What Happened With KDS On Sunday?
Posted: Tue Aug 28, 2007 2:41 am
While it was embarrassing to admit that there were errors in processing the KDS preferences initially, it's reassuring to know that eventually we got this right for the main event teams and that a DISASTER was avoided. The KDS process is set up to allow owners to get their preferred spots and with the way that we received the KDS listings from STATS it actually wound up hurting some teams. Once we finally figured out the problem, there was only one thing to do: Re-run each league individually and manually.
So what actually happened with KDS and our first announcement of draft spots? And how did we detect the problem? Here's the lowdown:
When we announced all of the draft spots for each NFFC satellite league, Draft Champions Leagues and the Ultimate League, Tom went into every single team page and looked up that person's KDS settings. Since each was just a 14-team league, it was easy for Tom to spend 10 minutes or so to get these spots set. Those were and still are accurate listings.
With 364 teams for the main event, however, we asked STATS to provide an Excel document to us with each person's KDS preferences listed in order to save some time and effort. Since we were receiving these each week to monitor how many teams were actually setting their preferences, we felt confident that what we were receiving from STATS was accurate. We then received the final KDS preferences on Thursday night from STATS and took them to Chicago with us in preparation of filling up the main event.
On Sunday when Tom and I came in to select the main event leagues and run the KDS preferences, we used the Excel spreadsheet. It was perfect for us with just a person's first name, last name and the preferences in order (1,2,3,14,13,12,etc.). It didn't take us long to run these on Sunday and we of course announced everything on time.
Then on Monday morning, I did get a polite e-mail from Bluefoot asking about his spot in the draft. He was polite and later followed with another polite phone call, but he was inquiring about his individual spot in the random draft. I then forwarded his info via e-mail, telling him that he was picked in the top half and according to his KDS settings he asked to move down to the 13th spot. I sent him the KDS settings we received from STATS.
He called back last night and said those were not his KDS settings and sent back what they were. I then called Tom and he looked up Bluefoot's setting on his team page and then checked every team in that league. Sure enough, they didn't all match up. He did a quick scan of another league and the same problems were occurring. At 9:30 pm CST, we agreed we had a big problem and needed to solve this immediately. There was no way the leagues were correct as we posted them on Sunday and we had to correct them.
What we found out is frustrating, but the hell with it now. For those in the NFBC, you know that STATS set up two columns for your Draft Preferences there and that was confusing and cumbersome and a hinderance for some owners. We have just one column set up for football and it's self explanatory and easy. Unbeknownst to us (and apparently to STATS), when they output this in an Excel document it didn't display as your preferences in order, it showed 1-14 in order (with that number hidden) and your preference. They never set them in chronological order for Tom and I to quickly apply. In other words, you actually were getting hurt by Sunday's process as some spots that you had ranked low appeared to be your preferred spots when we looked at the Excel document.
So I came back into the office at 10:00 last night and Tom worked from home and we used the original lists from the random selections in each city and then manually called up each person's team page and looked at each person's KDS preferences. It took 3 hours to do all 26 leagues, but there is NO QUESTION now that everyone got the preferred spot they should have gotten on Sunday. The league draft orders are now accurate and we will send out as many e-mail blasts as possible this week to show everyone the new draft orders.
Bottom line: Tom and I probably should have double-checked a few preferences before announcing the picks on Sunday. If Bluefoot hadn't alerted us on Monday, we never would have caught this. But plain and simple, there was a bad presentation of the KDS preferences by our provider and it shouldn't have happened. We all look bad as a result and it hurt our customers. That isn't right.
The good news is that the KDS process worked well. I'll analyze each city to prove that today, so stay tuned. But the process worked and many people moved up or down last night once the preferences were accurately applied. You now have the draft spot that fate and your offseason planning (KDS settings) planned for.
We will take any criticism anyone has to offer on this, but the bottom line is that human mistakes were made, but they were caught before Draft Day. We cost some folks two days of planning (more than half of our participants moved spots yesterday), but at least we got it right. Now have a good Draft Day and we'll see you on Saturday.
So what actually happened with KDS and our first announcement of draft spots? And how did we detect the problem? Here's the lowdown:
When we announced all of the draft spots for each NFFC satellite league, Draft Champions Leagues and the Ultimate League, Tom went into every single team page and looked up that person's KDS settings. Since each was just a 14-team league, it was easy for Tom to spend 10 minutes or so to get these spots set. Those were and still are accurate listings.
With 364 teams for the main event, however, we asked STATS to provide an Excel document to us with each person's KDS preferences listed in order to save some time and effort. Since we were receiving these each week to monitor how many teams were actually setting their preferences, we felt confident that what we were receiving from STATS was accurate. We then received the final KDS preferences on Thursday night from STATS and took them to Chicago with us in preparation of filling up the main event.
On Sunday when Tom and I came in to select the main event leagues and run the KDS preferences, we used the Excel spreadsheet. It was perfect for us with just a person's first name, last name and the preferences in order (1,2,3,14,13,12,etc.). It didn't take us long to run these on Sunday and we of course announced everything on time.
Then on Monday morning, I did get a polite e-mail from Bluefoot asking about his spot in the draft. He was polite and later followed with another polite phone call, but he was inquiring about his individual spot in the random draft. I then forwarded his info via e-mail, telling him that he was picked in the top half and according to his KDS settings he asked to move down to the 13th spot. I sent him the KDS settings we received from STATS.
He called back last night and said those were not his KDS settings and sent back what they were. I then called Tom and he looked up Bluefoot's setting on his team page and then checked every team in that league. Sure enough, they didn't all match up. He did a quick scan of another league and the same problems were occurring. At 9:30 pm CST, we agreed we had a big problem and needed to solve this immediately. There was no way the leagues were correct as we posted them on Sunday and we had to correct them.
What we found out is frustrating, but the hell with it now. For those in the NFBC, you know that STATS set up two columns for your Draft Preferences there and that was confusing and cumbersome and a hinderance for some owners. We have just one column set up for football and it's self explanatory and easy. Unbeknownst to us (and apparently to STATS), when they output this in an Excel document it didn't display as your preferences in order, it showed 1-14 in order (with that number hidden) and your preference. They never set them in chronological order for Tom and I to quickly apply. In other words, you actually were getting hurt by Sunday's process as some spots that you had ranked low appeared to be your preferred spots when we looked at the Excel document.
So I came back into the office at 10:00 last night and Tom worked from home and we used the original lists from the random selections in each city and then manually called up each person's team page and looked at each person's KDS preferences. It took 3 hours to do all 26 leagues, but there is NO QUESTION now that everyone got the preferred spot they should have gotten on Sunday. The league draft orders are now accurate and we will send out as many e-mail blasts as possible this week to show everyone the new draft orders.
Bottom line: Tom and I probably should have double-checked a few preferences before announcing the picks on Sunday. If Bluefoot hadn't alerted us on Monday, we never would have caught this. But plain and simple, there was a bad presentation of the KDS preferences by our provider and it shouldn't have happened. We all look bad as a result and it hurt our customers. That isn't right.
The good news is that the KDS process worked well. I'll analyze each city to prove that today, so stay tuned. But the process worked and many people moved up or down last night once the preferences were accurately applied. You now have the draft spot that fate and your offseason planning (KDS settings) planned for.
We will take any criticism anyone has to offer on this, but the bottom line is that human mistakes were made, but they were caught before Draft Day. We cost some folks two days of planning (more than half of our participants moved spots yesterday), but at least we got it right. Now have a good Draft Day and we'll see you on Saturday.
