Much of the "read only" functionality is available even if you are not logged in. This includes access to the statistics and latest news, as well as viewing any possible scenarios that may have been submitted. However, to submit brackets and fully utilize the site, participants will be required to create a user and log in. This will give the user functionality for bracket submission, quick view of their brackets, as well the ability to create new "what-if" scenarios once the tournament begins.

To create a user, simply go to the "Home" tab and follow the registration wizard in the "user portlet" window. After you have registered, login to the site and return to the March Madness tab, where you can then create entries and maintain your pool.
To submit brackets, all users are required to log into the site. A link will be available on the lefthand navigation column which, when followed, will bring up a new window with the bracket creation screen. Fill out all the games along with providing a bracket name and point total before submitting the bracket. Note that this site will not require users to completely fill out the bracket on initial submission. This is because users have the ability to modify their brackets up to the start of the tournament.

Users should note that up until the start of the tournament there will be a "clone" link next to each of their brackets. Cloning a bracket will bring up the bracket submission page with the picks arranged the same as the cloned bracket. Users can then modify this new bracket and provide a new bracket name to quickly create brackets with minimal changes between each other.

Users can modify their brackets up until the start of their tournament simply by clicking on the bracket name on their bracket list on the lefthand navigation column.

I've tested the site with versions 6 and 7 of IE as well as 2 versions of firefox, and unfortunately the only version that will reliably print the bracket is IE 7. Versions of firefox may work if you simply resize by percentage and not by selecting "shrink to fit". IE 6 doesn't seem to work at all because there is no option to resize the bracket to fit a page. I was looking into providing an option to convert to pdf to print, but I couldn't find a reliable solution.

To print the bracket, please try the following procedure...

* On an open bracket, select print preview from the file menu.
* In IE7, "shrink to fit" the page. For Firefox, use the percentages to resize the page. I've found the firefox hangs if you attempt to shrink to fit.
* Select your printer and print.


*Note: Once the tournament starts, all maintenance activities will no longer be available. Please be sure to fully fill out the brackets and check for any errors prior to the day before the tournament starts. If you have any problems, please contact me.
Groups are a way to filter the leaderboard for a given set of entries, which is desirable when you have side bets or just want to view entries of friends.

To create group, simply select the "Create A Group" link on the group summary page. You are required to provide a name for the group and optionally a description and password for the group. By providing a password you are effectively making the group private and only users who know the password will be able to add their entries to the group. Leaving the password field blank will allow anyone to add entries to the group.

To join a group, simply select the group name, enter the password (if the group is private) and select the entries you want to add the group. Note that only entries that you choose to add will join the group. This allows groups to have parameters such as "Choose your best bracket".

Once the tournament starts you will be able to access the group leaderboard by selecting the group name or description from within your group summary page. This will bring up a leaderboard filtered to show only entries in your group.
Once the tournament starts, there will be a link available on the lefthand navigation bar for the latest results. This link will be available for all users, even if they are not logged in. Do not expect that the results will be updated instantaneously on this site, as I am still manually entering in the results. I'll do my best to keep things up to date, but you'll have to be patient.

Once I update the results, the statistics will be generated and should be available in the provided pages.

Using what-if scenarios will allow you to provide a theoretical result in the tournament and see how this would impact the pool results. While any user can view the scenario results, you must log into the site to create a new one and to generate the statistics.

*Please note that this is very experimental functionality. The generation of statistics will typically take a minute per 500 entries, and running the tool may cause responsiveness issues for other parts of the site. Please do not go wild in creating scenarios for this reason. If the use of this tool causes service interuptions then I will be forced to remove this functionality from the site.