EHM The Blue Line

We have written this guide for new researchers in order to help them get started with research for the TBL Rosters. It may also be helpful for people who are thinking of volunteering to be a researcher as it will give an idea as to what is involved.

We have tried to keep this guide as brief as possible so that it is easy to follow (but we have included plenty of examples - they look fairly long, but it is because there are lots of step-by-step screenshots). The purpose of this guide is to show from start to finish how to undertake the research. This guide is not intended to explain how to rate players, etc. We have separate guides in the Research Forum relating to rating players, current ability ranges, etc (the Research Forum is only accessible to researchers).

This guide has been split into the following sections to help make it easier to read and refer to:

1. What you will need
2. Reviewing what is already in the database
3. Creating the research spreadsheet templates
4. Entering your research into the spreadsheet templates
--- 4.2 Examples: Players and non-players (Staff.xlsx)
--- 4.3 Examples: Clubs (Club.xlsx)
5. Checking for errors/mistakes
6. Submitting your research spreadsheets

NOTE 1: You can click on any of the screenshots in this guide in order to view a larger version.

NOTE 2: It is likely that some of the Editor screens are subject to change whilst the Editor remains a work in progress. However, the screens should remain materially the same as those in the screenshots. I will update the screenshots in the event any screens change materially.

1. What you will need

You will need the following in order to start researching:

1.1 A copy of the latest TBL Rosters
Your research should be based on the most recent release of the TBL Rosters. There are two ways of locating a copy of this:

1. download the standalone database from the Research Forum; or

2. subscribe to the TBL Rosters on the Steam Workshop. You will find the database files in your Steam Content folder, such as: C:\Program Files (x86)\Steam\steamapps\workshop\content\[String of numbers].


1.2 The EHM Editor by Archibalduk
You will need a copy of the Editor in order to:

1. see what is already in the database (i.e. so that you can see what changes you need to make);

2. create the spreadsheet templates into which you will enter your research; and

3. check your research for errors/mistakes.

You can download the Editor HERE. Installation is simple; just unzip it to a folder of your choice.

NOTE: When running the Editor, we recommend using 'Run as Administrator' in order to avoid any issues loading or saving the database.


1.3 Spreadsheet software
You will need some spreadsheet software in order to edit the research spreadsheets. We recommend using Microsoft Excel because it is easy to use. If you do not have Excel then we recommend LibreOffice (it is free of charge). Apache OpenOffice is another free alternative but it is generally not as advanced as LibreOffice and it is not frequently updated. There has been suggestion by the developers that OpenOffice might cease development.


1.4 A willingness to check your research for any errors
This is a really important requirement. You must check your research for errors before you submit it to Manimal. See section 5 ("Checking for errors/mistakes") for more details.


1.5 Knowledge of the league(s) you are researching (Optional)
Why is this optional? There is little need to have knowledge of the league(s) you are researching if you are simply researching factual data such as transactions, histories and records. You will, however, need some knowledge of the league(s) you are researching if you are researching non-factual data such as rating players and non-players.

2. Reviewing what is already in the database

As a starting point, you will need to see what is already in the database so that you can identify what needs to be changed or updated. There are two ways of doing this:

2.1 Browsing the data in the Editor
To load the database in the Editor:

1. Load the Editor (double-click on 'EHM Editor.exe'; and

2. Click on File -> Open Database and select the TBL Rosters. The database will take approximately 8 to 10 seconds to load, depending on the speed of your computer.

The Editor has various tabs in the menu running along the top of the screen (Clubs, Competitions, Geography, Miscellaneous and People). If you browse through these tabs, you will find various buttons which allow you to view the data in the database. For instance, click on People -> Players & Staff to view all of the players and non-players in the database. The data can be filtered by clicking on the Filter icon located in the bottom left corner of the Editor window. For example, you can filter just the players contracted to a particular league.






2.2 Exporting and viewing spreadsheets of existing data
Whilst browsing the data in the Editor is useful, it is usually easier to export the data to a spreadsheet so that you can view lots of records at the same time. To export spreadsheets, click on File -> Export Spreadsheet in the Editor (assuming you have first opened a database in the Editor).

The Export Spreadsheet screen includes a number of useful options as follows:

1. Filter by club competition: Allows you to export data which relates only to the selected club competition(s);

2. Filter by nation: Allows you to export data which relates only to the selected nation(s)/nationality(ies); and

3. Export as a research sheet: I recommend ticking this box if it is available for your selected spreadsheet (for some spreadsheets, this option is not available). When this setting is selected, the Editor will generate a spreadsheet which is identical to the corresponding Importer spreadsheet format. This means it is easy to re-import parts of the spreadsheet at a later time.

To choose which club competitions and/or nations to filter by, click on the Add Item buttons in the corresponding sections of the screen.



Here are a couple of examples to show how to use Export Spreadsheet screen:


EXAMPLE #1: Exporting a spreadsheet of players and non-players (a single league)
Let's say you are researching the Swiss National League A (the "NLA") and you want to see what players and non-players are currently playing for the NLA teams. Here is how you can do this:

1. Click on File -> Export Spreadsheet;

2. Select Players & Non-Players from the navigation list down the left-hand side of the screen;

3. Tick the Filter by club competitions setting and then click on the Add Item button located below the Club Competition Filter section. A pop-up window will appear; locate the NLA in the list and double-click on it. This will add the NLA to the Club Competition Filter. You could of course add more leagues to this filter by repeatedly clicking on the Add Item button;

4. Un-tick the Filter by nation setting;

5. Tick the Export as a research sheet setting; and

6. Click on the Export Data button. This will then prompt you to select a location for saving your spreadsheet. If you are exporting a small amount of data, use XLSX format. If you are not sure, use CSV or XML. At the time of writing (EHM Editor v0.2.5) the Editor's ability to export XLSX is unstable with larger amounts of data (it will crash).




EXAMPLE #2: Exporting a spreadsheet of players and non-players (a single league and a nationality)
Let's say you wanted to include all players and non-players with Swiss nationality regardless of where they play as well as all NLA players and non-players. Here is how you can do this:

1. Follow steps 1-3 of Example #1 above;

2. Tick the Filter by nation setting and then click on the Add Item button located below the Nation Filter section. A pop-up window will appear; locate Switzerland in the list and double-click on it. This will add Switzerland to the Nation Filter. You could of course add more nationalities to this filter by repeatedly clicking on the Add Item button; and

3. Follow steps 5-6 of Example #1 above.




EXAMPLE #3: Exporting a spreadsheet of clubs (a single league)
Following on from the Swiss theme, let's say you want to check all if the NLA club data as part of your research. For instance, perhaps some of the names or club colours need updating. Here is how you can do this:

1. Click on File -> Export Spreadsheet;

2. Select Clubs from the navigation list down the left-hand side of the screen;

3. Tick the Filter by club competitions setting and then click on the Add Item button located below the Club Competition Filter section. A pop-up window will appear; locate the NLA in the list and double-click on it. This will add the NLA to the Club Competition Filter. You could of course add more leagues to this filter by repeatedly clicking on the Add Item button;

4. Un-tick the Filter by nation setting;

5. Tick the Export as a research sheet setting; and

6. Click on the Export Data button. This will then prompt you to select a location for saving your spreadsheet. If you are exporting a small amount of data, use XLSX format. If you are not sure, use CSV or XML. At the time of writing (EHM Editor v0.2.5) the Editor's ability to export XLSX is unstable with larger amounts of data (it will crash).




EXAMPLE #4: Exporting a spreadsheet of clubs (a single league and two nations)
Let's say you wanted to include all Swiss and Austrian clubs from any league in your spreadsheet. Here is how you can do this:

1. Follow steps 1-3 of Example #3 above. It probably is unnecessary to include the NLA in the Club Competition Filter because all NLA clubs ought to have Swiss nationality. However, I recommend you include the NLA just in case a club does not have its nationality correctly set;

2. Tick the Filter by nation setting and then click on the Add Item button located below the Nation Filter section. A pop-up window will appear; locate Switzerland in the list and double-click on it. This will add Switzerland to the Nation Filter. Click on the Add Item button again and select Austria. You could of course add more nationalities to this filter by repeatedly clicking on the Add Item button; and

3. Follow steps 5-6 of Example #3 above.

3. Creating the research spreadsheet templates

The import function in the Editor (also known as the Importer) uses specific forms of spreadsheet only. For this reason, it is important that you only use the form of templates accepted by the Importer. Creating the spreadsheets is very easy:

1. Load the Editor (double-click on 'EHM Editor.exe';

2. Click on File -> Import Spreadsheet. Note that there is no need to load a database for the purpose of simply creating the spreadsheet templates;

3. Next to the Create Templates button there are various selection buttons entitled "CSV", "XLSX" and "XML". Provided you are researching a relatively small amount of data (i.e. less than 1,500 items) then I recommend using XLSX. If you are researching a larger amount of data, you can still use XLSX but note that you may need to later save your completed file as CSV as the Editor is currently unstable with high volumes of data in XLSX format (as at EHM Editor v0.2.5); and

4. Click on the Create Templates button. You will be prompted to save the templates to a folder. I suggest using an empty folder as there are a number of template spreadsheets.

You now have the template spreadsheets which you can complete with your research. Once you have completed your research, the templates can be imported into the database using the Importer function in the Editor. This is detailed later in this guide.

4. Entering your research into the spreadsheet templates

Now that we have the Templates, we are ready to start entering our research. I think that the easiest way to explain how to complete the Templates is to show some examples. Before we look at some examples, let's look at the general features of the Templates.

*** PLEASE DO NOT USE THE SMART UPDATE TEMPLATE WITHOUT THE PRIOR AGREEMENT OF MANIMAL ***


4.1 General features

4.1.1 Identifier
Let's take a look at the Staff.xlsx Template (the "Staff Template"). This Template is used for entering any player and non-player research such as transactions, contract data, bio data and ratings. The blank Template has two header rows like this:



Cell A1 of each Template includes identifier text. This tells the Importer what type of Template it is. Do not change or delete this cell as you will otherwise encounter an error when importing the Template back into the Importer. If there is no identifier at Cell A1 then the spreadsheet is not a valid Template and cannot be imported using the Importer.


4.1.2 Settings
Certain Templates, such as the Staff Template, include certain settings after the identifier at Cells B1, C1, etc. The Staff Template includes two such settings:



The "dmy" setting indicates the date format used in the Template (i.e. European date format). You can change this to "mdy" (American date format) or "ymd" (Japanese date format) if you prefer to use another date format in the Spreadsheet.

The "metric" setting indicates that heights and weights are to be entered as centimetres and kilograms. You can change this to "imperial" if you prefer to use inches and pounds.


4.1.3 Row headings
Row 2 of each Template contains the row headings and indicate what data should be entered in each column. These cannot be re-arranged and must remain in exactly the same order.


4.1.4 Mode
Many of the Templates, such as the Staff Template, have a "Mode" column at Column A (see Cell A2). This allows you to tell the Importer whether each row you enter is intended to (1) be added as a new item, (2) edit an existing item or (3) delete an existing item. The screenshot below shows how this works:



In summary, there are three possible Mode settings:

1. A or Add = Add;

2. E or Edit = Edit; and

3. D or Del or _retire = Delete/Retire (in the case of the Staff Template, this means that the player or non-player will be retired).

Only a few Templates currently support the Delete mode.

Each Template as a letter in brackets after the word "Mode" at Cell A2. For example, the Staff Template Mode heading is "Mode (e)". This indicates the default mode in the event the Mode cell is left blank for any row. In the case of the Staff Template, "Mode (e)" means that the Mode will default to Edit in the event any Mode cell is left blank.

Some Templates, such as the Affiliations Template, do not have a Mode column. This is because the Editor can automatically determine whether data should be added, edited or deleted based on what you enter.


4.1.5 Case sensitivity and dates

It is important to note that all text entered in the Templates is case insensitive. It does not matter whether you use upper case or lower case text (or any combination). The only time that upper/lower case is important is when you are creating a new player/club/league/etc because the Importer will use the name exactly as you enter it.

Dates must be entered using four digits for the year. It does not matter whether you enter one or two digits for the day any month. For example, any of the following are valid: 02.04.1991, 2.4.1991, 02.4.1991 and 2.04.1991.

4.2 Examples: Players and non-players (Staff.xlsx)

For some, the Templates might be immediately obvious. For others, it might be a bit confusing. Hopefully a few examples will show how easy the Templates are to use. Each of the examples below follow on from one another - so I recommend reading them in order.


EXAMPLE #4.2.1: Moving some personnel, updating contracts, changing jobs and adding new/missing personnel
For the purposes of this example, let's say you are researching the Swiss MySports League (the "SRL"). The SRL is the third tier of the Swiss hockey league, sitting below the Swiss National League B and above the Swiss 1. Liga. Let's assume that you have exported a players and non-players research spreadsheet for the SRL by following the examples at 2.2 above ("Exporting and viewing spreadsheets of existing data").

One of the teams in the SRL is EHC Chur ("Chur"). Having taken a look at how Chur's rosters appear in database (using the Editor and exporting the spreadsheets), you might have decided that the following changes are needed in order to bring Chur up to date:

• Marco Capaul is currently on Chur's roster but in fact he retired in 2007. He needs to be retired;
• Dario Gartmann should be moved from Chur to Pikes Oberthurgau and his contract should expire on 30.04.2018;
• Lukas Sieber's contract with Chur needs to be extended to 30.04.2018;
• Gerhard Schneller is no longer a player for Chur. He is now a coach for Chur. So his Classification and Job need to change;
• Remo Rüfenacht's first name should be changed to "Rodney" and his date of birth should be changed to 15.03.1974 (not true; but just for the sake of an example); and
• Laurin Curschellas is missing from the TBL Rosters and needs to be created. He is contracted to Chur but is currently playing for Chur U-20. His contract expiry should be 30.04.2019. NOTE: We should never create a new player without at least setting his Position, Current Ability and Potential Ability (I will deal with this in Example #4.2.2 below)[/b]

The first task is to enter the name and date of birth of each person in the Staff Template. The name and date of birth must be exactly the same as how it appears in the database (but you do not have to include accents if you do not want to). This tells the Importer which personnel you want to edit/retire. In the case of Laurin Curschellas, it tells the Importer the name and date of birth of the person you want to create. So the spreadsheet will look like this:



Now let's take each person one by one:

1. Marco Capaul needs to be retired. This is easy. Just enter "d" in the Mode cell. Alternatively, you can enter "_retire" in the Club Contracted cell - whichever approach you prefer.



2a. To move Dario Gartmann, enter "Pikes Oberthurgau" in the Club Contracted cell. This will assign him to his new team. It is important that the club's name is entered exactly as it appears in the database otherwise the Importer will not be able to find the club. As the Staff Template defaults to the Edit mode (per the "Mode (e)") heading, there is no need to enter "e" in Gartmann's Mode cell (but you can if you like).

2b. To set Dario Gartmann's contract expiry to 30.04.2018, enter this date in the Contract Expiry cell.



3. To set Lukas Sieber's contract expiry to 30.04.2018, enter this date in the Contract Expiry cell. As the Staff Template defaults to the Edit mode (per the "Mode (e)") heading, there is no need to enter "e" in Sieber's Mode cell (but you can if you like).



4. To change Gerhard Schneller from a player to a coach, we need to set his Classification to "Non-Player" and his Job For Club to "Coach". Simply enter each of these into the Classification and Job For Club cells. As the Staff Template defaults to the Edit mode (per the "Mode (e)") heading, there is no need to enter "e" in Schneller's Mode cell (but you can if you like).



5. To change the first name and date of birth of Remo Rüfenacht, use the New First Name and New Date of Birth cells at Columns AA and AC. NOTE: The name and date of birth cells at Columns B-D must always have the person's name and date of birth as they currently appear in the database (this is how the Importer matches up what is in the Template with what is in the database). Columns AA-AC are used to make any changes to names and dates of birth.



6a. To create Laurin Curschellas, first enter "a" in the Mode cell in order to indicate that you want to add/create this player. Then enter his name and date of birth in the First Name, Second Name and Date of Birth cells. We must also set his Classification and Job For Club otherwise he will be an invalid person. Enter "Player" in the Classification and Job For Club columns (I will explain in Example #4.2.2 how to use the "common" folder to ascertain what text can be entered into columns such as the Classification and Job For Club columns).

6b. Let's add some basic biographical data for Curschellas: He was born in the town of Chur, Switzerland, is Swiss national, is 171 cm tall and weighs 59 kg:

6b(i). Nations can be entered using their three letter abbreviations, short names or long names. You can find a nation's name via the Geography -> Nations screen in the Editor. To make Curschellas a Swiss national, enter either "SUI" or "Switzerland" in the Nationality 1 cell. If he had a second nationality, this could be entered in the Nationality 2 cell.

6b(ii). Cities are entered into the Templates in the following format: CITY:STATE:COUNTRY (Canadian and US cities) or CITY:COUNTRY (cities outside of North America). Again, you use the abbreviation, short name or long name of a nation. State/province names should be entered using their two letter abbreviation (e.g. ON = Ontario). You can find whether a city exists via the Geography -> Cities screen in the Editor. Chur is in the database as a city. Therefore you should enter "Chur:SUI" or "Chur:Switzerland" in the Birth City cell.

6b(iii). Scroll along to Columns BD and BE and you will find the Height and Weight cells. Enter 171 and 59 into these cells respectively.

6c. To move Laurin Curschellas, enter "EHC Chur" in the Club Contracted cell. We want him to appear on the U-20 roster and so we will need to enter "EHC Chur Jr" into the Club Playing For cell (in this instance, EHC Chur Jr is the U-20 team - you should always check that you are moving a person to the correct junior team).

6d. To set Laurin Curschellas' contract expiry to 30.04.2019, enter this date in the Contract Expiry cell.



NOTE: The red line in the screenshot above is simply to highlight that various of the columns have been hidden in order to fit everything into the screenshot.


EXAMPLE #4.2.2: Setting some ratings
As mentioned in Example #4.1.1, you should never create a new player without at least setting his Position, Current Ability and Potential Ability. I thought it would be easier to cover this in a separate example because certain attributes/ratings involve text rather than numbers. Before entering any text attributes we will first need to see what the options are.

So let's return to the template we used in Example #4.1.1 and set some attributes for Laurin Curschellas. What I describe below applies equally to any player you want to edit. If he already exists in the database, just enter this name and date of birth in the First Name, Second Name and Date of Birth cells and then enter the chosen attributes in the relevant cells (e.g. enter the new Currrent Ability rating in the Current Ability cell.

1. Let's assume Curschellas is a left defenceman but he can also play a second position on the left wing. A player's primary position is always rated at 20 and any secondary positions are rated less than 20 (no player should ever have more than one position rated at 20). Perhaps he is not a particularly strong left winger, so we'll assign him a 13 rating for LW. Locate the LD and LW cells in the Staff Template and enter 20 and 13 respectively. We can leave the other positional cells blank - the Importer will use use default values for any new player where a cell is left blank. When editing an existing player, any blank cell will be ignored (i.e. his existing in the database will remain untouched).



2. Let's give Curschellas a Current Ability of 40 and a Potential Ability of -5. He is yet to make it into the Chur team but he has the potential to be a good NLA player (I am making this up; it is just for the sake of an example). So enter 40 and -5 in his Current Ability and Potential Ability cells.



3. Now we want to give him a Player Role. This is something that was introduced with EHM 1 and it is intended to help ensure that a player has an appropriate set of strengths and weaknesses based on his Current Ability and his Role. A Player Role is entered in the Player Role cell. This is one of the text attributes I mentioned a littl earlier. We need to know what possible options can be entered into this cell. There are two ways:

(a) One way is to go into the Editor and look at any player via the People -> Players & Staff screen. On the Player Details sub-screen you will find the Player Role drop-down menu. Click on the menu and you will see all of the possible text options.



(b) Looking at the menu mentioned at (a) above is fine, but a lot of the text options are rather lengthy (e.g. "Centre: Defensive (Finesse)"). Many text attributes contain alternative abbreviated forms. To find these, go to the installation folder of the Editor (i.e. the folder where your EHM Editor.exe is located). You will see there is a sub-folder called "common. Go into this sub-folder and you will find a number of text files. These text files contain lists of all of the possible text attributes.



Assuming you follow (b) above, find the "player_role.txt" file in your "common" folder. Ignore the numbers and commas that are listed in the file; we are just interested in the text. For the sake of argument, let's say we want to set Curschellas as a Defenceman Playmaker. Scrolling through the "player_role.txt" you will find two options: (1) "Defenceman: Playmaker" and (2) "d_playmaker". You can tell that these mean the same thing because in each case, the text in the "player_role.txt" file is preceeded by the same numerical value.



To save ourselves some typing, let's enter "d_playmaker" in the Player Role cell.

4. We also need to set the stick-side (i.e. handedness) of Curschellas. This is another text attribute. So we can look in the handedness.txt file to find the possible options.

Let's enter "L" in the Shoots/Catches cell to make him left-handed.

4.3 Examples: Clubs (Club.xlsx)

EXAMPLE #4.3.1: Editing existing clubs
As with the Staff Template examples, let's say you are researching the Swiss MySports League (the "SRL"). Let's also assume that you have exported a clubs research spreadsheet for the SRL by following the examples at 2.2 above ("Exporting and viewing spreadsheets of existing data").

Having checked what is already in the database using the Editor and your research sheet, you have ascertained that the following changes need to be made:

• HC Düdingen Bulls need to be relegated to the Swiss 1. Liga;
• Star-Forward HC's home colours need updating; and
• EHC Thun need to be renamed to reflect a change of name.

The first task is to enter the full team name of each team in the Long Name cell (see column B). This name must match what is in the database in order to allow the Importer to determine which clubs you want to edit. As mentioned above, it does not matter if you do not include any accents or whether you use upper case or lower case (or mixed case).



Now let's take each club one by one:

1. To move HC Düdingen Bulls to their new league, enter "Swiss First Division" (this is how the league is listed in the database) into League and Detailed Division cells at Columns G and H (Detailed Division should be set to the same league as the League unless the league has divisions - in which case, the division would be assigned to Detailed Division). We should also enter "Swiss MySports League" into the "Last Division cell (Column J) as this cell is used to keep track of the team's last league.



2. Star-Forward HC currently have black and home red colours in the database. Let's change this to a blue background with a black foreground and white trim. We will need to know the exact colour names to enter into the Template. The easiest way to do this is to load the database in the Editor and go to the Miscellaneous -> Colours screen. Here you will find a list of all of the colour names and their corresponding shades. Some of the colour names have the "TM" trade mark symbol - you can ignore this symbol when entering the colours.



Let's enter "Black", "NHL Thrashers Blue" and "White" into the Foreground, Background and Trim cells at Columns AF-AH (Home Colours).



3. For the sake of an example, let's say EHC Thun are now called "EHC Thun Thunder"(!!!). Enter "EHC Thun Thunder" and "Thunder" into the New Long Name and Nickname cells.



It might seem a little inconsistent that there is a New Long Name cells but not a New Nickname. This is because the Long Name cell (Column B) is used to identify the club you want to edit in the database and so it must match the existing name in the database. The New Long Name cell is used where you want to edit a team's long name. The other cells such as Short Name, Nickname and Abbreviation can be edited like any other cell. Hence it is just the Long Name cell which is special/slightly different.

NOTE: As with the Staff Template, the Club Template defaults to the Edit mode (per the "Mode (e)") heading, there is no need to enter "e" in any of the above Mode cells (but you can if you like).


EXAMPLE #4.3.2: Adding a new club
The database is missing EHC Bern U17 (their nickname is the Futures) from the Swiss Elite Novizen League. Let's add them to the database using the Template. We will use the same spreadsheet we used for Example #4.3.1 above.

The first really important thing to note is that every active club in the database must have a nationality assigned and a Reputation set. A team without a nationality or with a zero Reputation which is assigned to a playable league in EHM will cause a crash (at least with versions earlier than v1.5). So we must keep this in mind when adding our team to the database (and in any event it is good practice to add these details).

1. First, let's add the team's name and abbreviation details to the Template:



2. Now, assign them to the Swiss Novizen Elite via the League and Detailed Division cells at Columns G and H (Detailed Division should be set to the same league as the League unless the league has divisions - in which case, the division would be assigned to Detailed Division):



3. Let's set their city to Bern and that all important nationality to Switzerland. As mentioned at Example #4.2.1, cities are entered into the Templates in the following format: CITY:STATE:COUNTRY (Canadian and US cities) or CITY:COUNTRY (cities outside of North America). So Bern is entered as "Bern:SUI". We can enter the Nation as "SUI" or "Switzerland". I'll enter it as "SUI" as it is quicker to type:



4. Let's assume the team plays at Bern Ice Hall. This is already in the database. So we enter this as follows:



5. We need to set a Professional Status for the team (this is a text attribute). Example #4.2.2 above mentions how to find the text attributes in the "common" folder. Open the "professional_status.txt" file and you will find the possible options. The most appropriate one is "junior" or "jnr". I'll enter "jnr" as it is quicker to type.



6. Don't forget to set the all important Reputation at Column AD. I'll go with 5:



7. Let's pretend the team really dislikes Alex Ovechkin. Enter his name ("Alexander Ovechkin") and date of birth ("17.9.1985") into the "Disliked 1: Name" and "Disliked 1: DOB" cells:



The above is just some examples of what you could enter. You can of course complete all of the cells as you see fit (setting colours would be a very worthwhile one to include). Any blank cells for a new club will be populated with default values (e.g. all of the numerical attributes will be set to zero).

5. Checking for errors/mistakes

5.1 Introduction
Once you have completed your research, you must check it for errors. The presence of any errors in your research will prevent it from being imported. You might find it helpful to check your research for errors on a regular basis whilst undertaking your research as this may help you identify and mistakes early and ensure they do not crop up again.

NOTE: It is extremely important that you check your research for errors before you send it to Manimal for importing into the master database. At the time of writing, we lose weeks and weeks of work each year because we have had to fix other researchers' mistakes in their Templates as they have not checked their work before submitting to us. It is inevitable that some errors will arise because, for example, a team's name might be changed in the master database after you started your research. Archi/Manimal will of course fix these sorts of errors. However, any Templates which contain moderate or high numbers of avoidable errors will be returned to the researcher for correction. Please only volunteer to be a researcher if you are prepared to check and correct your own work. We will no longer be correcting other researchers' work.

Sorry if this sounds like a rant but it is important that expectations are clear at the outset. Receiving such high volumes of errors and leaving it to just one person to fix is one of the main reasons the database is released in December/January rather than October/November.




5.2 How to check for errors/mistakes



Checking for errors is easy:

1. Load the Editor (double-click on 'EHM Editor.exe';

2. Click on File -> Open Database and select the TBL Rosters;

3. Click on File -> Import Spreadsheet to view the Importer screen;

4. Click on the Import Spreadsheet button and select your Template; and

5. The Editor will then process your Template.

If there are no errors then the Importer will automatically proceed with importing.

If there are some errors then a message will be displayed and you will be given the option to abort. The errors will be saved to a spreadsheet in the same folder as your Template. It will have the same name except that it will have "_errors" at the end of the filename. For example, if your original Template is called "staff.xlsx" then the errors will be saved to "staff_errors.xlsx" (the "Errors File").





Open the Errors File to view details of the errors. The left hand columns will list all of the errors for each row.

Here is an example of a Staff Errors File:



Let's take each error in turn (Columns A - D show the errors above):

Row 3 (Jordan Bannon): Column D states "Birth City" is the error.
This means the Birth City listed for this player in the spreadsheet could not be matched with anything in the database. The cause of this error could be: (1) there is a typo in the city, (2) the city does not exist in the database or (3) the nation or state is missing (remember that cities should be entered as CITY:STATE:NATION (North American cities) or CITY:NATION (non-American cities)). If in doubt, check the database to see if the city exists (this can be done using the Editor).

Row 4 (Andrew Chappell): Column D states "Classification" is the error.
There will be a typo in the Classification. Check the spelling. If in doubt, check the staff_classification.txt file in the "common" folder for valid options/spellings.

Row 5 (Simon Furnival): Column A ("Staff") states "No Match".
This means the name and/or date of birth of the player/non-player could not be found in the database. Either there is a typo in the name and/or date of birth or the person does not exist in the database.

Row 6 (Benjamin Jone): Column A ("Staff") states "No Match".
The surname has been misspelled as "Jone" instead of "Jones".

Row 7 (Joshua Stockton): Column D states that there are two errors: "Duplicate Item" and "Player Role".
The "Duplicate Item" error means that you are trying to create a player/non-player that already exists in the database. Either change the "Mode" from "Add" to "Edit" or delete the row in its entirety. The "Player Role" error means there is a typo in the "Player Role". If in doubt, check the player_role.txt file in the "common" folder for valid options/spellings.

Row 8 (Michael Zajkowski): Columns B and C ("Club Contracted" and "Club Playing For") state "No Match".
This means the name of the club(s) entered into the "Club Contracted" and "Club Playing For" columns contain a typo or the club does not exist in the database. If in doubt, check the database to see if the club(s) exists (this can be done using the Editor).


It is then simply a case of opening your original Template and making the necessary corrections (be sure that you do not accidentally make the changes to the "_errors" file instead). Once you have made the corrections, check your Template again in order to make sure that you have not missed any errors.

All of the "_errors" files associated with each Template follow very similar formats. So once you become familiar with the errors in general, all errors will be very easy to fix.

6. Submitting your research spreadsheets

All research must be submitted to: rosters (at) ehmtheblueline (dot) com

Please do not submit any research via Personal Message.

When emailing your research, please include a brief summary of what you have changed (e.g. "updated rosters, ratings and clubs for the Swiss MySports League"). This helps us keep track of what has been edited as well as prepare the changelist for each release.