How to Use the Dugout Edge Practice Day Tool

You made the practice plan. Practice Day is how you run it.

It turns your phone or tablet into the clock for the whole practice. Each block counts down, you get a heads-up two minutes before it ends, and an alert tells everyone to move when time is up. Attendance, notes, a stopwatch, the bullpen chart, and a way to keep score on any drill live in a bar at the bottom of the screen. When practice is over you get an honest picture of where the time went.

It is the practice twin of the Game Day tool. Game Day runs the lineup you built. Practice Day runs the practice you planned.

Why a clock matters: most practices do not run long because the coach planned badly. They run long because nobody is watching the time, and the last block, usually the one the kids like best, gets cut. A clock that tells you when to move is the easiest way to get through the whole plan.

Before you start: plan the practice

Practice Day runs a practice you have already planned, so do these first:

1. Create your team and add your roster. Names are enough. Practice Day uses the roster for attendance and for who is at each station.
2. Build the practice. Use the practice planner, or start from one of the practice plan templates. Give each block a length. If you set a start time, Practice Day shows real clock times; if you don't, it counts in minutes from the start.
3. Put players on blocks if you want to. A block can be the whole team, a list of names, or a station rotation with a group at each station. Practice Day shows who is where on every block.

No time to plan today? You can still use it. See Practice without a plan, near the end of this guide.

Step 1: Open Practice Day

There are three ways in:

• From All Tools. Tap All Tools in the menu, then Practice Day. Today's practice is at the top with a Start button, with what is coming up and what you ran recently below it.
• From the practice. Open the practice and tap Start Practice Day.
• From the schedule. A planned practice's card has a Start Practice Day button.

The tool opens full screen. Exit in the top corner takes you back to the practice page, and nothing is lost: come back and it is right where you left it.

Step 2: Take attendance (or skip it)

Before the first block, Practice Day asks who is here. Mark each player Here, Late, Out, or Excused. It is optional. Tap Skip for now and take it later from Attendance in the bottom bar.

Attendance is worth the 20 seconds, because the plan fixes itself around it:

• A player marked Out comes off every block and station.
• A player marked Late is listed under Running late at the top. Tap Arrived when they show up and they go back on their station from then on.
• If the absences leave a station short, Regroup shows you which ones, names who is out, and lets you move players by tapping a name and then Move here. Even them out does it for you, moving as few kids as possible.

Attendance rolls up across the season. Once you have run a couple of practices with it, each name shows "Made 3 of 4 this season", and the Team Stats tab on your team page lists practices made, times late, and who missed.

Step 3: Run the practice

Tap Start practice. The screen is laid out like Game Day:

• The clock bar on top shows the block you are on, the countdown, and what is next. Tap the big time to pause, or to add or take off a minute.
• The plan in the middle is drawn on a clock, so a longer block is taller. Each block lists its drills and who is on it. Tap View details to see a block's drills, coaching notes, and who is at each station, then Back to plan.
• The tools along the bottom: Track, Bullpen, Notes, Stopwatch, and Attendance.

Two minutes before a block ends, the clock turns red, reads Wrap up, and plays a soft chime: time to finish the rep, get water, and move. At zero the alert sounds and Practice Day moves to the next block on its own. If you would rather move on yourself, turn off Auto-advance in the menu. Done early? Tap the time and choose Finish block early. Started late or tapped through by mistake? Tap the time and choose Restart this block. After any move you get a few seconds to Undo.

Station rotations count their own rounds. Three stations in 30 minutes is three 10 minute rounds. The clock counts down to the next rotate, turns red a minute before it, and tells you "Rotate. Round 2 of 3." when it is time. Every station shows the group that should be there now.

The menu (the gear in the top corner) has the alert settings: sound on or off, Loud mode for a horn that plays even when your phone is on silent, and vibration. Practice Day also keeps your screen from going to sleep while it is open.

If you planned clock times, an Ends chip in the top bar shows when practice will end at the pace you are going. It turns red when you are running long, so you know before the parents in the parking lot do.

Step 4: Change the plan as you go

Practice never goes the way it was written. Practice Day lets you change today without touching the plan you saved.

Open any block that has not started and you can:

• Skip this block. It is struck through and the timer goes straight past it. Bring this block back undoes it.
• Replace this block. Pick a drill or type a name. It keeps the same minutes and the same players.
• Start this block now to jump the clock there.

For bigger changes, tap Edit today above the plan. Every block that has not started gets controls to make it longer or shorter, move it up or down, cut it, or replace it. Making a block longer asks which block gives the minutes back, so practice still ends on time. Each change has an Undo, and the Ends chip moves with you.

Step 5: Use the tools

The bar at the bottom holds what you used to carry on a clipboard. Each tool opens as a popup with the clock still showing above it.

• Track keeps score on anything. Name it ("Bunts down", "Relay race", "Long toss"), pick how it is scored (Count it, Made or missed, Time it, or Measure it), and pick the players or split them into teams. Then tap as it happens. Every drill also has a Track this drill button that sets one up for that drill. Track results roll up across the season on your team page and on each player's page.
• Bullpen charts a pen without leaving practice. The pen is saved to the practice's date and counts toward that pitcher's arm care.
• Notes stamps each note with the block and the time, so "Gus needs more reps at first" lands where it happened.
• Stopwatch times anything, keeps each player's best, and shows the time on the bar while it runs.
• Attendance shows how many are here ("11/12") and opens the attendance sheet.

Step 6: Finish and review

When the last block ends, or you tap End practice in the menu, Practice Day shows the wrap-up: time on the field, Where the time went (the minutes that went to each kind of work, counted from how long each block actually ran), and your stopwatch times, bullpens, notes, and Track results.

Tap Finish practice to save it. The post-practice summary opens, the same screen Edit opens later from the practice or the schedule. From there you can:

• Fix the minutes on any drill, or take one out, if the clock does not match what really happened.
• Set who was here, pitches thrown, and players of the practice.
• Clean up Track results and notes.

Back on the practice page, the practice shows Done with its minutes and attendance, and its plan now shows how the practice actually went: drill by drill, in the order you ran them, with the real minutes and only the players who were there. Delete the results and the plan you wrote comes back. You can print a recap or download a PDF or CSV.

That record is the part most coaches have never had. After a few weeks, Where the time went tells you whether practice is what you meant it to be, including how much of it was really throwing and catching.

Practice without a plan

On the Practice Day page, tap Start without a plan. You get a running clock and every tool in the bottom bar. Add blocks as you go, from the drill library or by typing a name. When you finish, Save this practice puts what you ran on your schedule as a practice, so even an unplanned practice leaves a plan you can reuse.

Quick tips

• Take attendance even when everyone is there. It is what makes the season attendance numbers right.
• Try Loud mode once before the first practice where it matters. The default chime is quiet, and a field is loud.
• Prop the phone or tablet where you can see it from the field. The countdown is built to be read from arm's length in the sun.
• If you run long, let the Ends chip make the call for you: cut the block that matters least, not the last one.
• Read Where the time went after the first few practices. It is the fastest way to find out what your practices are really made of.

More help

• How to use the Game Day tool, the other half of the week
• The practice planner and the practice plan templates for building the plan Practice Day runs
• The FAQ page for account and membership questions

Something confusing, missing, or broken? Open the menu inside Practice Day and tap Send feedback. It comes straight to us.