The League

I'm going to be working with MFL this offseason to revamp the commish setup page so its hopefully easier to use. I know we have a few MFL commissioners in our league so I thought I would gather up an ideas that you may have. Anything is on the table.

Hmmm. Well, I'll be honest that I'm not really sure as I think it's pretty well categorized now. I think the biggest setup issue of course is waivers and calender but that appears to not be in scope of what you're helping with which I assume is just organization of the current page. Also us vets may not be the best source since no matter how "bad" it may be, we are used to it.

Some thoughts off the top of my head:

1) Maybe there needs to be a "wizard" of sorts that newbies can go thru that steps them thru each step. There is kinda something similar that is usually at the top of the home page when you start a new league which "checks off" a few things. But I think a much more involved wizard may be helpful. Step 1...basic league setup, step 2....rosters, step 3....lineups, step 4 waivers, step 5 draft, etc.

2) One thing that has always annoyed me is that you have Starting Lineup Setup and other player/roster stuff on the left while Weekly Lineup Setup is found in a different section over on the right side. Weekly Lineup should be found with the Starting Lineup stuff. Heck, they are almost the same thing title wise. Put them together in the same section with better labels.

3) Home Page Message Setup...the problem with this is on certain skins it doesn't "wrap" properly in the left column and shoves the right column way over on the right. Maybe this should just be a link to a separate page which then has the modules listed with links to update. Would clean the page up a bit.

bonscott wrote:Hmmm. Well, I'll be honest that I'm not really sure as I think it's pretty well categorized now. I think the biggest setup issue of course is waivers and calender but that appears to not be in scope of what you're helping with which I assume is just organization of the current page. Also us vets may not be the best source since no matter how "bad" it may be, we are used to it.

It could be as simple as orgainizing the page a bit, to something bigger, but I think the last sentence is very true and we'll probably have to, at least initially, have the current page available for MFL veterans. One thing I've noticed over the years is that there are more and more options and I don't even know where to find everything at times.

Some thoughts off the top of my head:

1) Maybe there needs to be a "wizard" of sorts that newbies can go thru that steps them thru each step. There is kinda something similar that is usually at the top of the home page when you start a new league which "checks off" a few things. But I think a much more involved wizard may be helpful. Step 1...basic league setup, step 2....rosters, step 3....lineups, step 4 waivers, step 5 draft, etc.

I agree, I checked out RTsports and that is basically exactly what they do. I'm going to research a few others but that concept seems to make the most sense so far.

2) One thing that has always annoyed me is that you have Starting Lineup Setup and other player/roster stuff on the left while Weekly Lineup Setup is found in a different section over on the right side. Weekly Lineup should be found with the Starting Lineup stuff. Heck, they are almost the same thing title wise. Put them together in the same section with better labels.

These are the kind of things I want to do for sure, there are a few others like that I've noticed as well.

3) Home Page Message Setup...the problem with this is on certain skins it doesn't "wrap" properly in the left column and shoves the right column way over on the right. Maybe this should just be a link to a separate page which then has the modules listed with links to update. Would clean the page up a bit.

One thing I was thinking of here is to create an appearance page, that combines the HPM's the skins, the url setup etc.

--
Another idea for a lot of the setup links is to include them on the report pages when logged in as commish. So if I went to the league calendar page I could hit the "edit" button and add in more events.

Same idea with the accounting page and a bunch of others. You normally notice the need to edit when you get to these pages and instead of searching for the link on the commish setup page it would be nice just to do it right there.

bonscott wrote:Hmmm. I think the biggest setup issue of course is waivers and calender but that appears to not be in scope

The waiver setup is a mess for sure. Hopefully we'll be able to tackle that as well. I'd still love to hear any ideas you have on that though. I have a list of things I'm putting together that I'd like to tackle down the road so I could add these to the list.

What kind of things would you like to see with the calendar?

braven112 wrote:

bonscott wrote:Hmmm. I think the biggest setup issue of course is waivers and calender but that appears to not be in scope

The waiver setup is a mess for sure. Hopefully we'll be able to tackle that as well. I'd still love to hear any ideas you have on that though. I have a list of things I'm putting together that I'd like to tackle down the road so I could add these to the list.

What kind of things would you like to see with the calendar?

I'd say what the waivers need is a "Talk to me like I'm 5 wizard". Seriously. Ask very simple questions, one page at a time (or perhaps all on one page but you don't even see a step unless you're on it or already answered it).

So Step 1 - What kind of waiver do you want to setup? Waivers, Blind Bid Waiver, FCFS.
2) What day/time of the week do you want to start this? Pick Day/Time (NOT a monthly calender, just days of the week and time)
3) What day/time would you like this to end?
4) Do you want this to happen every week of the season? (None of this choosing X number of weeks which I can't even do correctly) If No then allow selection of number of consecutive weeks to do this waiver.
5) Any players dropped in this waiver are locked for:? (offer current lock choices *see below though*)
6) If a salary/contract league show options for what happens to dropped players in terms of salary/contract

There may be more or better but honestly I don't think it needs to be much more then that. The crazies that want to do it the CBS/Yahoo way...I dunno, but maybe it can be incorporated above.

***Locked players....Honestly, I've suggested to Kevin a couple years now to just make unlocking players a calender event. That should solve a LOT of issues and confusion. You want to unlock players a couple times a week (say you have two waiver periods), then put on the calender when you want them to unlock. Want to run CBS style waivers then I think you can add an unlock every day or something. But I think it could lead to less confusion.

As for the calender, I think it's ok the way it is. BUT if you could do something interactive like you can do with Outlook or Google where you can just click on a day and then add an event right there.

There really needs to be an entire overhaul of the waiver and calender system...but I understand why MFL keeps delaying it for fear of breaking what does work, just confusing as hell for many to set up.

You guys already touched on it in great detail....the league caendar and the waiver setup is truly a mess!

[quote="braven112"][quote="bonscott"]One thing I've noticed over the years is that there are more and more options and I don't even know where to find everything at times.[quote]

So true.

I've been using MFL for at least 5 years after using the old FFLM PC software for about 10 years. I've gotten used to the messy arrangement, but do find myself frustrated trying to find certain settings. It may be off topic of rearranging the Commissioner setup page, but the most challenging issues for me have always been the following:

1) Contract Years - Can there not be a field for the owner to assign a contract year to a free agent, if awarded, instead of making the Commissioner manually assign a contract to every newly acquired free agent?

2) League Currency - My leagues use a made up currency (not unlike the U.S. dollar) used specifically for free agency and trading. I utilize the Accounting feature to track it, but it doesn't really work, since it's not being used as intended. I'd like to see support for a league currency that is separate from Accounting, which is obviously meant to track team dues.

As I think of other things, I'll try to remember to post here.