The outcome
A change report an authorized scheduler can review before updating a sheet or sending a notice. This is a manual guide with an optional AI prompt—not a live schedule integration or permission to change fixtures.
What you need
- A preserved previous schedule and a fresh, authorized source snapshot.
- The competition and season identifiers, stable game IDs, source links and check times.
- The displayed time zone and your organization’s approved update policy.
- An authorized reviewer and a list of fields that must stay under staff control.
1. Compare like with like
Confirm that both snapshots cover the same competition, season, teams and date range. Record any incomplete pages or unavailable sources. A partial scan cannot prove that missing games were cancelled.
2. Match games by identity, not position
Use competition plus season plus stable game ID. Keep team or division context when identifiers are only unique within an event. Do not match rows solely because their dates, names or spreadsheet positions look similar. Hold ambiguous matches for review.
3. Classify changes without inventing a status
Separate new games, confirmed field/time changes, home-away swaps and records not found in the latest source. Treat a disappeared record as unresolved until the competition’s current information or an authorized official confirms what happened. A home-away swap is not a forfeit.
SYNTHETIC REVIEW EXAMPLE — NOT A REAL SCHEDULE DEMO-EVENT / DEMO-301 Kickoff: 10:00 → 10:15; venue unchanged Proposed action: review under the club’s time-change policy DEMO-EVENT / DEMO-302 Home → Away; venue still shows the same field Proposed action: review home-game list AND field occupancy DEMO-EVENT / DEMO-303 Not found in the latest snapshot Proposed action: HOLD — no cancellation or forfeit inferred
4. Protect the human-maintained columns
Separate source-owned game details from staff-owned notes, referee assignments, pay and administrative overrides. Carry manual fields forward by the confirmed game identity. Do not wipe the sheet and rebuild it from a source export.
Use your organization’s approved history policy: an append/replace audit row may be appropriate for a significant change; a minor correction may be handled in place with a timestamped note. Neither approach should erase prior assignments or imply a universal time-change threshold.
5. Check the knock-on effects
Review kickoff conflicts, permitted field hours, agreed match durations and required venue buffers. Keep home-game reporting separate from actual field occupancy: an away-designated fixture can still use a locally managed venue. Do not move referee assignments or assume a field is free without confirmation.
6. Approve, reconcile and then communicate
Give every detected change one disposition: approved for update, held, or no change with a reason. Have an authorized scheduler approve the report, reconcile before/after counts, and verify any resulting sheet or public page. If a notice is needed, draft the old value, new value, effective date/time zone and official source for review; this guide sends nothing.
Optional AI assistance
Use a sanitized comparison table to ask an approved assistant for an exception report. Require source references and uncertainty labels. The assistant must not access accounts, write a sheet, choose referee assignments or send notices.
Privacy checkpoint
Remove contact details, pay amounts and private staff notes from AI input. Use game references and minimal scheduling data. Keep credentials, authenticated links and real team records out of public examples.
Reusable resource
Download the change-review worksheet, checklist and AI prompt. Complete it on a copy of your data before any operational update.