The Main Screen

Under the connections tab there is a table containing everyone currently logged into the applet. The 1 sec, 5 sec, 10 sec, and total columns displays their network activity (in bytes) over the appropriate time interval. Double clicking on an entry will initiate a forced disconnect request, causing the user to be logged out.

The File Menu

• Change round ID...

  Many of the commands issued in the admin tool is specific to a certain round. To prevent the user from having to select a round each time, you first must select a round to work with. Click on this option opens a table with each round that you have access to. Once you select a round the main screen will update to reflect the current working round.
  

• Refresh command access

  This command will cause the applet to update which commands you have access to. This is generally only needed if a TC admin tells you to refresh access.

• Logging

  This will open up logs for various servers. This feature is currently disabled.

• Exit

  This closes the admin tool.

The Run Contest Menu

• The Before Contest Menu

  

  • Load Round

    This will load all data pertaining to the round and make it available in the Active Contests menu in the arena. TC Staff will usually load rounds before the match begins.

  • Register User

    This command will register a user in an active round. It should only be used if the person otherwise can't register and the round is still in the registration phase.

  • Unregister User

    This functions similarly to register user, but it removes people from a round's registartion list.

  • Refresh Problems

    The contest server will reload information about problems in the selected round. This should be executed if a problem writer makes a change to the problem statement or examples. Users will have to close and reopen the problem to notice the changes.

  • Refresh Problems

    The contest server will reload the registrants list, survey question, and round terms. This should be used if terms are changed or someone is added / removed from the registrants list.

  • Refresh Room...

    This will reload information about a room, including submissions and coders. This command requires the Room ID of the room to execute. Generally Refresh All Rooms should be used instead.

  • Refresh All Rooms

    This will reload information about all rooms in a round. This can take as long as five minutes. People will have to close / reopen any rooms to see any changes.

  • Refresh Room Lists...

    This will refresh the menus of the arena. The command has options to refresh practice rooms, lobby rooms, and the active contests menu.

  • Assign Rooms...

    
    

    This command manually runs room assignment. You generally do not need to do this during a match. The default settings for a SRM are:
    
    Coders Per Room: 20
    Type: Random Seeding
    Is By Division: Checked
    Is Final: Checked
    Is By Region: Unchecked
    p: 2.0
    

  • Set Round Terms...

    This populates the terms used during match registration. There are inputs for parameters such as match time. TC Staff will generally assign terms.

• The During Contest Menu

  

  • Add Time...

    

    This will add time to a phase in a currently running contest. The AddToStart option adds time to the begining of a phase. For example, to make the coding phase start 5 minutes late, Add 5 minutes, 0 seconds to the segment Coding with AddToStart checked. If you perform the same action without AddToStart checked, the phase is extended by 5 minutes.

  • Advance Contest Phase...

    This will change the current contest phase to a selected value. This is generally not used during a contest.

  • Create System Tests

    This takes challenges made during the challenge phase and adds them to the list of system tests. This process is done after the challenge phase and takes 5-10 minutes to complete.

  • Clear Test Cases

    This tells the testers to reload the expected results for all test cases. This is done before starting system testing.

  • System Test...

    

    This starts system tests. You can specify a coder ID or problem ID to run only specific coders and problems, or specify 0 for all. FailOnFirstBadTest should always be checked, and reference should never be checked. You can view systest progress in the arena.

• The After Contest Menu

  

  • Unload round

    This will unload the current round and remove it from the active contests menu. This is usually done by TC Staff.

  • End contest

    This command broadcasts system test results to the arena. This should be run after systests are finished.

  • Run ratings...

    This will run ratings for the selected round. Run ratings by Division and Commit results to database should both be checked.

  • Insert practice rooms...

    This will create practice rooms for the selected round. The name should be "SRM <number>". You will need to refresh the room lists to see the new practice rooms in the arena.

  • Announce advancing coders...

    This will mark coders to advance to the next round. This is only used during tournaments.

  • Recalcualte Score...

    This causes the database to attempt to recalculate a coder's score based on submissions and challenges. This should only be used if told to by a TC admin.

  • Clear Website Cache...

    This will cause all cached statistics on topcoder.com to be cleared. This should be used after warehouse loads are complete.

  • Backup / Restore

    

    This will backup or restore a backup of the current round. You can select which tables should be included in the backup / restore. The tables are:
    
    rating - contains a coder's rating and volatility
    challenge - contains challenges for the match
    component_state - contains problem submission times and current status
    compilation - contains compiled code and binaries
    submission - contains submitted code and binaries
    room_result - contains coder's total score and place in a round
    system_test_result - contains system test details
    

  • Warehouse load...

    This will load match data into our data warehouse, which drives topcoder.com. There are 4 main loads:
    
    Load round - this loads basic information about the round and submissions
    Load aggregate - this calculates statistics like submission percentage
    Load coders - this will load new coders into the data warehouse
    Load rank - this updates the country rank list
    

The Contest Server Menu

• Disconnect applet client...

  This will forcibly disconnect a user.

• Restart event topic listener

  This restarts the event topic, which is used to handle communication between our servers and our compilers and testers. If someone says that their compiles / tests are timing out, you should try this option.

The Cached Objects Menu

• The items in this menu can be used to inspect what is currently in the contest servers memory. An example output of a cached user is below. Results show up in the Cached Objects tab.
  

The Actions Menu

• Send broadcast...

  
  The broadcasts menu is used to send admin broadcasts to people currently logged into the arena. You can send problems to everyone (global), people in a certain round (round), or only to people assigned a specific problem (problem).

• Refresh broadcasts

  This will reload broadcasts from the database. This is generally not needed.