Setting up a trial¶

Setting up a trial means telling the program what the AKC has approved: which club, which days, which classes on each day, who judges them, and what the entries cost. Everything later — entries, running order, scoring, the catalog — is built on this.

You do this once per event, as soon as the AKC approves it.

Before you start¶

You need the AKC event number for each trial in the cluster. The AKC issues one number per trial, so a Saturday and Sunday weekend has two numbers, and a weekend with two clubs alternating days may have four.

The numbers are on your approval paperwork, and on the AKC event search page.

Note

A cluster is one event in this program. Each AKC event number becomes one day within it. Do not create a separate event for each day — armband numbers, fees and the catalog all work across the whole cluster.

Two ways in¶

	Use when
Import from the AKC	the event is approved and published on the AKC site — almost always
Set it up by hand	the event is not published yet, or you are correcting an import

The import fills in the same screens you would type into, so you can always open the event afterwards and adjust it.

Import from the AKC¶

Open frmAKCEventImport. Type the event numbers for every trial in the cluster, separated by spaces or commas:

2026004921 2026004922

Press Fetch from AKC. The program reads each event’s page from the AKC site and shows you what it found, in three lists.

Trials found¶

One row per AKC event number: the club, the type of event, the first day, the entry limit and the entry fees. Check the dates and the club are what you expect before going on.

Judges¶

One row per judge, with a status:

Status	Meaning
`Updated`	already on file; the address, phone and email were refreshed from the AKC judges directory
`Added`	not on file; added from the directory
`CHECK`	needs you — see below

Judges are matched on their AKC judge number, not their name. Two things stop the import and ask you to look:

The number is on file but under a different surname. Either the number is wrong on the existing record, or the AKC has it against someone else.
The number is not on file, but a judge with that surname already exists without a number. This is very likely the same person — put the AKC number on the existing record rather than letting a duplicate be created.

Nothing is imported while any judge says CHECK.

Classes offered¶

One row per class the AKC has approved, with the judge assigned to it. Classes the club did not offer are left out.

Creating the event¶

The Event name box starts as the club name. If the club runs here more than once a year you may want to make it more specific, though the event dropdowns show the dates alongside the name, so you no longer need to put a month in the name to tell two trials apart.

Press Create the Event. The program writes the event, its days, the classes for each day, the judge assignments, the entry fees and the trial secretary.

Note

If anything fails part way through, nothing is created at all — you get an error and the event is rolled back. Fix what it complains about and press Create the Event again.

What the import does not fill in¶

The AKC page does not carry these, so they are left for you on Setup → Event:

Ring numbers — every class is left unassigned
Running order — see Set Running Order
Armband numbers — see Armband numbers
Start times for each class

The AKC page does publish the entry limit, the opening date and the application method (random draw or first received). These are shown on the form for reference but not stored, because the event record has nowhere to keep them.

Set it up by hand¶

Open Setup → Event. To start a new event press New Event and type a name. The screen has six tabs.

Day(s) / Title(s)¶

This is the important one, and it works left to right:

Days — one row per day of the trial. Enter the date, and put the AKC event number in the description. The initials and the order fill the catalog and the running order.
Title(s) — with a day selected, the classes offered that day.
Judge assignment — with a class selected, the judge, and which jump heights they take. Leave the height as All unless two judges split a class.

Build Trial List - Shortcut adds the standard set of classes and judges for the day in one step, which is much quicker than adding them one at a time.

Warning

If titles already exist for the day, this button offers to delete them first — and that deletes every entry for every dog in the event. Read the prompt carefully. Answering No creates duplicate titles instead.

Entry Fee¶

Fees are positional, per day. The first class a dog enters on a day costs the first fee, the second class costs the second fee, and so on. The count starts again at one on each new day.

So a fee list of 25, 17, 17, 17 means the first run of the day is $25 and every run after it is $17.

Arm Bands¶

See Armband numbers.

Email Messages¶

The text sent to exhibitors at each stage — entry received, in the event, moved up, wait listed, closed out and final.

Trial Secretary¶

Who to contact about the event. If you are the only secretary using the program, set yourself as the default under Tools → Options and this fills in automatically for every new event.

Judge Maintenance¶

Add and correct judges without leaving the setup screen.

Select the event¶

Nothing else in the program works until the event is active. Open the Events menu and click the event you just made.

Note

On Access 2007 and later the menu bar is under the Add-Ins tab.

The title bar changes to show the active event:

Agility OpenTTM - AKC - Stone City Kennel Club

Only one event is active at a time, per application. The Events menu lists each event with its dates, so two visits by the same club are easy to tell apart:

Stone City Kennel Club - 26 Sep 2026 to 27 Sep 2026

Set Running Order¶

On Day(s) / Title(s), press Set Running Order to decide the order classes run in on each day.

Armband numbers¶

Armband numbers are assigned per dog. How they work depends on the event:

Agility — one armband for the whole event.
Obedience and Rally — a separate armband per class.

The import sets this to match how this database has always done it for the kind of event you imported, so you should not normally need to change it.

Press Rebuild Arm Band Number List on the Arm Bands tab to build the list.

Warning

Rebuilding resets armband numbers. Do not do it once dogs are entered.

Check it over¶

Before you open for entries, confirm:

every day is present, with the right date and AKC event number
every class the club offers appears on the right day
every class has a judge
the fees match the premium
the trial secretary details are yours

Then move on to Taking entries.