Concepts and glossary

Audience: Anyone new to orienteering timing, or new to how Manager models it.

This page defines the orienteering terms and the Manager-specific concepts used throughout the rest of the documentation. You don't need to read it end to end — skim it now, then come back when a word in another page is unfamiliar. Where a term has a page of its own, the definition links to it.

Throughout the docs, italic marks a term defined here.

Orienteering terms

The event and its people

Event — the top-level container for a competition: its classes, courses, controls, competitors and results all live inside one event. Manager can hold many events; usually one is live at a time, though two can be (see Running two events at once).

Competitor — an individual participant in the event. See Competitors, clubs and teams.

Card number — the number of the electronic card a competitor carries, recorded on their entry. A card download is matched to its competitor by this number. Two people may share a card if they run at different times. See Card numbers.

Hire card — a card the event lends to a competitor who doesn't have their own. The pool of hire-card numbers is set up once in Settings → Hire card registry; anyone whose card number is in the pool is "on a hire card", and the download desk is reminded to collect it. See Hire items.

Hire item — anything else you lend, such as a compass or a map board, set up in Settings → Other hire registry and ticked on the competitor who has it. See Hire items.

Bib — the number a competitor wears. Can be allocated in blocks by class, and kept the same across the days of a carnival. See Bib numbers.

IOF ID — a competitor's id in the IOF's athlete database, used to match people in IOF XML files and the world ranking. See Importing IOF IDs.

Club — the organisation a competitor represents. Clubs are reused across events through the Club Registry; competitors can be reused through the Competitor Registry.

Class — the category a competitor enters, such as M21E (Men, 21, Elite) or W18A (Women, 18, A-grade). Everyone in a class is ranked against each other. A class is assigned one or more courses. See Classes and courses.

Course pool — a class with more than one course, where each competitor runs one of them and their card is checked against each until one fits. See Course pools.

Multi-part class (Duo) — a class whose competitors run all its courses, one after another on one card, without coming back to the finish in between, for one combined result — a Duo class at an MTBO is a score ride and then a score run. In the Edit Class dialog it is Competitors do → All courses; each boundary between two parts is a changeover. See Classes whose competitors do every course.

Changeover — the point where one part of a race ends and the next begins: in a relay, where one leg's runner hands over to the next; in a multi-part class, the control whose punch ends one course and starts the next.

Ranking — a competitor's place on an external ranking list drawn up before the event: a national ranking, a squad's seeding order, whatever list you were handed. 1 is the best-ranked athlete and the number gets worse as it grows; someone who isn't on the list has no ranking at all. It is a place, not a points score — Manager never treats a bigger number as better. Its main use is seeding a start draw. Nothing to do with a competitor's finishing position, which Manager works out from the results. See Ranking.

The course and the controls

Course — the physical route a competitor runs: an ordered chain of controls from a start to a finish. Several classes can share one course. See Classes and courses.

Control — a single timing point at a position on the map. A normal control carries a control code (the number printed on it and programmed into its unit, e.g. 131), which is how a punch is matched to it. See Controls and radio controls.

Start, finish, check — special controls that mark, respectively, where timing begins, where it ends, and where competitors confirm their card is clear before starting. Unlike normal controls these are codeless — they describe a place on the map, not a code. An event can have several of each (e.g. Start 1 and Start 2 at different locations), and each course picks which start and finish it chains through. A course can also use its first numbered control as its start, or its last as its finish — see Starting or finishing at a numbered control.

Punch — the record that a competitor visited a control. Most punches are electronic, written to the competitor's card either by touching the unit (contact) or by SIAC "air" punching (contactless). A manual or pin punch is the needle-and-paper backup used when the electronics fail; to accept one, mark the control visited on the competitor (see Resolving issues on the day).

Split — the time recorded at an intermediate control, used to show how a competitor's run is progressing and to compare sections of the course between competitors.

Leg — the section of a course between two consecutive controls. Its length is the leg distance, shared by every course that runs it, and a leg can carry an untimed allowance for a road crossing. (In a relay, leg also means one team member's whole portion of the team's course — see below.) See Leg distances.

Course format — how a course is scored: a Line course is visited in order; a Scatter course needs a set number of its controls, in any order; a Score course collects points from any of its controls, in any order, usually against a time limit with points deducted for finishing late. See Score and scatter courses.

Variations (forking) — versions of one course that differ in a few legs, so that runners starting together split up. Each competitor or relay team is given a variation. See Combining forked courses into variations.

Course with loops — a course whose loops all start and end at one common control, run in any order as long as every loop is run: a butterfly for a single runner, or a star relay where a team shares the loops. See Courses with loops and Star relays.

Check punch — a punch at the Check unit near the start, before the start itself. It doesn't start anybody: Manager marks the runner checked in and counts them on the On course list until something says they're back, which is why a check-in matters for safety. See Safety check.

Relays and teams

Relay team — a team whose members each run one leg of the course in sequence, handing over to the next runner. The team's result is the sum of its legs. See Relay events.

Star relay — a relay in which every leg goes out from one central control and comes back to it, the team's runners taking turns to run the loops of one course. See Star relays.

Starts and finishing

Allocated start — a start time set in advance: for one competitor (from the start draw, an import or by hand), for a whole class (a class mass start), or for the whole event (an event mass start). See Start times.

Mass start — everyone in a class, or the whole event, starting together at one time. A relay always has one. See Start times.

Punched start — the start time recorded when a competitor punches a Start unit, as at a start-when-ready event. When a competitor has both an allocated time and a punched start, a setting decides which wins. See Punched starts.

Start draw — working out each competitor's allocated start time, class by class, across the start lanes. See Drawing start times.

Course closure — the time of day by which every competitor must be back. When it passes, anyone still out becomes Overtime and anyone never seen becomes DNS. See Course closure and Status and race time rules.

Safety check — accounting for everyone who went out: making the On course list go to zero by downloads, station reads and decisions. See Safety check.

Multi-stage events (carnivals)

Multi-stage event — one competition decided over several races: an Easter 3 Days, a summer carnival, a league. Each race is an ordinary event; the multi-stage event is the container that combines them. Often called a carnival.

Stage — one race of a multi-stage event, numbered from 1.

Standings — the combined result across the stages: each competitor's per-stage contributions, a total, and an overall position.

Chasing start (or pursuit start) — a start list for a later stage where everyone starts at their deficit behind the overall leader, so the first across the line wins.

See Multi-stage events.

Knock-out competitions

Knock-out competition — the other kind of multi-stage event: a sequence of rounds where each round's field comes from the results of the round before, rather than stages added up. Competitors enter once, into the first round.

Round — one phase of a knock-out — Qualification, Quarter Finals, Finals. A round is a stage, and therefore an ordinary event. Rounds run one at a time.

Heat — one simultaneously-run group within a round. A heat is a class in that round's event, with its own course and its own mass start. An A final and a B final are two heats of the Finals round, not two rounds.

Advancement — working out a round's field from an earlier round's results and writing the entries in. Always previewed, never automatic, and safe to run twice.

Lucky loser — somebody who advances on their time across all the heats rather than on their place within one.

Classification — the overall knock-out result: how far each competitor got, then where they finished in that round.

See Knock-out competitions.

Competitor status

Every competitor has a status that Manager works out automatically as start times pass, punches arrive and cards are downloaded. The common ones:

Shown as	Meaning
(blank)	None — no result yet.
On course	Started but not yet finished (the orienteering term In Forest).
OK	Finished with a valid result.
MP	Missing Punch — a required control wasn't punched.
DNF	Did Not Finish.
DNS	Did Not Start.

There are several more: DSQ (Disqualified), OVT (Overtime — still out at the course closure), OOC (Out of competition), NT (No timing), NP (Not competing) and CAN (Cancelled). For the full list and the rules behind every transition, see Status and race time rules.

Provisional result — an OK worked out from a radio finish before the card has been downloaded. It is shown with a * and may still change; the card download makes it final. The competitors waiting for that download are the Pending count on the dashboard. See Provisional vs final OK and Seeing who is still on course.

Sub-second timing — whether an event separates runners by fractions of a second. Off by default: a whole second is the finest difference, and two finishers inside the same second share a place. See Status and race time rules.

meshO Manager concepts

Server / workstation — you run Manager on one computer (the server); everyone else joins from a browser on the same network. There's no per-machine install. Event data lives in Manager itself — there's no separate database — and arrives through imports, manual entry, card downloads and radio punches. See What is meshO Manager?.

Computer — every browser that opens Manager is a computer to it, and can be given a name ("Download lane A") the first time it opens Manager. The name shows in the audit trail, and each computer has its own choice of where the splits and labels for cards read on it print. See Where each computer's splits and labels print.

Access links — the ready-made links to each part of Manager, by the server's name and by its IP address, in Settings → Server. See Reaching the server: name or IP.

Access PIN — an optional PIN, set in Settings → Access protection, that the manager screens and the registration desk ask for. The spectator site, the kiosk and the arena screens stay open to everyone. See Settings.

HTTPS — a secure link to the server. A laptop other than the server needs it to use a card reader in the browser. See HTTPS and certificates.

Live standby — a second computer running Manager that keeps a live copy of the running event and can Take over if the main computer fails. Taking over is always your decision. See Live standby.

The life of an event

An event moves through three modes, and what you can do depends on which it's in:

• Setup — the event is being built. You configure classes, courses, controls, competitors and start times. Downloads and live results don't happen yet. The status chip reads Setup.
• Live — the event is running. Card downloads work, radio punches flow in, and results calculate in real time. The event date locks, but competitors, classes and start times stay editable so late entries and corrections still work. You enter this with Start event and leave it with Finish event. The chip reads Live. Two events can be live at once — see Running two events at once.
• Archive — the event has been finished. The data remains for results and exports. The chip reads Complete. Finishing isn't final: Restart event takes a finished event live again, on any later day, for the competitor who turns up after you've closed it off.

(Two exception states exist: an event left running when Manager closed shows as Interrupted and can be resumed, and one you choose not to resume becomes Abandoned. Both can be resumed or marked finished at any time.) See the first-event walkthrough for the lifecycle in practice, and the dashboard for restarting.

Test mode — starting an event dated in the future runs it in test mode, for practising and checking a setup. See The event dashboard.

Low-key event — an event with no entries beforehand, such as a club training, where Manager creates competitors and courses from the cards as they're downloaded. See Low-key events.

Results quarantine — holding back chosen classes' results from every public display until you release them, so runners waiting in a start quarantine learn nothing about the course. The start list stays visible. See Results quarantine.

How timing data arrives

Card — the electronic timing chip a competitor carries (a SportIdent or EMIT card). It records a punch at each control. "SI card" refers specifically to the SportIdent brand.

Card download — reading a finished competitor's card at the download desk. This produces the authoritative result — the full set of punches, evaluated against the course. See Downloading cards.

Unknown card — a card that isn't recorded against any competitor. A download from one arrives Unassigned, waiting for you to give it to a competitor or enter a new one. See Downloading cards.

Station — a SportIdent unit: a control, start, finish or check unit, or the reader at the download desk. Every control unit keeps a memory of the cards that punched it, which can be read into Manager (Station memory) and its settings changed (SportIdent station). See Station memory and Station configuration.

Download station — a meshO unit that reads cards and sends them to the server over the radio network, with no computer beside it. See Cards read over the radio network.

Radio punch — a punch sent to Manager live over radio as the competitor passes a control, rather than waiting for their card to be downloaded at the finish. Radio punches drive the live picture; the card download confirms it later. See Radio punches.

Radio control — a control whose unit reports punches live (via meshO Prime or SIRAP), so runners' progress appears on the spectator site, the Leaderboard and Commentary as they pass. A class's radio controls form an ordered sequence (radio 1, radio 2, …), and Manager identifies each split by its position in that sequence rather than by the control's code — the same code can appear more than once in a course (for example a butterfly or loop passed twice), so the code alone wouldn't say which passing it was. See Controls and radio controls.

Event map — the map image you upload on the Map page and calibrate to real-world positions. It is the background of the live map, and the Radio control placement screen uses it to plan which controls carry a radio and whether each can reach meshO Prime. See The event map and radio placement.

meshO Prime — the field-unit hardware that receives punches from radio controls and feeds them to the server. It plugs into the server computer over USB. See Connecting meshO Prime and radios.

Field unit — any meshO device on the radio network: meshO Prime, the meshO Control units at radio controls, and meshO Athlete units, the GPS trackers some competitors carry. See Tracking.

SIRAP — a common format for sending punches between timing systems over the network. Manager can forward its radio punches to other software, and accept punches from it. See Forwarding and receiving punches.

Replay (test mode) — a training and testing tool that replays captured event data so you can practise or check a setup without a real event. It's not something you use during a live event. See The event dashboard.

Screens and views

Operator UI — the Manager admin app the event team uses: dashboard, competitors, downloads, settings and so on. This is what most of these docs describe.

Screens — the read-only public displays you open in their own browser windows and share to TVs, tablets and phones. Each arena screen shows what you tell it to — a Leaderboard, Live top 10, an analysis wall or the Start times. Alongside them sit the Commentary view for the announcer and the spectator site and kiosk for the crowd. See Creating screens.

Leaderboard vs Results — the Leaderboard is the live standings: shown on arena screens, and on Manager's own Leaderboard page under Event live. The Results page is the operator-facing view of the same data, where you publish and export official results. See Leaderboard and Results.

Spectator / Kiosk — the public, self-serve views where competitors and spectators look up start lists, live progress, splits and results from their own device or an arena kiosk. See The spectator site and kiosk.

Info screens — view-only displays propped up around the event at /info: a start clock, the upcoming starters, the punches at a radio control, who still has to download, and camera video. See Event info screens.

Registration desk — a cut-down Manager at /rego for the entry table: finding and entering competitors, fixing classes and cards, and handing out hire cards. See The registration desk.

Splits print — the slip printed for a competitor when their card is read. A result label is a separate, smaller label for the results board. See Printing splits.

Data in and out

Eventor — the online entry and results system many federations use. Manager can create events from it, import entries and start times, and upload results. See Creating an event from Eventor.

IOF XML — the international standard file format for orienteering courses, entries, start lists and results. See Importing event data and Exporting data.

OJSON — Orienteering JSON, meshO's published file format for event data, with room for what IOF XML can't express (fractions of a second, how a course is scored). Every import accepts it, and results export to it alongside IOF XML. See OJSON.

Purple Pen — course-setting software whose .ppen files Manager imports directly. See Importing from Purple Pen.

liveresultat — liveresultat.orientering.se, a public live-results website that Manager can publish to while the event is live. See Publishing live results online.

Cloud sync — publishing an event to a meshO Manager on the internet, so spectators can browse it online — by default the meshO cloud at events.mesho.live, once the event is finished. See Publishing live results online.

Backup — a copy of a whole event in one file, taken by hand, automatically while the event runs, or onto an external drive, and restorable as a new event. See Backup and restore.

Audit trail — the record of every change made to an event: what changed, when, from where and on which computer. See Audit trail.

Changes report — the changes made to people during an event (new cards, class changes), ready to carry into the next events and the competitor registry. See Changes report.

AI assistants (MCP) — an optional connection that lets an AI assistant read the live event and, if you allow it, make corrections. See AI assistants (MCP).

Extending Manager

Extensions — optional add-ons you install at runtime to add custom tiles and features (for example a dashboard tile). They're a power-user feature, separate from Manager's built-in functionality. See Installing extensions.

What's shared vs per-event

Most data — competitors, classes, courses, results — belongs to one event. A few things are shared across all your events: the Club Registry and Competitor Registry (so you can reuse known clubs and people), the Hire card registry and Other hire registry (what you lend — see Hire items), and your app-wide Settings. Editing a shared registry affects every event that draws on it; editing event data affects only that event.

Related

• What is meshO Manager? — the architecture these terms sit in
• Walkthrough: your first event — the concepts in action, end to end
• Status and race time rules — the full status list and the rules behind it