Court Manager

A quick guide to getting started.

Getting Started

When you first open Court Manager, you'll see two options:

• ⚡ Quick Play — Pick a format (Open Play, Round Robin, or Tournament) and jump straight into an offline session on this device. No sign-in, no setup — just tell it how many players and their names.
• 🏓 Score Keeper Only — Skip sessions entirely and just track serve and score for one match. No sign-in, no roster, nothing saved.
• Sign in with Google — Unlocks full features: create and manage private sessions, save your preferences across devices, and keep a personal match history.

Opening a link someone shared with you to a specific session takes you to a focused screen for that session instead of the general landing page — it's headed "Join [session name]", hides Quick Play (since it starts an unrelated offline session), and narrows your choice to Sign in with Google (to save your preferences and track match history) or Continue as Guest (just your name and an optional skill level, nothing saved).

You can also tap How it Works at the bottom of the entry screen for a short in-app overview at any time.

Quick Play

Tap Quick Play, choose a format — Open Play, Round Robin, or Tournament — then enter how many players are starting and each player's name (skill level is skipped for speed). Tap Start Playing and you're straight into that offline session — entirely offline and local to this device. Nobody else can join it, there's no Settings tab, and nothing is shared online.

Joining a Session (online)

After you sign in with Google, you'll land on the Join a Session screen with two panels:

• Private Session — Pick a session you've previously joined, or create a new one.
• Public Session — Pick a location from the dropdown and tap Join.

When you join or create an online session for the first time, you'll be asked for your name and optional skill level (2.0–8.0) in a small popup, then asked to confirm before you're added.

If someone sends you a link to their session, opening it lets you sign in with Google or continue as a guest to join that session directly — no account needed.

The Queue

Players added by someone else (rather than joining themselves) don't carry a badge — but whoever added them sees an edit (✎) icon to update their name or skill.

• + Add Player — Add players who don't have the app, or aren't joining themselves. You can edit or remove players you added.
• Sit Out (⏸) — Sit out temporarily. You stay in the session but won't be assigned to courts. Anyone can sit out anyone.
• Play (▶) — Rejoin the queue after sitting out.
• Remove (×) — Remove yourself (leaves the session) or players you added. Admins can remove anyone.

Court Assignments

Open Play (default)

The app automatically assigns players to courts as doubles matches.

1. Set "Courts available now" — how many courts to fill this press.
2. Tap Assign Courts. Players are randomly paired and assigned.
3. Tap ▶ Start on a court to start its timer.
4. When a game ends, tap End, then Save (with or without a score) or Cancel to go back — those players return to the queue.
5. Tap Assign Courts again to fill open courts with waiting players.

Match Options

• Match by skill (on by default) — Pairs players with similar skill levels.
• Minimize repeats (on by default) — Avoids matching players who've already played each other.

Score Keeper

Score Keeper tracks side-out serving and the score for a single game, using standard pickleball scoring — calls read as server score–returner score–server number (e.g. "4-2-2"). It's available two ways:

• Score Keeper Only — Tap it right on the landing page for a standalone scorer. Type in each team's player name(s) (leave the second name blank for singles) and you're scoring — no session, no roster, and nothing is saved once you're done.
• In a session — Once a court's match has started, tap 🏓 Score Keeper on that court to track the match live instead of entering a score manually at the end.

Setup

Before scoring starts, choose:

• The first server for each doubles team (skipped for singles).
• Which team is serving first.
• Playing to 11 or 15 points (win by 2).

Live Scoring

The serving team is highlighted, with the current server marked "Now Serving." Tap Point to award the serving team a point, or No Point when they lose the rally. In doubles, losing the rally passes serve to the second server on that side; if both partners have served, it's a side out (flashed on screen) and serve passes to the other team. The game ends automatically once a team reaches the target score with at least a 2-point lead, showing a Game Complete banner with the winner.

The standalone Score Keeper Only mode doesn't save anything — closing it or tapping Done at the end just closes the scorer.

Partner Preferences

In the Settings tab under Your Partner(s):

• Tap + Add Partner and select a player.
• When both you and a partner are in the queue, you'll be placed on the same side in doubles.
• If a partner is on a court or sitting out, you'll be assigned normally with other players.
• You can add multiple partners — the app will pair you with whichever one is available.

In Round Robin and Tournament sessions, partners work a little differently: add a partner while the roster is still being built and you'll be teamed together for the whole round robin or tournament, not just one match. Anyone left without a partner is randomly paired with another unpartnered player once the roster is locked. The Partner(s) card disappears from Settings after locking, since teams are fixed at that point.

Partner preferences aren't available in offline (Quick Play) sessions — there's no Settings tab in those.

Share Link

Every online session has a Share Link in the Settings tab. Copy it and send to friends to invite them to your session. When someone opens a share link:

• For private sessions, they'll be asked for the passcode first.
• They can then sign in with Google or join as a guest, enter their info, and they're in.

Share links aren't available for offline sessions — those never leave your device.

Private Sessions

For games at home, tournaments, or groups that want their own space:

1. Sign in with Google on the landing page (required to create).
2. From the Join a Session screen, tap + Create New under Private Session.
3. Enter a session name and a 4-character passcode (or tap Random to generate one).
4. Choose Open Play, Round Robin, or Tournament from the session type dropdown.
5. Tap Create & Join, confirm, then enter the starting player count and names — you're placed straight into the new session with your roster ready.
6. Share the link with friends — they'll need the passcode to join. The session creator and super admins skip the passcode.

Round Robin Mode

Round Robin is available for private (and offline) sessions and creates a structured tournament schedule of fixed doubles teams — you'll need at least 4 players (2 teams) to start:

1. Add all players to the session.
2. Tap Lock Players to Generate Schedule in the assign section.
3. Set the number of courts and tap Generate Schedule.
4. Round 1 is assigned to courts. All upcoming rounds are shown below.
5. When all Round 1 games finish, tap Start Next Round to advance. Once every round has been played, the button reads All Rounds Complete.

Admins can switch between Open Play, Round Robin, and Tournament in the Settings tab, and can unlock players to modify the roster. All players must be paired into doubles teams (with a partner or automatically); an odd number of unpaired players will prompt you to add one more or pair everyone up.

Tournament Mode

Tournament mode creates a single-elimination bracket of doubles teams for private (and offline) sessions — you'll need at least 4 players (2 teams) to start:

1. Add all players to the session.
2. Tap Lock Players to Generate Bracket in the assign section.
3. Set the number of courts and tap Generate Bracket.
4. The bracket is displayed with all rounds. First-round matches are assigned to courts.
5. When a match ends, enter scores — ties are not allowed in tournament matches. The winning team automatically advances in the bracket. (Saving without a score just clears the court without recording a winner, so use it sparingly here.)
6. When all matches in a round are complete, tap to start the next round (Semifinals, Final, etc.).
7. If there are more matches than courts, remaining matches can be started as courts free up.

Match History

Session History

The History tab shows all completed matches in the current session with teams, scores, and match duration. Use the search bar to filter by player name, or tap My Matches to see only games you played in. Session history persists until an admin clears it.

Personal Match History

If you're signed in with Google, your matches are also saved to your personal match history. This history stays even if an admin clears the session history or deletes the session. Access it from the My Match History button in your profile card on the landing page. You can search by player name and swipe left on any match to delete it. Personal match history isn't available for offline or guest sessions.

Match Time Limit

Matches automatically expire after 100 minutes. Expired matches are saved to history with a score of "N/A" and players are returned to the queue.

Sharing & Multi-Device

• All online session data syncs in real-time across everyone's devices. Offline (Quick Play) sessions stay on the one device that started them.
• Court assignments, scores, and queue changes appear instantly for all users in an online session.
• If you leave a session, your court assignments stay active for others to manage.
• Share the URL or use the Share Link in Settings to invite others — public sessions don't need a code, private ones do.
• Session data persists until an admin resets or deletes it — it won't disappear on its own.

Admin Features

There are two types of admins:

• Session Admin — The person who created a session. Automatically gets admin for that session. Other signed-in users can be promoted to session admin from Settings.
• Super Admin — Can manage any session (public or private), see all private sessions, create public locations, delete any session, and add/remove other super admins. Super admins also get an "All Private Sessions" and "All Users" panel above the join screen.

Managing Session Admins

In the Settings tab, admins can manage who else has admin access via the Session Admins card:

• Tap + Add Admin to see a list of signed-in users in the session.
• Select a user and confirm to grant them admin access.
• Remove an admin by tapping "remove" next to their name.

Managing Super Admins

Existing super admins see a Super Admin Management panel on the landing screen (above the join options) where they can add or remove other super admins by email.

Admin Actions

Admins can:

• Reset Everything — Clears all data. All users get kicked back to the join screen.
• Clear History — Wipes match history and sit-out counts, keeps players and courts.
• Delete Session — Permanently removes a session (with double confirmation). Available for private sessions and for super admins on public sessions.
• Remove any player from the queue.
• Change session type — Switch between Open Play, Round Robin, and Tournament (private sessions).
• View the Admin History log of all admin actions.
• View and share the session passcode from Settings.