Scheduling studio and Cortex

Scheduling studio fundamentals

Scheduling is where abstract rounds become wall-clock reality. You set the session date, first start, interval between matches, average match duration, number of courts, and how you want first waves to spread across courts.

A conservative average match length is better than an optimistic one. Underestimating creates cascading delays that are hard to fix politely when families are already on site.

Per-round adjustments

• Earlier rounds with many simultaneous matches may need tighter intervals if courts are plentiful.
• Later rounds with fewer matches may need longer gaps if you expect longer three-set battles.
• If certain rounds must finish before a hard stop (lights, rental end), work backward from that deadline in Cortex.

Auto Connect and linked draws

When draws are linked (for example main and consolation, or stacked sessions), Auto Connect and day links help you continue scheduling from a source draw without re-entering structure. The goal is one coherent timeline across everything you are responsible for that day.

Cortex: courts as columns

Cortex shows schedule density in a table: days, rounds, and courts line up so you can spot collisions and idle courts quickly. Use it as the last sanity check before export—if Cortex looks wrong, the printout will look wrong too.

Filter by day when you run multi-day events so you do not accidentally ship Sunday’s sheet with Saturday’s headers.

Common scheduling pitfalls

• Same court assigned twice in a wave—fix in scheduling, verify in Cortex.
• Interval too tight for juniors or heat—add buffer or stagger starts.
• Forgetting cleanup or ceremony time between blocks—add a manual gap round if needed.