Referee scheduling software vs. spreadsheets: when is it worth switching?

Plenty of assignors should stay on a spreadsheet. For them, a scheduling product would cost more than it saves.

A spreadsheet is the right answer when most of these are true:

• A small pool, roughly under twenty officials, whose availability you know without looking it up.
• A short or stable schedule. One league, one venue, and games that rarely move once published.
• One assignor. Nobody else edits it, so there is only one version.
• Few changes. Cancellations are rare.
• Easy communication. Officials answer texts promptly, on one channel, without follow-up.

In that situation a spreadsheet is hard to beat. It is free, it does exactly what you tell it, and you can restructure it mid-season if you think of something better.

A spreadsheet can’t send a message or receive a reply.

The sheet can tell you eleven assignments have no reply. You then write eleven messages, read eleven replies over two days, and type eleven dates into a column. Each of those copies is a chance for the sheet and reality to drift apart, and when a game moves you do it again.

Look at what is happening, not just the size of your organization. If two or more of these are true, software is probably worth trying.

1. You collect the same availability repeatedly

You ask before the season, again in October because you no longer trust August’s answers, and again for midweek games. Each round is a form, a round of follow-up and an hour of copying answers into the sheet.

2. Chasing confirmations has become a scheduled task

If “Thursday night: chase replies” is a regular slot in your week, the sheet is only showing you who hasn’t answered. You are doing the asking.

3. More than one version of the schedule exists

A printed copy at the field, an exported PDF sent to a club, a screenshot in a group chat, and the sheet itself, with at least one of them out of date. Sooner or later someone acts on the old copy.

4. Changes cost more than the original assignment

A Friday cancellation takes forty minutes: find who is free, message people one at a time, wait, update the sheet, tell the crew, tell the club. If that happens most weeks, changes are taking more of your time than assigning.

5. Somebody other than you needs to see it

A second assignor, a committee member, a treasurer who needs the fee totals. Shared spreadsheets cope for a while, until two people edit the same weekend an hour apart.

Don’t rely on anyone’s claims about hours saved, including ours. Count your own time for a typical week in season:

• How many minutes composing and sending assignment messages?
• How many reading replies and updating the sheet?
• How many chasing people who have not answered?
• How many rebuilding after changes?

Multiply by the weeks in your season, then look at how much of that is sending messages and copying replies. That is the part software can cut. Deciding who gets which game takes the same time either way.

The subscription is often the smallest part:

• Getting your data in. An evening for the roster and the game list, longer if the data is messy.
• Learning it. Switch between seasons if you can, not in week six, when mistakes are costly.
• Your officials’ side.If a tool asks officials to create an account, remember a password or install an app, some of them won’t, and you’ll get fewer replies. Tools that work from a link in a text or email ask less of them.
• Losing your own shortcuts.Every long-running spreadsheet has shortcuts that fit exactly how you work. A product won’t have them all.

In return, sending, replies and the record live in one place, so you stop copying answers between them.

Two questions.

Is any part of your schedule currently true only inside a text thread? If yes, the spreadsheet is no longer your source of truth.

If your pool doubled tomorrow, would the work double, or more? Assigning grows roughly in step with the pool. Follow-up grows faster: more messages, more replies, more silence and more changes. If your answer is “more”, most of the extra is work a spreadsheet can’t do for you.

If both answers are comfortable, stay with the spreadsheet. Use the template and the workflow, and come back to this when one of the five signs shows up.

Ref Grid covers the roster, the assignments, the messages and the replies. It doesn’t do registration, standings, scores or paying officials. For availability, officials give you the days, times of day and divisions they prefer, not specific dates, so keep blackout dates wherever you collect them now.

It handles the part a spreadsheet can’t: assignments go out by text and email from the board where you made them, officials accept or decline from a link without an account, and each reply shows on the game. When a game moves or is cancelled, the officials who were sent it are told. It doesn’t assign anyone for you.

There is one plan, with a free trial. See the pricing. For more detail on what is and isn’t included, see the sports officials scheduling page, or the page for your sport: soccer, futsal and indoor soccer, baseball and softball, basketball, volleyball, ice hockey, field hockey, lacrosse, flag football and tackle football.

If you need more than this, such as paying officials, eligibility rules or evaluations, look at a different kind of product. Our guide to referee assigning software alternatives sorts the main ones by what they are built for.