(Hal Terrie) writes:

I believe there is an upgrade patch for WINTD 4.0 on their web
site that deals with this problem. As I understand it, USCF made a
slight change to the file format in the database. WINTD had to be
revised to handle the new format.

There was a change made last summer to how the ratings field was formatted,
but that affected the monthly updates as well as the Gold Master, since
the same program prepares both files.

Matt, have you updated your player database since August?

There may be another revision of the ratings database format coming
soon, but I don't know if either WinTD or Swis-Sys could handle additional
data fields without a software upgrade.

I'd like to add two fields, the member's birthday (mm/dd only) and the
first 3 digits of the zip code. Adding those fields takes us from having
nearly 14,000 names that occur in our database more than once (FN+LN
matching exactly) to having around 600 where the name, birthday and
3 digit zip code all match.

Privacy concerns (eg, COPA) may keep us from providing either the full
birthdate or the membership type. Adding full birthdate and membership
type reduces the multiple record count to around 400, so it might not
add much value.
--
Mike Nolan