How the ticksheet works

This is the sheet the side used to keep in a spreadsheet: who is coming to which dance out. It is in three parts — what anybody signed in can do, then what falls to whoever is looking after a dance out or holds an office, then what an admin can do. If you are here to say whether you are coming, the first part is the whole of it.

1. Everybody

Everything here is open to anybody signed in. There is no such thing as somebody who can only edit their own row.

Getting started

Signing in

Put in your email address and a link arrives. Open it on the device you want to use, press Sign me in on the page it shows you, and that device stays signed in — there is no password and nothing to remember. You only do it once on each phone, tablet or computer.

Each time a new device signs in it starts with a short welcome page: check the details the side holds for you, choose what the ticksheet may email you, and see how to put it on that device’s home screen. A minute, once per device, and nothing is emailed to you until you have said so there.

If no link arrives, the address the ticksheet holds for you is probably an old one — or there may not be one against your name at all. Say so here and whoever looks after it will put it right. That page needs no sign-in, which is the point of it.

Putting it on your home screen

Worth a minute: it gets an icon like any other app, opens without the browser bars, and you never have to find the link again.

iPhone or iPad: Open the ticksheet in Safari — it only works there. Tap Share at the bottom (the square with an arrow out of it), scroll down, tap Add to Home Screen. It asks for a sign-in link once more the first time you open it; after that it stays signed in.
Android: In Chrome, tap the three dots top right and choose Add to Home screen or Install app. Chrome often offers it by itself along the bottom of the screen.
Computer: Nothing to do. Bookmark it, or let the weekly email bring you back.

Future events

Reading the grid

Dance outs run down the page and the side runs across it. Your own column and the totals are pinned beside the event, so your answer is on screen without moving anything. Pinch, or use − and + at the top, to zoom; the grid pans sideways for everybody else’s columns.

A row you have not answered carries a coloured edge, so what you owe is findable while scrolling without reading a word. A row you have answered pos carries a narrower one, because a maybe is something to come back to. Next you have not answered walks down them one at a time.

Answering

Tap your cell and pick one. It saves itself — there is no edit mode and no Save button. Tapping the answer already showing takes it off again, back to not answered, which is not the same as no: a blank cell means nobody has said, and the totals depend on the difference.

Y: Yes, you are coming. Use Bringing someone to add a guest, who is counted in the head count with you.
N: No. Settled, and asks nothing of anybody.
Pos: Possible. Still in play, and the digest will keep asking you to firm it up. You can say how likely — 25, 50 or 75% — or leave it, which is a perfectly good answer.

A Y or a Pos also says how you are coming: dancing, playing, or both. It starts from what your own page says you are, so most people never touch it — untick one for the day you are carrying an arm in a sling, or tick the other for the day you bring the melodeon. The cell shows it underneath as D, M or D M, and the totals count dancers and musicians separately. If you would rather have the sheet plain, the DM button at the top of the grid takes those badges off — here and on a dance out’s own page. It wears the two it controls, and they grey out with a line through them while they are off. Your own device only, and it is remembered: nobody else’s screen changes and nobody’s answer is touched. The D and M against people on the Members page stay put either way, since those say what somebody is rather than how they are coming to one dance out.

There is a note box too, for the one line that will not fit in an answer — “can only do the afternoon”, “bringing the van”. Notes are collected on the dance out’s own page under What people said, so whoever is running it reads them together.

On a keyboard: Y, N and P answer the cell you have selected, Enter opens the box, Esc closes it. The keys change the answer and leave everything else as it was — they never say you are dancing or playing on your behalf.

Taking a Y back off a confirmed dance out asks you first. That is the one answer worth a second thought: the booking was accepted on the strength of who was coming.

Answering for somebody else

You can, and it is meant to work that way. Somebody rings the bagman, the bagman ticks the box — the same as it always was. Every change is recorded under the name of whoever made it, and the member is emailed when somebody else changes one of their answers.

Cells changed recently are tinted and fade back to nothing over 28 days, in one colour when the member answered for themselves and another when somebody else did. Tap any cell to see who changed it, when, and from what.

What the totals mean

Yes: Coming, with guests counted — the head count.
Dance, Music and Guest: Indented under the yes, because they break it down rather than adding to it. Dance and Music are how many of those coming are dancing and how many are playing — people, not guests, and somebody doing both is in both, so they do not add up to the head count and are not meant to. Anybody who has not said which counts as whatever their own page says they are. Guest is how many of the head count are the extra people being brought along; it is not shown at all when nobody is bringing anybody.
Maybe: Possible.
Blank: Have not replied at all. This is the number worth chasing.

A settled no is not in the totals, because it asks nothing of anybody. The full breakdown, including who said no, is on the event’s own page.

A dance out’s own page

Tap the name of a dance out for everything the grid has no room for: where it is and the postcode, getting there, kit, who to ring, the reply-by date, who is looking after it, and the original email pasted in whole. Underneath, who is coming, who is not and who has not said, what people said in their notes, and every change anybody has made to it.

Copy for WhatsApp puts a tidy notice on the clipboard: what it is, whether it is confirmed, how the sheet stands so far, and a link back. Paste it into the group chat.

Adding a dance out

+ Add in the corner of the grid. Anybody signed in can add one, and whoever adds it is the member looking after it unless they say otherwise. A name and a date are all that is needed to start; the rest can be filled in when the email arrives.

Meetings

What was decided, and when. Anybody signed in can write a set of minutes up — and correct somebody else’s — the same rule as answering. Every edit is recorded against a name.

A meeting is a title, a date, and as many sections as it needs: a heading and what was said under it, then Add a section for the next one.

Link a dance out: Under each section. Drops a link to one into whatever you are typing, and it keeps up with the dance out, so a name or date changed later is right in the minutes too.
Attach a file: Beside Add a section, because the file belongs to the whole write-up rather than to one part of it — the treasurer’s figures, a booking form. It goes up when you press Save, along with everything else on the form, and it goes out with the email as a real attachment. To take one off, tick Remove on save beside it and save.

A web address you type becomes a link you can press when the minutes are read.

Email these minutes to the side sends them to everybody, with the attachments. Two things follow, and neither can be undone: everybody gets a copy, and the minutes are fixed from that moment. Minutes go to everyone whatever else they have turned off; associate members are never emailed.

Afterwards the button changes to Send a copy to one person, for somebody whose copy never arrived or who has joined the side since. One person at a time, never the whole side twice, and nothing about the minutes changes when you do it. Putting something right afterwards is Unlock to correct — see the offices in part two for who has it — and the correction shows in the history underneath.

Search the minutes looks inside every section of every meeting, not just at the titles, and answers newest first.

Dances

The same grid asked about dances instead of days: the repertoire down the side, the side across the top. Choose from the box and it saves as you choose. A ticksheet answer is about one Saturday; how you feel about a dance is a standing fact, so it stays until you change it.

Each cell holds two answers, and they are two different questions. How well you know it, and whether you want to dance it — because somebody can be confident and still not like a dance, and somebody can love one they cannot yet do. Either can be left blank.

How well you know it: Confident and Nearly there both count towards “could dance it”. More practice, Refresher please, Needs teaching, What's that?! are different ways of saying not yet, and each tells the Foreman something different about why.
Whether you want to: Love it, Happy to, Don't mind, Under duress, Don't like.
A note: One line, offered whatever the two answers say and even with neither said — “not leading”, “only in second corner”, “ask me on the day”.

The total is how many could dance it: the two answers above, minus anybody who has said they don't like. Being asked nicely still counts. Dances the side no longer does sit in a band at the bottom of the grid, still answerable, and can come back.

Each dance has its own page too, with notes, where it came from, how it goes, and who can dance it grouped by answer.

Dance lists

Who dances what at a dance out: the dances down the side, whoever is coming across the top, and a letter in each square. It is the sheet the side has always drawn up by hand, with two things already filled in — who has said they are coming, and what each of them said on the Dances tab.

D: Dancing it. A number after it — D1, D2 — is which set, where more than one is up at once.
C: Calling it. Whoever calls is dancing too, so a C counts towards the set.
M: Leading the music.
m: Also playing. Musicians are extra and are not counted in the set.
R: In reserve — not in the set, but there if somebody drops out.

If somebody drops out after a list has been drawn up, their column goes red rather than disappearing: their letters stay, so it is plain what has to be given to somebody else, and they stop counting towards the set — so the row they were in goes short at the same moment. Changing your answer on the ticksheet is all it takes; nobody has to remember to tell the sheet.

Set is how many dancers a row wants, counting the caller, and Totals goes green when the row has them and amber when it does not. The numbers along the bottom are how much each person is down for, which is the thing whoever is building it is trying to even out.

Your own column is pulled to the front and picked out, so the question “which ones am I in” is answered without panning across the side. How much of the rest you want beside it is yours to say: View, next to the zoom, goes round four settings and names the one it is in. Me first is what you get to begin with; Standard puts everybody back in one alphabet; Only me is your column on its own; and Just mine is your column with only the dances you are actually in — which is the one to use standing in a field, and the one to avoid if you are counting a set. Each dance keeps the number it has on the whole sheet, so the fifth dance is still 5 even when it is the only one you can see. It remembers which you chose on that device.

A list appears here once it has been published, and carries the version it went out as — v2 beside the title. A set list changes, so a later version replaces an earlier one and the number is what says which sheet somebody is talking about. One can also be taken back to a draft, which stops the side opening it from then on; anybody who has already read it has read it, so a sheet that went out wrong is put right by a later version rather than by withdrawing it. Once the dance out has been, its list is a record: it can be read and it can be removed, and nothing on it can be changed. Building one is for whoever holds an office that builds them — the table further down says which — and it is the one thing on the ticksheet that being an admin does not cover, because who dances what is a job rather than a permission. Your own answer on a dance out is what puts you on the sheet at all, so a list is only as good as the ticksheet it was built from.

Members

Who is on the ticksheet, who plays, and who holds which office. You can edit your own details; ask an admin for anyone else’s.

Docs

The side’s own papers — the constitution, AGM minutes, anything worth keeping. Anybody signed in can read and download them; putting one up or taking one down belongs to an office, in part two. They are not on the open web, and nothing outside the side can reach one.

Past events

Dance outs file themselves the day after they happen, onto the Past events tab, a year at a time with the newest first. They go back to 2017. They are a record rather than a plan, so answers on them are read-only. For the older years the totals say not recorded, because who was there was never written down.

Associate members

Everyone who has come off the ticksheet, with a leaving date where one is known. They are kept because their answers, and every edit they made, are part of the record — a dance out from 2019 still says who was down for it. The ticksheet never emails them.

Your settings

Your name in the top right corner. Three things live there:

Your calendar: A private subscription link, and a button that replaces it with a new one. Add it once and dance outs appear in your phone’s calendar on their own, with nothing to read.
Emails: One digest a week with whatever still needs an answer at the top, and three that come sooner: a dance out added, one cancelled or moved, and somebody else changing one of your answers. Those three arrive once a day at most, each gathering up whatever happened — so five bookings going on the sheet in one evening is one email in the morning, not five. Anything about a dance out in the next couple of days does not wait: that is the point at which a change is no use to you tomorrow. If a dance out is down to you to look after, there is a weekly summary of that as well — who has said yes, and what changed in the week. You chose what to have when you first signed in; this is where you change your mind, and nothing is sent that you have not asked for.
Your devices: Everything currently signed in as you, with a Sign out beside each one and a name you can change to whatever you know it by. Worth a look now and again — see Security below.

Light or dark is set there too, on each device separately. It starts light; pick dark if you would rather, or let it follow whatever your phone is set to.

At the foot of that page is the version the ticksheet is on, and beside it See what changed — every version since the side started using it, and what each one did. If you reported something, that is where to look for whether it has been put right yet.

The weekly digest groups what it has to say: what you still have to answer, what you said maybe to, what you have said yes to, what you are committed to on a confirmed booking, and what you cannot make. It carries Yes, No and Maybe buttons that record your answer without signing in at all — you are offered the answers you have not given, so there is never a button for what you already said. A dance out added or moved carries them too. They are good for one use, they show you what they are about to record before they record it, and they will not answer for something that has already happened. The one exception to signing in: if you change your email address, the buttons in emails sent before that ask you to sign in first.

Security

Your email address is the way in

There is no password to remember, and that is deliberate — but it means anybody who can read your email can open the ticksheet as you, and answer, edit and see everything you can. Your address is worth treating like a key to the cupboard.

If somebody else can read your email

An address you have lost hold of, a shared computer left signed in to a mailbox, a work address you no longer have: change your address on your own page, and the ticksheet treats it as the serious thing it is. Everything signed in as you is signed out at once — your phone, your tablet, the laptop at home, and the one you are typing on. You then sign in again with the new address, once on each of them, the same as the first time.

If you cannot get in to make the change, use Trouble signing in and an admin will put the address right for you. An admin can change it from your page as well, and you will get an email at the new address saying it happened and who did it.

Older emails after you have changed your address

The Yes, No and Maybe buttons in emails sent before the change do not record anything straight away any more. Press one and the ticksheet asks you to sign in first.

What it wants is a sign-in on the device you are reading the email on. That is the part worth knowing: signing in on your phone does nothing for the laptop, so if you open that email on the laptop a fortnight later, the button asks again there. Each device is signed in on its own, once, which is how the ticksheet has always worked — it is only that these buttons used to skip it.

Nothing is lost or used up by pressing one too early. Sign in on that device and press the same button again and it records your answer, exactly as it would have done. Emails sent after the change are unaffected and go on working with no sign-in at all.

If your address is shared with somebody

Two members can be on one address — the ticksheet asks which of you it is when the link is opened. Only your own record changes when you change your address, so the other person goes on signing in with the old one. If it should move for both of you, the page says so when you edit it: ask them, or an admin, to change theirs too.

Your devices

Your own page lists everything signed in as you, with a Sign out beside each. Look at it if you have changed phone, lent a laptop, or signed in somewhere that is not yours — anything signed in as you can edit the whole ticksheet, not just your own row, so a device you do not recognise is worth signing out.

Give them names. Each one is asked what to call it the first time you sign in on it, and you can type over any of the names on your own page. Left alone they read as the make of browser, which is usually the same on all of them — and a list of three identical rows cannot tell you which one to sign out.

Your calendar link is a secret

Anybody holding it can see every dance out and what you have answered, without signing in, because a calendar on a phone cannot sign in. It is never emailed, so nobody gets it by accident — but if you think somebody has it, or you have pasted it somewhere you should not have, Get a new calendar link on your own page replaces it. The old one stops working straight away, so you will have to subscribe again on each device you use.

What the ticksheet will never ask you for

A password, or anything to do with money. Every email comes from the same address, and every link in one goes to the ticksheet’s own web address — the one you are reading this on. Anything else claiming to be the ticksheet is not, however much it looks like it; forward it to an admin rather than tapping it.

2. Looking after a dance out, and the offices

Answers stay open to everybody. Everything below is narrower, because it changes what the side is being told rather than what one person said.

Whoever is responsible for a dance out

Every dance out can name a member who is looking after it, and that member — with an admin — is who edits it. Where nobody is named, it stays open to everybody. When a dance out is yours, You are looking after this appears above its name, on the grid and on its own page.

Editing is one form and one Save. Nothing is saved as you type, and Cancel means cancel.

An event split into parts — camping and coach, say — is one event with two lines on the grid, and each line is tallied separately. Parts are added, renamed and removed on that same form. The last one cannot go.

Removing a dance out takes it off the sheet and keeps every answer given to it. Adding, moving or cancelling one emails the side, so those three are worth getting right first time.

The offices of the side

An office is a job somebody holds — Squire, Bagman, and so on. It shows on that member’s own page and on the members list, so anybody can see who to ask about what. One member can hold more than one, and one office can be held by more than one person.

Mostly an office is a label. Where one lets you do something the rest of the side cannot, it says so here:

Office	What it lets you do	Who holds it
Squire	Change the repertoire — add a dance, correct its tradition, write down how it goes, or retire one — and add to the traditions and types a dance is described with.	nobody, at the moment
Foreman	Change the repertoire — add a dance, correct its tradition, write down how it goes, or retire one — and add to the traditions and types a dance is described with. Build a dance list for a dance out — who dances what, who calls, who plays — and publish it to the side. This is the only one of these an admin does not get as well: who dances what is a job rather than a permission, so it goes with the office and nowhere else.	nobody, at the moment
Bagman	Nothing on its own — it says who to ask.	nobody, at the moment
Secretary	Add a document to the Docs tab, and take one down again. Unlock a set of minutes that has already been emailed to the side, so it can be corrected.	nobody, at the moment
Social Secretary	Nothing on its own — it says who to ask.	nobody, at the moment
Archivist	Nothing on its own — it says who to ask.	nobody, at the moment
Keeper of the Tadpoles	Nothing on its own — it says who to ask.	nobody, at the moment

Nothing else follows from holding one. An office does not let somebody edit anybody else’s answer, change a dance out that is not theirs, or reach the admin lists — those come from looking after a dance out, or from being an admin. An admin adds and renames the offices, and says who holds one.

Changing the repertoire

To retire a dance, untick In the repertoire rather than removing it. It sinks to the band at the bottom of the grid and everybody’s opinion of it is kept.

The traditions and types a dance is described with are behind the Traditions and types button at the top of the Dances page, beside the zoom. Taking one off that list is an admin’s, because it takes the label off every dance that carried it.

3. Admins

Being an admin is not about answers — those are already everybody’s. It is the lists the rest of the ticksheet is judged against, the member records, and the archive.

Admin view, and why the admin pages sometimes are not there

Being an admin and using it are two different things. An admin starts where every other member does: no admin tabs, and the admin pages turning you away, which is the only way to check what the side is actually looking at. Admin view is the switch, on your own page, and turning it on gives you the admin pages for an hour — then you are back without touching anything, so nobody is left holding admin by accident. Pressing it again is another hour.

You are still an admin either way, so if the admin pages are missing, this is the first thing to look at. Nothing about it changes anything for anybody else, and you keep any office you hold whichever way the switch is set — an office that edits the repertoire still does, because that is not something being an admin gave you.

Members

An admin adds people, edits anyone’s details, and takes somebody off the ticksheet when they stop dancing — which moves them to Associate members with a leaving date and keeps everything they ever answered. They can be brought back the same way. Deleting a record permanently is there for a duplicate or a mistake, and for nothing else.

A date of birth is only ever shown to an admin. It is held for one reason — the side's insurance — and nothing else in the app uses it. It is wanted for everybody who dances, and optional for an associate member, since the cover is for whoever is out dancing.

Associate members are never emailed by the ticksheet: no digest, no notice of a dance out being added or moved, nothing. They have stopped dancing with the side, and mail they did not ask for and cannot act on is not a kindness.

Only an admin can make somebody else an admin, on that member’s page. The last admin cannot have it taken away, or there would be nobody left to put it right.

The lists everything is judged against

Roles: The offices of the side, their order, and which of them carries Edits dances, Uploads documents or Corrects sent minutes — the three in the table in part two. Removing an office takes it off whoever held it and changes nothing else about them.
Event types: What kinds of dance out there are, and the colour each takes down the left of the grid. A type can have no colour at all. Any member may say which type an event is; the list itself is an admin’s.
Dance types: Removing a tradition or a type is an admin’s, because it takes the label off every dance that carried it. Adding one and correcting one belong with the repertoire — see part two.
Look: The colours the grid uses, the words it puts in the cells, and how long a change stays tinted. One set for the whole side.
Emails: When the weekly digest goes out — the day, the hour, and a date before which nothing is sent — and the sentence at the top of it. One digest for the whole side; what each member gets is still their own choice on their own page. The summary for whoever is looking after a dance out goes out the same morning, and how far ahead a dance out starts appearing in it is set here too. The hour set here is also when the day's changes go out, every morning rather than once a week.

Correcting the past

Past events are read-only for everybody, an admin included — until they press Unlock to correct, on the Past events tab for answers and on the event’s own page for its details. There are mistakes in ten years of records worth putting right, but not by accident.

It is all written down

Every change an admin makes is recorded under their own name and shown on the page it belongs to, the same as anybody else’s. There is no quiet edit.

Something here wrong, missing, or not what happened when you tried it? Say so — that is what the trial is for.