Creating and hosting a contest

A contest consists of the following stages:

1. Creating problems. See our examples.

2. Creating and setting up a contest. After adding a contest, a problemset is created for it. You can add problems to this set or link an existing problemset to the contest.

3. Participants register. Registration can start before the contest does. Participants register themselves or are registered by the contest author.

4. Participants solve problems. The contest author specifies the date and time of the beginning of the contest and the problem solving time in the settings.

5. End of contest and results. The contest ends when the last user completes their participation at the specified time.

   Scores are calculated using the leaderboard (results table) or by uploading the results as a CSV table.

6. Upsolving and training. This stage is optional. If upsolving is allowed, participants can send submissions (solutions) after the contest ends. The system checks these submissions and provides a verdict, but they are not counted in the results table.

Create a contest

1. Go to Contests and click Add contest.
2. Enter a name and click Create. The name will be displayed in the participant interface.
   Contests are created with standard settings by default, but you can change them. For more information about contest settings, see Reference.

General

Choose the registration method and the date and time of the contest.

Registration

Participant registration method:

• Open registration: Participants can register using their Yandex accounts.

• Closed registration: The administrator registers participants, specifying their Yandex usernames or internal system usernames.

• Training after the contest: Registration is closed during the contest and opens after the contest ends.

  In this case, any participant can register and solve problems independently, but their results are not counted in the final results table. That is, participants can send submissions and receive verdicts, but their results are not included in the final results table.

Team participation

Determines whether participating and getting points for solving problems as a team is permitted. Users can form teams themselves.

Participants' start time

The time when participants can start solving contest problems. The time zone is determined using the user's settings.

• Fixed time: All participants must start and finish solving contest problems at the same time.

  Select a date in the calendar and set the contest start time. Participants see a countdown timer. When it reaches Participant start time + Time to complete problems, the contest ends for the participants who have already started and becomes unavailable for those who haven't.

• Interval: Participants can start completing contest problems at different times, for example, if users are participating from different time zones or participants are given homework.

  Select a date in the calendar and set the time when participants can start solving problems.

  Select the Until a set time option to set a specific date and time for the contest to end, or Unlimited if it's not important.

  Regardless of when participants start solving contest problems (at the beginning or end of the start interval), they have the time indicated in the Time to complete problems field.

Time to complete problems

Select the Until a set time option to set a specific number of days, hours, minutes, and seconds permitted to solve problems, or Unlimited if it's not important.

The time begins as soon as the contest starts if you selected a fixed start time, or the moment the participant starts solving problems if you selected an interval start time.

Individual start

Determines whether participants can start solving problems on their own. The individual start time is set in the Access and participants section. If this option is enabled, participants who do not have a start time specified see the Start virtual contest button.

Upsolving

Determines whether participants can finish solving contest problems outside the contest:

• Allowed: Participants can submit solutions after the contest ends, but they are not counted in the general statistics.

• Allowed automatically after completion: Participants cannot submit solutions after the time allocated to solve problems expires. Participants can submit solutions after the contest start time, but they aren't counted in the overall statistics.

  This setting works best for contests with an interval start.

• Not allowed: Participants cannot submit solutions after the contest ends.

For more information about setting up participant start times, see Access and participants.

Example 1

A school teacher wants to give their students from the same class a test that they must complete during the lesson from 8:30 to 9:15. The teacher has already created internal users in the system and added them as contest participants. To set up a contest:

1. In the Participant start time field, select Fixed.

2. In the calendar, select the desired start date and time: 8:30.

3. In the Time to complete problems field, select Until a set time and set 0 days, 00:45:00. You can increase the time so that students have time to send their solutions after the lesson ends.

Example 2

A university teacher gives their students a take-home test. The estimated time to complete the test is two hours, but each student can prepare on their own and complete the test any time before the next seminar, which starts in a week. To set up a contest:

1. In the Participant start time field, select Interval.

2. In the calendar, select from and set the date of the current seminar.

3. Select the Until a set time field and set the date of the next seminar.

4. In the Time to complete problems field, select Until a set time and set 0 days, 00:120:00.

5. Make sure the Individual start option is enabled.

Submissions

Set up limits for sending submissions. If a participant's submission doesn't meet any of the specified conditions, the participant won't be able to send it. For standard problems, default settings are sufficient.

Maximum number of attempts

Specify how many times a participant can submit solutions to the same problem in the contest. If you want certain system verdicts not to count as the user's attempts, list them in the Exclude verdicts field.

Submissions with identical code

Enable this option so users can't submit two identical solutions, for example, by accidentally clicking Submit twice. When re-submitting the same solution, the user sees a notification that they have already sent this solution, and this won't count as one of the user's attempts.

For more information, see Submission settings.

Example. A school teacher hosts a test which consists of simple multiple choice and short answer questions. Each student can only answer each question once.

To set up sending submissions, specify 1 in the Maximum number of attempts field. The other settings are not changed.

Compilers

Select all compilers participants can use when solving contest problems. These compilers will be available to participants when submitting solutions.

For more information about compilers, see List of compilers.

Testing and report for participants

Configure submission testing and the contents of reports participants will receive.

For example, you can configure solution testing so that it runs until the first mistake or doesn't begin until sample tests are completed. You can also configure how thorough the report's contents will be.

For more information about testing settings and reports, see Testing and report for participants.

Leaderboard

Select a leaderboard type to set up the display of results: choose whether you want to award points for solved problems and bring leaders up in the table, or mark participants who solve problems faster than others.

You can find a description of each leaderboard type in the tip under the leaderboard:

For more information about leaderboard settings and types, see Leaderboard.

Participant interface

You can hide specific sections from participants. For more information about the participant interface, see Reference.

Answers

You can specify when and under what conditions the correct answers set in the corresponding problem settings are shown. For more information about correct answers, see Reference.

Launch a contest

1. At the top of the contest page, click its name. This takes you to the contest page in Yandex Contest.

2. Copy the contest link from the search bar. It is structured like this: https://contest.yandex.com/contest/12345/enter

3. If the contest is for external users, send them the link. If it's for internal users, add official to the domain and send the resulting link to the contest participants.

   Example of a link for internal users:

   https://official.contest.yandex.com/contest/12345/enter

Messages and announcements

During the contest, organizers can reply to participant questions and make announcements.

If your contest has the option to ask questions enabled, all unanswered questions are sent to the judges' email. To prevent notifications from going to spam, check your email filter settings for noreply@contest.yandex.ru.

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