How Auto-Assignment Works

Last updated June 2026  ·  5 min read

Every time a competitor is approved, Taikai App places them into the right division automatically — no spreadsheet sorting, no drag-and-drop marathon the night before. This article explains exactly when the engine runs, how it decides, and how your manual decisions interact with it.

When it runs

• On approval — moments after you approve a competitor (or add a walk-in or CSV import), they're matched against your division structure.
• After structure changes — saving the division tree or division rules re-runs assignment so the roster reflects the new structure.
• On demand — the Run Reassignment… button previews all proposed moves, merges, and splits before you confirm.
• Self-healing — a background check periodically catches anything that slipped through (for example, after a connectivity blip).

Matching criteria

A competitor is matched against each division's criteria:

• Age — calculated as of the tournament date from their date of birth
• Belt rank — normalized against a standard rank order, so "1st Kyu" and equivalent notations compare correctly
• Weight — in the division's unit (kg or lbs)
• Gender
• Experience — years of training, where your divisions use it

For team events, placement follows the team rule you configure — the oldest member's age, the highest rank, or both.

The unassigned bucket

A competitor lands in Unassigned when no division matches them — or when more than one does. Ambiguity is never resolved by guessing: overlapping division ranges send the affected competitors to Unassigned so you decide. Fix the root cause with overlap detection, or place the competitor manually.

Manual moves and copies

Drag any competitor to a different division and the move is recorded as a manual override. Overrides survive re-runs of the engine — auto-assignment will never silently undo a decision you made by hand.

You can also copy a competitor into additional divisions — useful when someone competes both in their own age group and an open division. The copy exists alongside their auto-assigned placement.

Re-running and undo

Run Reassignment… shows a proposal — every merge, split, and move — before anything changes. After applying, Undo last reassignment restores the previous state if the result isn't what you expected.