Frequently Asked Questions

• What is ScoreKeep?
  ScoreKeep is a web-based scoring and leaderboard platform designed for competitions and events of all types. It provides real-time results, flexible scoring logic, and easy competitor management.
• What led you to develop ScoreKeep?
  Manual scoring methods can actually be really difficult! Especially with complex scoring rules and multiple simultaneous competitions. If there is a need to roll up rankings across multiple competitions into things like best overall competitor / grand champion / best organization / best agency, manual methods become complex and error prone.
  
  Add in the need to display real-time leaderboards and results, and it's incredibly difficult to do without a dedicated system.
• Why not just use a spreadsheet? That seems pretty simple.
  That's actually how this all got started! I was helping an organization who used spreadsheets to manage scoring for their competitions, and quickly discovered the difficulties and limitations of spreadsheet scoring:

  • Creating / updating scoring formulas requires technical proficiency.
  • Creating leaderboard sheets that automatically populate and sort from the score entry sheets is pretty hard.
  • Sharing and securing access to the score sheets between multiple scorekeepers from different organizations is a challenge.
  • There are certainly ways to do it; using VBA / Macros, or Power Automate to trigger Office Scripting. Pivot tables to roll up scores from multiple leaderboard sheets? Google Sheets? Maybe even some web pages with iframes to the embed link of an Excel doc stored in SharePoint online, with some JSON sprinkled in to specify the cell ranges to be displayed and which tabs to show?
    
    It kinda works, but you have to make sure everyone who visits the site permits 3rd party cookies from [*.]microsoftonline.com. It's a lot of work, and the end result is still really clunky, FRAGILE and difficult to use.
  • As scoring rules and events change, formulas need to be updated, and the person who created the spreadsheet isn't available anymore and it's pretty hard to reverse engineer what they were doing.
    • When did you say the competition was? Oh, it's next Tuesday? And you need to update the scoring rules to match what was published in the announcement? And you need to create a new leaderboard for the new competition? And you said Ralph isn't available to show us how he set up the spreadsheet?
      
      We might just have to use paper scoring forms and a calculator...
  • Hey! Wouldn't it be cool if we could display this on a bunch of screens / give spectators a QR code to access the leaderboards?
• What about other solutions? Did you look at what else was out there before developing your own app?
  Experiencing the pain that comes with manual and spreadsheet based scoring led me to look for existing / off the shelf solutions.
  
  What I found was that most were either too simple to handle the complexity of real-world events, or they were extremely complex (and expensive!) commercial systems designed for high-budget professional competitions.
  
  So there was this gap between what was available for free but too simple to be useful, and commercially available systems that are too complex and expensive for most events.
  
  This is where ScoreKeep fits in. It provides a flexible, easy-to-use platform that can handle complex scoring rules and multiple competitions without the overhead of enterprise systems.
• Who can use ScoreKeep?
  ScoreKeep is ideal for event organizers, and anyone running competitions that require transparent, fair scoring with live leaderboards.
  
  If you are scoring the Olympic games or the NCAA championship, you might need something more specialized than ScoreKeep. If you only have a single competition with very simple scoring rules, you might be able to get away with using a spreadsheet or a freeware online leaderboard type deal.
  
  But if you have multiple competitions, complex scoring rules, or need to roll up rankings across multiple competitions, ScoreKeep is designed for you.
  
  
• Does ScoreKeep support both individual and team scoring?
  Yes, ScoreKeep supports both individual and team-based scoring, and excels at handling multiple competitions simultaneously.
• Can I customize the scoring rules?
  Absolutely! ScoreKeep allows you to define custom scoring rules, including time-based, points-based, penalties, bonuses, and more.
• Is ScoreKeep mobile friendly?
  Yes, ScoreKeep is designed to work seamlessly on laptops, tablets, and event display screens. The leaderboards work pretty well on mobile smartphones too, the score entry forms do best on a laptop or tablet though.
• Can ScoreKeep run offline?
  ScoreKeep currently requires an active Internet connection to function. An offline version could be created but isn't curently available.

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Scorekeep is currently in Beta, and has not yet been opened up for general public access. If you are interested in using ScoreKeep, email [email protected] and we can discuss your needs, see if ScoreKeep is a good fit for you, and may be able to give you beta access.