A chip code is not something you invent — it is already on the chip. Everything below is about Podium learning which code is on which person, which is the one job that has to be done before anybody starts.
Reading a code off a tag
An active tag from RFID Timing is always three letters followed by three numbers — RFI015. Six characters, every time, and that is the code.
The zeros are part of it. RFI15 is not the same code and will not be recognised, so do not let anybody drop them when they write one down or type one into a spreadsheet. A spreadsheet that has helpfully turned 015 into 15 is a common way to arrive with three hundred codes that do not work.
Tags are normally encoded in race-number order, so number 15 wears RFI015 and number 150 wears RFI150. That is the whole reason a rule works: one tag tells you how the entire batch is numbered.
Three digits carries race numbers up to 999, so a field bigger than that runs across more than one prefix, and the prefix is what tells the batches apart.
UHF tags come out of a batch in sequence, and the sequence is what tells you the codes. The usual relationship is a fixed amount added to the race number — an offset of 5000 makes race number 1 into code 5001.
If you do not know how your own tags are numbered, take one and compare it with the race number it belongs to. If there is no pattern, ask RFID Timing rather than guessing at one.
The four ways a code reaches an entrant
1. In the entry list you import. The file can carry the chips as a column, and that is the quickest route when whoever sent the list already knows who has what. The heading can be chip, chip code, chipcode, tag or transponder. See Entrants, numbers and chips.
2. In a sequence from the race numbers. State the rule once and Podium works out the rest. This is the normal way for a club that hands out tags in number order, and it is described step by step in Entrants, numbers and chips.
3. Carried over from another event. For a club whose racers keep their own tag, everybody who was at the earlier event under the same name and date of birth gets the chip they had there.
4. One at a time, on the entrant. For the late entry, the swap and the exception. It is also what you fall back to when the tags follow no pattern at all.
Most events use two of these together: a rule for the batch, then one at a time for the handful it could not place.
A code Podium will not accept
Podium refuses a code whose format it cannot recognise rather than reading it the wrong way. A code read wrongly does not fail — it quietly becomes somebody else's, and that is found at a protest rather than at the finish line.
On an import, every line it could not read is reported back to you by line number, and that person is entered without a chip rather than with a wrong one. They will show as no chip until you fix it, which is the visible failure you want rather than the silent one.
Before the gun
Check the "Not ready" list. It is the list of people who will silently get no result, and no chip is one of the two ways onto it. See Entrants, numbers and chips.
A chip has to be against the person before they start. Assigning one afterwards is allowed, and is warned about, because nine times out of ten it means a chip is on the wrong person rather than a genuine late swap.
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