixtures, and brackets. You can set:

A few notes:

Branding is a Club-only feature. It is reached only from inside your Club's settings.

What your public landing page looks like (v0.16.0+)

Your Club landing at www.baditournie.com/c/{your-slug}/ is the page most spectators see first. Since v0.16.0 it lays itself out automatically based on what's happening:

Below the hero, the page shows your About text and contact line (if you set them), an Upcoming grid with auto-generated cover art for each tournament (your brand colour + the tournament's initials — no upload needed), a Recent Champions list of the last five winners across your past tournaments, and a compact Past Tournaments list. A Share button in the hero lets visitors copy or share your Club URL.

Inside each tournament's pages (fixtures, standings, bracket, teams), spectators see your Club name and logo above the tournament name, the Club's accent colour applied to highlights, and an Other tournaments by {your Club} rail at the bottom — so people exploring one tournament discover your other ones too.

You don't configure any of this — it's all driven by your Branding settings and the tournaments you create. Once Branding is filled in, the public pages take care of themselves.

Inviting co-admins and scorers

On the Club plan you can bring in helpers yourself — no need to ask support. Open Settings → Members and use the invitation form.

To send an invitation:

  1. Enter the person's email address.
  2. Choose their role:
    • Admin — can manage every tournament, team, and fixture in your Club.
    • Scorer — can enter scores for the matches you assign them.
  3. Optionally add a short personal message — it's included in the email.
  4. Send the invitation.

The person receives an email from BadiTournie inviting them to join your Club. The invitation link is valid for 7 days. When they click it:

Either way, once they accept they land in your Club admin with the role you chose.

Invitation limit. A Club can send up to 25 invitations per day. Resending a previous invitation counts toward that limit. This is plenty for normal use — it just prevents accidental or abusive bulk sending.

You can see pending invitations on the Members page, and revoke any that haven't been accepted yet.

Assigning a scorer to matches

Inviting a scorer is only half the job. A scorer sees nothing until you tell the app which matches they're allowed to score — so once they've accepted the invitation, assign them their matches from the Members page.

  1. On the Members page, find the scorer's row and click Matches.
  2. A panel opens listing every tournament your Club runs. For each tournament, choose one of:
    • Not assigned — the scorer can't see this tournament at all.
    • All matches — the scorer can score every match in it.
    • Specific matches — tick exactly which matches they should score. This is handy when two scorers split one tournament by court.
  3. Click Save assignments.

The scorer immediately sees only the matches you picked and can start scoring them — you don't need to involve support. Come back and change a scorer's assignments whenever you like; the Members page shows how many tournaments each scorer is currently assigned to.

Note: "Specific matches" is only available once a tournament has fixtures. If it's greyed out, generate the fixtures first (see Step 5: Generate Fixtures), then come back and assign.

Belonging to more than one Club

You might be a member of several Clubs — for example, you own your own Club but also help run someone else's. When that happens:

If you belong to just one Club (the common case), you never see the chooser — you always land directly in your Club.


On Tournament Day

Check-in Teams

  1. Click the Check-in tile (in Operations section)
  2. Allow camera access
  3. Scan each team's QR code as they arrive
  4. The team is marked as "Checked In"

No QR code? You can manually check in teams from the Teams page.

Set Up Court Displays

For projectors or TVs showing live scores:

  1. On a separate computer/tablet connected to the display, open: /court/1
  2. Change the number for each court (/court/2, /court/3, etc.)
  3. Press F11 for full-screen mode
  4. Scores update automatically — no need to refresh

Monitor Live Matches

On your Tournament Admin page:


Important Warnings

Some actions can affect existing data. The app will always warn you with a confirmation dialog before proceeding.

Action What Happens Warning?
Edit team name Safe — names update everywhere automatically No
Edit fixture time/court Safe — no data loss No
Regenerate groups Existing fixtures become orphaned Yes — dialog shows impact
Regenerate fixtures All scored matches are deleted Yes — dialog shows count of affected matches
Delete a team with fixtures Fixtures show "TBD" for that team Yes — dialog shows count
Regenerate knockout Previous knockout bracket is replaced Yes

Safe to do anytime: Edit team names, edit fixture times, add new teams, change settings.


Common Questions

Q: Can I change a score after saving it? Yes. Click on the completed match and edit the score. Standings will recalculate.

Q: Can I add a team after fixtures are generated? Yes, but you will need to regenerate fixtures for that category. This will delete existing scores for that category.

Q: What if the standings look wrong? Go to the Scoring page and click Recalculate Standings. This rebuilds standings from all recorded scores.

Q: Can I print the fixtures? Yes. Go to Export and download the Fixtures PDF or Excel file.

Q: What if I accidentally delete something? Groups and fixtures can be regenerated. Scores cannot be recovered once deleted — be careful with the "Regenerate Fixtures" action.

Q: How do I see the public view of my tournament? Click the View Public link on the Tournament Admin page (only available when status is Registration or Active, not Draft).


Quick Reference

What Where
App URL https://www.baditournie.com
Login Click Login top-right
Sign in Email + password from signup
Tournament Admin page Click Manage on your tournament
Court Display /court/1, /court/2, etc.

If you encounter any issues, please note the steps you took and what you expected to happen, then share with the support team at support@baditournie.com.