Team-Lane Seeding

Purpose

Explain how to reserve lanes by team slot for lane-start running events, and how the workflow connects Settings, Teams, and the seeding workspace.

Prerequisites

• Meet sport set to Indoor Track & Field or Outdoor Track & Field.
• Teams created for the meet.
• A lane-start running event or round that should use team-owned lanes.

What Team-Lane Seeding Is

Team-lane seeding is a lane-assignment mode for certain track rounds.

Instead of assigning lanes only by seed order, 2Timer can reserve lane blocks for teams based on:

• a chosen team-lane template
• each team’s meet-wide lane slot

This is useful in formats such as:

• dual meets
• tri-meets
• quads
• other scored formats where teams should own specific lane blocks

How the Workflow Connects

Three places work together:

1. Settings → Team Lane Templates shows the available built-in templates.
2. Meet → Teams assigns each team a lane slot.
3. Meet → Seeding chooses team-lane seeding for a round and picks the template.

All three pieces must line up for the round to seed correctly.

Step 1: Review the Template

Open Settings → Team Lane Templates to inspect the built-in templates.

Templates define which lanes belong to each team slot. 2Timer currently ships built-in templates for common meet shapes such as:

• dual
• tri
• quad
• 8-way

The template is global, but it does nothing until a round chooses it.

Step 2: Assign Team Lane Slots

Open the meet’s Teams page and assign each team a Lane Slot.

Key rules:

• 0 means unassigned
• positive values map the team into a template slot
• the lane slot is meet-wide, not event-specific

If two teams share the same slot, they are claiming the same reserved lane block.

Step 3: Choose Team-Lane Seeding in the Round

Open the round in the seeding workspace and expand Seeding rules.

For a qualifying lane-start running round:

1. Set lane or position order to Team lane seeding.
2. Choose the team-lane template.
3. Review the preview summary.
4. Seed the round and save assignments.

What the Template Controls

The template defines ownership of lane blocks by slot.

2Timer then:

• places teams into the reserved lanes for their slot
• uses deterministic backfill when reserved lanes are unused
• accounts for the reserved-lane capacity when determining heat count

This means team-lane seeding is not just cosmetic lane order. It changes how the round is laid out.

Important Constraints

Current product behavior:

• team-lane seeding is for lane-start running rounds
• it is not used for field events
• it is intentionally incompatible with teammate split
• if team-lane seeding is selected, teammate split is turned off or hidden

If you need teammate spreading instead of reserved team blocks, use the ordinary lane-order workflow instead.

Profiles and Team-Lane Seeding

You can make team-lane seeding part of a seeding profile for applicable discipline groups.

That helps when the same meet format repeats often, but the meet still needs real team lane slots assigned before the round can seed correctly.

Typical Workflow

1. Confirm the meet teams list is complete.
2. Assign lane slots on the teams.
3. Review the built-in template you plan to use.
4. Open the round in the seeding workspace.
5. Select Team lane seeding and the desired template.
6. Preview the round.
7. Save assignments.

Common Problems

Verification Checklist

• The round is a lane-start running event.
• The intended template is selected.
• Every participating team has the correct meet-wide lane slot.
• No unintended teams share the same slot.
• Preview output matches the expected lane ownership before saving.

Related Pages

• Seeding and Advancement
• Seeding Profiles and Defaults
• Teams and Leagues
• Track and Field Setup

Metadata

• Last Updated: 2026-04-11
• Version: 0.1
• Status: Active