Before anyone can register for your event, eTalenter needs to know two things: who is eligible to compete, and what they can compete in. Those two lists come from two pages, and a third page joins them together. Get this part right and every later step, from registration to judging to results, follows the same structure without surprises.
This guide walks through Age Groups, Competition Names, and Assign Competitions, plus two pages that depend on them: Max Participation and Structure Status. Every screenshot comes from a public demo event, read-only, that you can open and click along with yourself: v2.etalenter.com/v2/Public/LiveDemo → Kalotsavam → Open demo as Coordinator.
Step 1: Create your age groups (Age Groups)
Menu: Event Setup → Groups & Competitions → Age Groups
Age groups are the categories participants are placed into, such as Sub Junior, Junior and Senior. Each one has an age range, a Participant Type (Individual, Team, or Any — meaning both), and can be linked to school units such as classes. Competitions and results are organised around these groups, so this is the first page to set up.
Click Add New Group and fill in:
- Group Name: what shows on lists, e.g. Juniors, Seniors.
- Participant Type: Individual, Team, or Any.
- Age From / Age To: the youngest and oldest age allowed.
- Age Calculation Date: the date used to work out a participant’s age for this group.
- Is Common Group: Yes lets one group hold participants of several ages together.
- No Age-Based ID Prefix: Yes skips using this group in chest number prefixes.
- Allow Overlapping Age Range: Yes lets this group’s ages overlap another group of the same Participant Type.
A few things to know before you add groups:
- Groups auto-order as Individual, then Team, then Any (each youngest to oldest), unless you choose Set Order Manually. If the order ever looks wrong, click Fix Order to re-sort everything automatically.
- A new age range cannot overlap an existing group of the same Participant Type unless you switch on Allow Overlapping Age Range.
- A gap warning shows when consecutive same-type groups do not cover every age — for example if Junior ends at 12 and Senior starts at 14, age 13 falls through.
- You cannot delete a group that is still in use elsewhere. Click Where this group is used (the link icon) to see every page referencing it, or use the circle icon to deactivate it instead of deleting it.
- To change several groups at once, tick them and click Edit N selected — you can bulk-change type, status, age range or prefix settings without opening each one.
Step 2: List every competition (Competition Names)
Menu: Event Setup → Groups & Competitions → Competition Names
This page holds every competition or program run at the event — Solo Singing, Elocution, and so on. It is used everywhere else in the app: assigning to groups, scheduling, judging and publishing results, so a competition has to exist here first.
Click Add New Competition and set:
- Competition Title: the name shown everywhere, e.g. Song, Dance, Speech.
- Competition Type: the category it belongs to, picked from a fixed list. This page does not create new categories.
- Scoring Method: Marks, Count, Rating / 10, or Range / 10.
- Time Strategy (optional): Per Head, Per Phase, or Total Time. Leaving it unset shows a Not set warning badge on the list.
- Image URL (optional): a picture for the competition; you can paste a link or pick one from the matching catalogue images.
To reorder items, drag a row by its handle icon, or click Fix Order to auto-sort every category at once. Bulk Edit and Bulk Delete work on every ticked item together. Once your competitions exist here, the next step is putting them together with your age groups.
Step 3: Match competitions to groups (Assign Competitions)
Menu: Event Setup → Groups & Competitions → Assign Competitions
This page links each competition to the age groups running it, and sets the details for each combination: language, gender, maximum score, time limit, fee and status. It has two views:
- List View: drill down by Participant Type, then Group, then Competition Item, and manage each assigned combination as a card.
- Matrix View: a Group × Competition grid for one Participant Type. Click an empty cell to assign it, or its … control to add gender or language variants for that cell.
Matrix View needs one extra step first — it only works once you have picked a specific Participant Type tab:
To assign one combination by hand, click New (or an empty matrix cell) and fill in the Participant Type, Group, Competition Item, Language, Gender, Status, Maximum Score, Max Time, Warning Time and Fees. New rows start with Max Time 5:00 and Warning Time 1:00, and Maximum Score must be filled in — if it is left blank, scoring for that competition stops at 10.
To assign many combinations at once, click Bulk Create, tick every Group, Competition Item, Language and Gender you want, set the shared Max Score, Max Time and Fees, and click Create N. Use Edit N selected or Delete N selected to change or remove many assignments together, and Fix Order to re-sort everything by participant type, group, competition, gender and language.
Two things worth remembering: groups restricted to Individual or Team only accept assignments on the matching Participant Type tab, and there is no participant-limit field on this page — that is set separately, on Max Participation.
Step 4: Cap how many competitions one candidate can join (Max Participation)
Menu: Event Setup → Advanced Settings → Max Participation
This page overrides the event’s default participation limit for one specific competition category — for example, allowing more or fewer entries than usual just for Dance. The event-wide default limit itself is set elsewhere, on Advanced Config’s Participation Limits section.
Changes in the table are not saved to the event until you click Save All Changes. To change an existing limit, click its Edit icon, update the number, click Update Rule, then Save All Changes again. Delete works the same way, with a Save All Changes at the end.
Step 5: See how the setup is progressing (Structure Status)
Menu: Event Setup → Groups & Competitions → Structure Status
Once competitions are assigned, this page shows every one of them grouped by its progress status, so you can see the whole event’s status at a glance: Not Started, Yet To Begin, On Progress, On Review, Finished, Published, and Cancelled.
Each row has a Status dropdown, and picking a new value saves immediately — there is no separate save step here. This page only changes status; to change score, time, fee, language or gender for a combination, go back to Assign Competitions.
Common questions
Why can’t I add a new competition category?
Categories come from a fixed list built into the app. Competition Names lets you pick a category for each item, but it does not create new categories.
Two of my age groups need to share some ages. Is that allowed?
Not by default — a new age range cannot overlap an existing group of the same Participant Type. Switch on Allow Overlapping Age Range on the group if you need this.
Matrix View looks empty or won’t let me click anything.
Pick a specific Participant Type tab first — Individual or Team. Matrix View does not work on the All tab.
Scoring seems capped at 10 for one competition.
Its Maximum Score was left blank on Assign Competitions. Open that combination and set a Maximum Score.
Where do I set how many competitions a candidate can enter overall, not just in one category?
That is the event-wide default, set on Advanced Config’s Participation Limits section. Max Participation only overrides it for one category at a time.
I can’t delete an age group.
It is still referenced somewhere. Click Where this group is used to see every page using it, or deactivate the group instead of deleting it.
What’s next
With age groups and competitions in place and matched together, the next guides in this series cover organising your event’s levels — houses, classes and divisions — and then opening registration so candidates and teams can actually sign up.
Open the demo event and click through every page in this guide yourself: v2.etalenter.com/v2/Public/LiveDemo.
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