Questions we get asked

What is SwimSlate?

A private record of your swimmer's meet times that knows what the times mean. You log a swim; it tells you whether it's a personal best, which motivational standard it earned, whether it's under a team record, and which championship cuts it makes.

Who is it for?

Competitive swimmers in the US — club (USA Swimming), high school, or both. Most accounts are run by a parent tracking one swimmer or several, and an account of one swimmer is just as well served as a household of three.

An adult opens the account. A swimmer 13 or older can then be invited to a sign-in of their own and keep their own times from it — plenty of accounts are run that way, with the swimmer doing the logging.

The built-in standards are USA Swimming's age-group ones, which run to 18, so that's where it fits best. There's no Masters or NCAA standard set behind it.

What does it cost?

Nothing while SwimSlate is in early access. If that changes you'll hear about it well in advance, no existing account is switched to paid without choosing it, and you can take a full CSV export with you either way.

Do I have to type in every time?

No. Upload the meet's results — a PDF, a screenshot of the scoreboard, a spreadsheet, or pasted text — and SwimSlate reads your swimmers' swims out of it. One set of results can cover more than one swimmer at a time, so two or three swimmers in the same meet import in one go. You review what it found and pick what to keep before anything is saved. Typing a swim by hand is also about ten seconds, which is often quicker at the pool.

Where do the standards and cuts come from?

The B–AAAA motivational standards are USA Swimming's, built into the app and kept current for you. Qualifying cuts for a championship come from that meet's own published sanction document — you upload it once, SwimSlate reads the times out, and you can check or correct anything before relying on it.

Does it handle high school as well as club?

Yes, and it keeps them apart — separate best times, separate record boards — because the two seasons are scored differently. Mark a high-school meet as USA-observed and its times count for both, including toward qualifying cuts.

Can more than one person use it?

Yes, though it's fine as an account of one. Invite anyone by email — a second parent, a grandparent, a swimmer 13 or older — and they get their own sign-in to the same account. Everyone can see and add everything; there are no roles or permission levels to manage, which is the right amount of administration for a handful of people who already trust each other.

Can anyone else see our times?

No. An account is sealed off from every other account: no shared lists, no rankings, no public profile pages, nothing searchable. See Privacy for the details, including the one place we look at data to keep the lights on.

Doesn't the team's results site already do this?

Results sites show you a meet. SwimSlate is the other direction: your swimmer's whole history in one place, including the high-school meets and small invitationals that never make it into a national database, plus the cuts for the specific meets you're chasing. It's a complement to those sites, not a replacement.

Is there an app to install?

Not one from a store, and you don't need one. SwimSlate is a web app built for a phone first: add it to your home screen and it gets its own icon and opens full screen, with no app store account, no download, and no updates to chase — you're always on the current version.

• iPhone or iPad — open SwimSlate in Safari, tap the Share button, then Add to Home Screen. It has to be Safari; Chrome on iOS can't do it.
• Android — open it in Chrome, tap the ⋮ menu, then Add to Home screen (some versions say Install app).
• Windows or Mac — Chrome and Edge show an install icon at the end of the address bar; Safari has File → Add to Dock.

Once you're signed in, the help guide inside the app walks through all of it, including how to stay signed in.

What if we stop using it?

Export every swim to CSV whenever you like, and ask us to delete the account when you're done. Nothing is held back to make leaving awkward.

Who's behind it?

People who spent too many seasons tracking this in a spreadsheet. SwimSlate was built to solve our own problem first, which is why it handles the awkward parts — course conversions, age-up dates, qualifying windows — instead of stopping at a list of times. It's open to anyone who wants it now, while it's still early. Questions reach a person: [email protected].