Question 1

How do you add swim meets?

Accepted Answer

Meets can be created many ways including searching existing meets, uploading a heat sheet, adding from a team schedule, uploading host documents, using a host URL, using templates, or manual creation. Use Search: The meet may already exist in the system, so first, use search. Upload a Heat Sheet: The easiest way to create a meet is by simply uploading a heat sheet. This works great for simple or single session meets. Add from a Team Schedule: Your team may already have meets in the system which you can see and add directly in the add meet screen.

You can also provide a URL to your team's schedule or upload a document to import an entire schedule of meets all at once. Upload Host Documents: Many club teams provide documents such as the Meet Info document, Psyche Sheets, and official Timeline documents. Any of these can be uploaded to a meet to help create the event list and session timeline. Use a Host URL: If there is a website that contains all of these documents, you can add this URL to the meet as the Host URL and turn on Automated Tracking. SwimSeasons will automatically download and import these documents as they become available. Use Templates: Many School and Neighborhood Meets use the same event list for every meet in the season. You can search for existing templates to use when creating a meet, or create a template using an existing meet. Manually Create: You can always manually create a meet by providing its name, location, and event list.

Question 2

What if you don't have a heat sheet?

Accepted Answer

Heat sheets provide the most accurate timing for a timeline, but there are other ways to generate a timeline even without a heat sheet. These methods work off of identifying the number of heats per event, then using the USA Swimming “B” time to estimate the event duration (which turns out to be highly accurate). Official Timeline Document (Highly Accurate): Sometimes hosts make these documents available; after uploading to the meet, a timeline will be generated.

Note: The generated timeline in SwimSeasons will likely differ from the uploaded document. This is because these documents are notoriously inaccurate. SwimSeasons simply uses the heat count for each event and generates a much more accurate and dynamically updatable timeline. Psyche Sheets (Somewhat Accurate): The system tries to infer the number of heats for each event based on entries. This requires the number of pool lanes to be accurately set.

Keep in mind that it is common for more swimmers to swim in the event than appear on the psyche sheet, so heat counts may vary slightly. Simulated Sessions (Highly Accurate): At any time, you can use the “simulated sessions” feature to generate a timeline. You enter a starting heat count for each event, then adjust heat counts as needed. This is especially useful for finals sessions when you already know the heat count for each event.

Question 3

How do I add an event list if the meet does not have one yet?

Accepted Answer

Event lists are pulled from Meet Info documents or official Timeline Documents. They can also be inferred though a heat sheet (for simple meets). But if you do not have any of these, there are a few possible solutions. Templates: Some teams have the same event list for every meet, making templates the best solution.

If a template does not already exist, you can manually create an event list for the meet, then use the “Save as Template” option to use the same event list for the next meet. For club teams, even though meets have vastly different event lists, you can still use templates by finding last year's event and creating a template from that. Find last year's Meet Info document: For many meets, you can search for a previous year's meet info document on the internet, then use that to seed the event list—marking it as a draft until the official event list is released. Then save it as a template for next year! Manual Creation: You can always manually create the event list directly.

Question 4

What else should I be aware of when creating a swim meet?

Accepted Answer

Key settings include split pool configurations for short course, chase starts for long course, and adding qualification cuts to championship meets. Split Pool (Short Course Only): For short course meets, there is an option to set a split pool. This defaults to splitting the pool by gender (the most common setup), or you can switch it to manual to place any event in any pool and rename each pool.

There is a default meet-level setting for split pool, but each session within a meet can override that setting. This is common for morning prelims sessions that use a split pool while evening finals do not. Chase Starts (Long Course Only): Meet officials may declare some meets (or individual sessions) as using “chase starts” where the next heat begins before the previous ends. This directly affects the duration of each event and the overall timeline.

This setting can be turned on or off at any time (even during a live session). If you notice the session is using chase starts and it is not set, just go into the meet parameters and flip it on—the timeline will adjust automatically! Adding Cuts: Some meets, like championship meets, require minimum time standards. You can use “Add/Edit Cuts” on any meet and they will show up in swimmer goal times and meet pages so you can see if you’ve made the cut or how far away you are.

Question 5

How do you track swim meets?

Accepted Answer

There are multiple features SwimSeasons enables to help track a meet and individual swim sessions. EHL Table Adjustments: For those last minute event changes or simulated sessions, you can always adjust the events, heats, and lanes a swimmer is in using the EHL tables on the Meet page or the Swimmers Meet Schedule Page. This can also be done right in the Live Meet Session page! Live Session Tracking: When following a live swim session, whenever an event or heat starts, you can click the “Start” button for that heat/event. This calibrates the rest of the timeline to adjust to that start time.

This feature is crowdsourced: if someone else at the meet has already clicked start on an event, the system may ask you to confirm, or if enough people have done the same, the timeline updates automatically without you needing to do anything! Tracking Friends: You can use the search at the top of any page to find friends and "favorite" them. Then when viewing a meet, use the “Select Swimmers” dropdown to see their events. Even if they are not in the system yet, you can enter their name, and if they are on an uploaded heat sheet or psyche sheet, they will appear in your timeline. Entering Swim Times: After a heat finishes, the system prompts you to enter the time manually so family members not at the meet get immediate results. You can also dismiss the prompt if you missed it or want to enter it later.

On any EHL table, you can enter the swim time directly at any time. Uploading Swim Times: Even if you manually entered swim times, uploading official results from sources like Meet Mobile or SwimTopia is recommended.

This will record official places and ensure any manual swim time entry errors are corrected. Track Tech Suit Wear: Setting what suit you wore for events adds up the total distance swum in each suit so you know whether it is still good for championship meets.

Question 6

What is a swim season and how do you plan it?

Accepted Answer

A swim season is a collection of swim meets that usually ends with at least one big meet like a championship meet. Adding a Season: A season requires a team, at least 1 swimmer, a course (such as short course or long course), and estimated start and end months. Those can be adjusted for accuracy as meets are added to the season. Calendar: Knowing the meets and events at the start of a season provides an advantage for planning ahead. You can subscribe to your SwimSeasons calendar feed to see if there are any conflicts with other family events. Intent to Swim: You can declare “Intent to Swim” for events throughout the season on the Season “Events Table” tab or on any meet page.

This lets you see how many times you will get to swim your primary events and identify filler events that support primary events or meet criteria for things like IMX rankings. Goal Times: Seasons bring in the USA Swimming motivational times, allow for setting personal goal times, and include any qualification cuts for championship meets added to your season. PDF Download: At the end of a season, you can export an entire season to a PDF keepsake report. This includes all awards and achievements (such as PR totals, first-place finishes, ribbons, and medals).

The Events Table shows a bird's-eye view of every event swum in the season, and the Goal Times table is anchored at the swimmer's starting point for each event to give a holistic view of the entire season's progress.

Question 7

How do I add Meet Cuts?

Accepted Answer

SwimSeasons will already have all USA Motivational Times and National Meet cuts added, but if you add a meet to the system that requires cuts, you will need to add those cuts using the Motivational Times screen in order to link them to those meets. Selecting the Correct Association: Your associations are automatically determined by the swim teams added to the family group on the Account Settings page. When uploading times, make sure the correct association is selected for the cuts you are uploading: Uploading Documents: The wizard to help upload documents is designed to collect hints for the parser to increase the success of parsing the document correctly the first time.

Simple single-page cuts usually parse fine without many hints, and when parsing is complete, all times remain staged and not yet saved. Verifying Staged Times: While uploading or editing a document, all times are staged so you can safely make adjustments before committing them.

You can use the "Request AI Correction" feature to describe what is wrong and reparse sections as needed, view the document directly or in Split View side by side, and use the thumbs-up button to mark times as confirmed. Naming / Renaming Cuts: When uploading a document, be sure to state exactly what the cuts should be named. Keep the names simple, e.g. for state cuts, simply name them "State" or "Age Group State" or "Senior State". In Add/Edit mode, you can also bulk rename any of the cuts as necessary.

Question 8

How do I provide family access?

Accepted Answer

Adding parents and swimmers to the family group allows everyone to see the same data. You can also add extended family members or friends to the family group if they want to follow along! Adding Family Members: Go to your account settings and click “Add Invite”. Set their name, choose permissions, and either copy the invite URL or enter their email to send it directly. Once they sign in with that link, they are automatically connected to your family group. Adding a Swimmer Login: If the email field is set for a swimmer, that swimmer will be able to login with that email. If it is associated with a Google account, have them login with that Google account; otherwise, have them use the email to create a password to use for login. Family Permissions: Family members can have one of three roles:

Question 9

How do I enable notifications?

Accepted Answer

SwimSeasons provides real-time Web Push and Email notifications for upcoming meets, live session warmups, dynamic event heat alerts, and instant time results. Web Push Notifications (iOS, Android, & Desktop): Get instant notifications right on your device for critical meet milestones and live event reminders. Dynamic Shifted Timeline Alerts: Unlike static PDF schedules, SwimSeasons calculates your upcoming heats against the live, dynamic meet pace in real time: Instant Results, Warmup Starts, & Announcements: Receive immediate notifications when session warmups begin on deck, and when your swimmer's official time is recorded (including new Personal Records and Motivational Time cuts achieved!). Multi-Channel Delivery: Choose between Web Push, Email, or Both for each notification type in Account Settings -> Notification Settings. Calendar Feed Subscriptions: Subscribe to your personal SwimSeasons calendar URL in Apple Calendar, Google Calendar, or Outlook to sync all scheduled meets with your family schedule.

Question 10

What are the various swim time tools?

Accepted Answer

Every swim time entered will automatically add a course converted time, power points, course converted power points, and a power index (if applicable). In addition, there are two tools SwimSeasons provides for additional insight (both are located on any swimmers page). Swim Time Calculator: Enter a swim time and see all the mentioned stats for that particular time. Power Index Calculator: The SwimCloud Power Index is a number used commonly for college recruiting. If a swimmer's time is fast enough (e.g. registering under a 100 for the Power Index score), this tool will show exactly how that Index is calculated.

This also allows you to play “what if” scenarios and enter times to see how that affects the score, save those times as personal goal times, or load your personal goal times into the calculator to see what the Power Index would be if goals were met.

Question 11

How do I get past times into the system?

Accepted Answer

If you are just getting started, it is very useful to at least enter a swimmer's best times for each event. Manually Enter: On the swimmers Times tab you can manually enter any time. Upload a CSV: On the same page you can also upload a CSV of swim times for adding times in bulk. Getting a CSV: You can use sites like SwimCloud or SwimStandards to find times tables that you can copy and paste into a spreadsheet, then export as a CSV.

These sites will have a current list of best times for every event.

If you want to spend the time, you can go event by event and add ALL swimmers times to the spreadsheet.

Frequently Asked Questions

What are the various swim time tools?

Swim Time Calculator

Power Index Calculator

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