Question: If a player’s membership is current through the end of a tournament, but expires before the TD uploads the rating report, will it go through? It certainly would if it were submitted on paper, but I suspect the upload will get an error mesage.
1 Like
John, wouldn’t it be easier to just try using the system rather than try to guess what it does based on your low expectations of it? 
The new system compares the ending date of the section to the expiration date of the membership. However, if the player’s membership lapses during the event, that’s considered an error.
Those checks are made for ALL events, regardless of how the event is submitted to the USCF, because all events go through the same validation module, regardless of how they’re submitted.
Similarly, if the TD’s membership or TD certification lapses or the affiliate lapses between when the event ends and it is validated, we use the event ending date to determine if they’re current.
A rather surprising number of TDs, some of them fairly well known, have been holding and sending in events for years despite not having a current TD card, and getting away with it because the USCF office didn’t check the TD’s status, and sometimes not the affiliate either.
During the early signups for TD/A access, one affiliate wrote me to ask why the USCF had discontinued printing rating supplements in June. It turned out that the affiliate had expired over a year ago, though the USCF kept sending supplements for about six months.
One of the more time-consuming startup tasks for the new system is getting those affiliates renewed and TD’s recertified, or in some cases, certified for the first time.
Moreover, the online system will only permit a TD to log on if the TD’s membership and TD certification are current based on today’s date, and affiliates must be current to log on as well, so be sure to to renew BEFORE your membership lapses.
In order to do that, I would have to generate a dummy section with the necessary problems. I prefer to eliminate all possible glitches before they arise.
Actually, I recommend that people either start out with a simple event or a dummy one for practice. As long as you don’t submit the memberships for processing or a tournament for rating (which requires paying the dues or fees), you can experiment with them to your heart’s content.
(That’s the same advice I would give a TD who is looking to use a pairing program for the first time, run a few practice events before trying it on a real event.)
Roger Ingles found that out the hard way, the first event he tried to submit online was the Amateur Team East. He got it done, but it took him about two weeks. Afterwards he commented that he wished he had taken my advice and learned the ropes with a smaller event. He suggested trying one with 283 players rather than 283 teams.