Re-Assigning Rooms for a Paired Round

The Re-Assign Rooms tool places rooms again for events that are already paired in a schedule block. The pairings and judges stay exactly as they are. Only the room for each section changes. It's one of the advanced pair/section tools.

When to use it

You paired a round robin. The round robin tool doesn't place rooms, so every section shows ROOM TBA until you run this tool.
You added rooms, or opened more rooms for a schedule block, after the round was paired.
A building or a group of rooms became unavailable, and you want FTN to spread the sections across the rooms that are left.

It works with any paired event, in prelims or elims. Each run covers one schedule block.

Before you start

Make sure the right rooms are open. FTN only uses rooms scheduled for that block under Setup > Rooms on the Scheduling tab. Rooms targeted to an event on the Event Targeting tab go to that event first. The Rooms Used or Available Report shows what's open in a block.
Pick only the events you want to move. Every section in the events you select gets a room again, including sections that already have one. Events you leave unchecked keep their rooms.
Live video events are skipped. Events that use live video rooms don't get a physical room, even if you check them.

Where to find it

Go to Admin > Pair/Section > Advanced and click Re-Assign Rooms.

Pair/Section Advanced page with the Re-Assign Rooms tool highlighted

Step 1: Choose the schedule block and events

Pick the Schedule Block. FTN lists every event that's paired in that block. If nothing is paired there, you'll see No paired events found for this schedule block.
Under Events, check each event whose rooms you want to re-assign. Check All and Clear All help with long lists, and Selected shows how many you've checked.
Click Review Changes. Nothing changes yet.

Re-Assign Rooms page with Debate Round 2 selected and two of three paired debate events checked

Step 2: Review the changes

The review page shows:

Schedule Block: the block you picked.
Selected Events: how many events you checked.
Affected Pairings: how many entries are in those sections. A debate with two entries counts as 2, so this isn't the number of rooms you need.
Events In Scope: the events whose rooms will be re-assigned.

The review page doesn't show which room each section will get. FTN picks the rooms when the run starts. To change your selection, click Back to Step 1.

When it looks right, check I understand this will re-assign rooms for all selected events in this schedule block. and click Start Reassignment. If the box isn't checked, FTN shows an error and nothing changes.

Re-Assign Rooms review page showing the schedule block, 2 selected events, 10 affected pairings, the confirmation box and the Start Reassignment button

Step 3: Watch the progress

The reassignment runs in the background, and FTN takes you to the Re-Assign Rooms Progress page. The page updates itself, so you don't need to refresh. It starts at Queued. Waiting for a worker to start Re-Assign Rooms. and ends with Re-Assign Rooms complete.

When it finishes, the Summary shows the schedule block, the number of events, and how many sections changed rooms. Changed Sections counts every section whose room is different now, including sections that had no room before. Unchanged Sections ended up in the same room as before.

Re-Assign Rooms Progress page at 100% with a summary showing 5 of 5 sections changed

If something goes wrong, the bar turns red and you'll see Re-Assign Rooms failed. Nothing is saved in that case, so the old rooms stay in place. If a Re-Assign Rooms run is already going for the same schedule block, FTN takes you to that run's progress page instead of starting a second one.

What FTN changes (and what it doesn't)

Every section in the selected events gets a room again. FTN clears their old rooms and places every section again, in random order, so a section that had a room may move. Running the tool again can move them again.
Other events keep their rooms. Rooms already used by events you didn't select in that block stay with those events, and FTN won't put a second section in them.
Only rooms open in that block are used. If FTN runs out of rooms, the rest of the sections get ROOM TBA.
Byes don't get a room. Bye sections in debate, World Schools and Readers Theater show ROOM TBA.
ADA rooms are respected. A room set aside for a competitor on the ADA Rooms tab is saved for that competitor's section.
Nothing else changes. Pairings, judges, results and eBallots stay the same.
It's logged. Each run adds a Rooms Reassigned entry to Pair/Section > Audit Log, with who ran it and which block (see Change Log & Audit Log).

Judges, competitors, postings and ballots

Nothing is sent. Re-Assign Rooms doesn't email or notify judges, competitors or coaches.
eBallots show the new room. When a judge opens their eBallot, it shows the current room. But if you already sent eBallots or ePostings, those emails still list the old room. Let the affected judges and competitors know about the change.
Postings and ballots pick up the new rooms. Anything you generate or print from now on shows the new rooms (see Postings and Printing Paper Ballots or Sending eBallots). Copies you printed earlier still show the old rooms, so print them again. Postings that are public online can take up to a minute to catch up.

Placing rooms after a round robin

This is the recommended way to place rooms for a round robin. After it's paired, run Re-Assign Rooms once for each round robin block. Pick the block, check only the round robin event and start the reassignment. Leave other events in the block unchecked so they keep their rooms. With an odd number of entries, the bye section each round stays ROOM TBA.

Undoing it

There's no undo button, and FTN doesn't keep the old rooms to switch back to. You can:

Run Re-Assign Rooms again for a new placement.
Change one section's room by hand on Pair/Section > View/Edit, using New Room for that section.