Atlas / tournament documentation

Announce

Send a notice to competitors, judges, coaches and parents, and set up the pending payment reminder email.

Announce is the screen for messages from the tournament desk to the people connected to the tournament. A message goes to one audience, by in-app notice, by email, or both, and every send is recorded in Records. The same screen holds the tournament's own pending payment reminder, an email sent automatically to entries that have not paid.

Announce sits in the left rail between Standings and Records, at the route /tournaments/{id}/admin/announce. It has two views listed under it in the rail. Compose writes and sends a one-time announcement. Emails edits the pending payment reminder and shows its delivery log, at /tournaments/{id}/admin/announce?view=emails.

Who can use it

Announce belongs to a full admin. A full admin is a platform admin, an organization owner or admin, or a person holding the Admin seat. Sending mail leaves the server, so the server refuses a tab seat on every send and save in addition to hiding the screen from the rail.

Role	What the role can do on this screen
Platform admin	Compose, send and edit the reminder.
Organization owner or admin	Compose, send and edit the reminder. An owner or admin who also holds a Tab seat on this tournament is treated as a tab seat and is refused.
Tournament admin seat	Compose, send and edit the reminder.
Tab seat	Cannot use either view. The rail leaves Announce out. A tab seat that opens the route sees the heading Announce, the sentence Announcements are sent by a full admin of this tournament, and a button labeled Overview. Every send and save action refuses with the same sentence.
Compliance seat	Cannot open the screen. A compliance seat is sent to Records with a read only notice.
Coach, competitor, judge, observer	Cannot open the screen. They receive the announcements it sends.

The Compose view

Compose has a top bar, three columns and a footer. The left column lists templates, the middle column holds the message and its settings, and the right column previews the notice as the recipient sees it. On a narrower window the preview moves under the message, and on a narrow phone the templates become a strip above it. The footer keeps the Send button on screen.

The top bar

Control	What it does	Default or limit
Announce	The heading of the view.	Not editable.
Round chip	Shows the current round and, when the round has a start time, that time in the tournament's time zone. Reads No round scheduled when the tournament has no rounds.	The current round is the round in progress. With none in progress it is the latest round that has released pairings. With neither it is the round with the highest number.
Placeholders fill from the current round	Lists the three placeholders that the subject and message accept: {round}, {round_name} and {start_time}.	Placeholders are replaced before the message is sent, so recipients read the filled text. With no current round they read the current round and the scheduled start time. A round without a start time also reads the scheduled start time.

Templates

Choosing a template replaces the subject, the message and the Opens choice. The page opens with Round released chosen. The list is fixed in the code and cannot be edited from the screen. The Emails view holds the one email whose text the tournament owns.

Template	Subject	Message	Opens
Blank message	Empty.	Empty.	Dashboard
Round released	Round {round} released	Your next pairing is now available. Open the tournament dashboard for your room, opponent, and judge.	Round
Ballots outstanding	Ballots outstanding	A ballot is still needed before standings can be trusted. Please submit it from your ballot queue.	Ballot queue
Check-in reminder	Check-in reminder	Check in at the desk before the next round begins.	Check-in
Schedule change	Schedule change	The tournament schedule has changed. Review the current times before leaving your room.	Schedule
Room change	Room change	Your room has changed. Check the current pairing before walking to the next debate.	Round
Morning welcome	Good morning from Meridian	The tournament is starting soon. Check in, review the schedule, and watch for your first pairing.	Check-in
Results posted	Results posted	The latest results are available. Open the dashboard to see your record and next step.	Results

Message fields

Control	What it does	Default or limit
Subject	The title of the notice and, for email, the end of the mail subject. A counter beside the label reads the length against 200.	Required. At most 200 characters. Starts as the chosen template's subject.
Message	The body of the notice and the email. A counter reads the length against 5000. The box can be resized vertically.	Required. At most 5000 characters. Nine lines tall at first.

Audience

The audience chips choose who receives the message. A number on each chip is the count of people that audience reaches today. The counts are read with the same functions the send uses, so the number on a chip is the number a send reaches. Choosing a chip clears any earlier receipt.

Audience	Who receives it	Count shown
Everyone	Competitors and judges together.	Active entries plus judges not withdrawn.
Competitors	Every active entry in every event. The default audience.	Active entries.
Judges	Every judge on the roster whose status is not withdrawn.	Roster judges not withdrawn.
Judges with an open ballot	Judges seated in the live round's released rooms whose own ballot is not submitted. The live round is the latest round with a released pairing, and rooms that are byes are left out. A bye is a round in which an entry is not paired and receives a win. A panel seat counts when its status is assigned or confirmed. This audience is always a part of Judges.	Roster judges who owe a ballot.
Coaches & parents	Everyone who registered an entry on someone else's behalf: an account that owns a cart holding an active entry registered to a different account. An account with several such entries is one recipient. An account that registered only itself is a competitor and is not counted here.	Distinct accounts found in the carts.
One program	Active entries whose school or club matches the program chosen in the list that appears.	Shown after a program is chosen.
One event	Active entries in the event chosen in the list that appears.	Shown after an event is chosen.

Control	What it does	Default or limit
Choose an event	A list shown under One event. Each option reads the event name, a dot and the number of competitors.	Required before sending to One event. Starts empty.
Choose a program	A list shown under One program. Each option reads the school or club, a dot and the number of competitors.	Required before sending to One program. Starts empty. Only programs of active entries are listed.

Channel, marking and destination

Control	What it does	Default or limit
In-app	Records a notice on each recipient's dashboard. Competitors read it on the tournament page and judges on judge home.	The default channel.
Email	Sends an email as well. The code writes the in-app notices for competitors and judges whichever channel is chosen, so Email and Both do the same thing today.	Same effect as Both.
Both	In-app notices and email.	Same effect as Email.
Mark as urgent	A checkbox. Adds an urgent flag to the notice and the receipt, and puts the word Urgent in the email subject and body. Delivery is the same.	Off.
Opens	Chooses where the recipient lands when opening the notice. The chip labels are Round followed by the round number, Ballot queue, Check-in, Schedule, Results and Dashboard. A note under the chips describes the destination, and adds a sentence saying the choice was changed from the template's default when it differs from the template's.	Starts from the template. Dashboard when the template is Blank message.

Opens chip	Link text in the notice	Where it lands
Round	Open Round and the number	A competitor lands on their own pairing for the current round, with room, opponent and judge. A competitor with no pairing in that round lands on the tournament page. A judge lands on judge home.
Ballot queue	Open my ballots	Judges land on judge home, where their ballots wait. Competitors land on the tournament page. The note on screen says competitors see their results page.
Check-in	Check in	The tournament page for competitors and judge home for judges.
Schedule	View schedule	The tournament page for everyone.
Results	See my results	The tournament page for competitors and judge home for judges.
Dashboard	Open dashboard	The tournament page for competitors and judge home for judges.

The preview and delivery panel

Item	What it shows
As the recipient sees it	A line naming where the notice appears, for example On a competitor's dashboard, On a judge's dashboard or By email, to a coach or parent. Under it, a card with the word meridian, the word Urgent when marked, the words Just now, the filled subject, the filled message and the link text followed by an arrow. An empty field shows Empty.
Audience, Recipients, Channel, Opens	The current choices. Channel adds the word urgent when marked.
Sent as	The sending admin's profile name. Without a profile name it falls back to the part of the account email before the at sign, then to Admin.
Replies go to	Shown unless the channel is In-app. The sending admin's account address, because the reply rule in the code is set to the director. The value reads Nobody: the email is no-reply if that rule is changed.
Closing note	Every send is logged in Records with the audience, channel and count. Nothing sent here can be recalled from the recipient's dashboard.

The footer

Item	What it shows or does	Default or limit
Status line	Before a send it reads Goes to a number, the recipient noun and the channel, then Logged in Records. With no recipients it reads Nothing to send to yet. After a send it shows the receipt, followed by a sentence telling the director to change the message or the audience to send again.	Not editable.
Send to N recipients	Sends the announcement. The label counts the recipients and agrees with the audience, for example Send to 12 competitors.	Disabled while a send is running, after a send until something is edited, when the count is zero, when the subject or the message is blank, and when One event or One program has no choice.
Sending…	The label while the send runs.	The page allows up to two minutes for a send.
Sent	The label after a send went.	Editing any field starts a new message and turns Send back on.

How a send works

Sends once. Each composed message carries a key. After a send the key is kept and Send stays off. Any edit to the subject, message, audience, channel, urgent mark or destination mints a new key and counts as a new message. The server refuses a second send under a key that Records already holds, so a double click or a retried request sends nothing twice.
In-app notices. One notice per active entry for competitor audiences and one per judge for judge audiences. A competitor's notice carries the link chosen under Opens, resolved to that competitor's own room when the destination is Round. A judge's notice opens judge home, or the tournament page for Schedule.
Email. Addresses are grouped by the link they carry, and each group is one mail with every address in the blind copy field, so recipients cannot see one another. A Round announcement is therefore one mail per room. Up to four mails go out at once over one pooled connection. An address that appears twice is mailed once.
Email subject. Tournament announcement followed by a colon and the subject, or Urgent tournament announcement when marked. The body repeats the tournament name, the subject, the message, the link text with its link, and a line stating that the director of the tournament sent it.
Reply-to. The reply-to address is the address that replies go to. When the channel includes email, it is the sending admin's account address.
Addresses that cannot receive mail. Placeholder addresses given to entries and judges added by hand are never mailed. Addresses on the reserved .invalid domain are skipped on a real server and kept only when a local test mailbox is in use. The receipt counts them.
Judges who have not accepted their place. They receive the in-app notice. They receive no email, because the admin cannot read an address the judge has not shared.
Records. One entry named Announcement sent records the audience, the number of recipients, the channel, whether it was urgent, the destination and the subject.
Partial failure. A send is several writes and not one transaction. A failure after the first write leaves the notices already written.

The Emails view

Emails holds the pending payment reminder, the one email template a tournament owns. The reminder is one email to each active entry whose fee is still unpaid, sent once the entry has been registered for the number of hours set. An entry that pays, drops or joins the waitlist first is not sent it. An entry with no address, or with the placeholder address given to an entry added by hand, is never sent it. An entry is sent the reminder at most once.

The reminder is off until a full admin turns it on and saves. Saving with the checkbox ticked queues nothing at that moment. A scheduled job queues each entry once it has owed its fee for the hours set, and runs every fifteen minutes. The job sends at most 20 reminders in one pass. Across every tournament and the platform's other scheduled mail, no more than 50 scheduled mails go out in any 24 hours. The rest stay queued and go later.

Control	What it does	Default or limit
Emails	The heading of the view.	Not editable.
Status chip	Reads Reminder on, a middle dot, then after and the hours with the letter h, or Reminder off. It follows the saved reminder and ignores the unsaved draft.	Reminder off until saved on.
Count line	Reads 1 entry owes its fee or a number of entries owe their fee. Adds a middle dot and the number of those entries with no address to send it to.	Counts active entries whose payment is pending.
Notice about the sender	An information box that says the reminder sender is not set up on this server yet, so a due reminder is queued in the delivery log and waits there until it is. Shown only when the server has no scheduled job secret.	Hidden when the sender is set up.
Send this reminder automatically	A checkbox that turns the reminder on. The text under it says it is off until it is turned on and saved.	Off. Turning it on requires a reply-to address.
Hours after registering	A whole number of hours an entry must have been registered before it is sent the reminder.	48. Allowed 1 to 720, which is thirty days.
Reply-to	The address replies go to. A note under it says replies come here and that the address is required to turn the reminder on.	Starts as the director's own account address when nothing is saved. At most 254 characters.
Subject	The mail subject and the heading of the branded email. Spaces and line breaks are collapsed to a single line.	Required. At most 200 characters. Default text: Your entry in {{tournament_name}} is not paid yet.
Message	Plain text. A blank line starts a new paragraph. HTML is never read, and every value is escaped before it reaches an inbox.	Required. At most 5000 characters.
Placeholders	A reference list. Five placeholders fill in the subject and message.	See the table below.
As the entrant sees it	A preview filled for a sample entrant named Sample Entrant in this tournament, with the label Registration reminder and a button reading Open the tournament.	Updates as the draft changes.
Delivery log	The newest 200 reminders for this tournament, newest first. Each row shows the entrant, a status, a detail line and a time in the tournament's time zone.	Empty state: No reminder has been queued yet.
Send me a test	Sends the draft, saved or not, to the signed in director's own address, filled for the sample entrant. The subject starts with the word Test in square brackets. Nothing is written to the delivery log.	Disabled while a save or test is running. The reminder is checked as if off, so a missing reply-to address does not stop a test.
Save reminder	Saves the draft and the checkbox.	Disabled while a save or test is running.
Footer line	Reads On followed by a sentence saying each entry still owing its fee is sent the reminder once registered for the hours shown, or Off: no reminder is sent. It follows the unsaved checkbox.	Not editable.

Placeholder	Becomes
{{first_name}}	The entrant's first name.
{{participant_name}}	The entrant's full name as registered.
{{tournament_name}}	This tournament's name.
{{tournament_dates}}	The tournament's dates, such as October 10 to 11, 2026.
{{tournament_url}}	The tournament's page.

Delivery status	Meaning
Queued	Due and waiting for the next job pass.
Sending	Claimed by the job and being sent.
Sent	Mailed. The detail line shows the address.
Failed	The mail transport refused or errored. The detail line shows the error.
Not sent	The job skipped the row. The detail line shows the reason, such as the sender stopping before it recorded the mail.

The default reminder text asks the entrant to reply with any question about paying. No pay later screen exists, so replies reach the director through the reply-to address. Each save that changes a field writes an entry named Email template saved to Records, listing the old and new values of the changed fields. The delivered email carries a button labeled Open my registration, while the preview card shows a button reading Open the tournament.

Tasks

To send a round announcement:

Open Announce. Select Compose in the rail if the Emails view is showing.
Select the template Round released, or another template, in the left column.
Edit the Subject and the Message. Placeholders in braces fill from the current round, which the preview shows.
Select an audience chip. For One event or One program, choose the event or program in the list that appears.
Select a Channel. Select the Mark as urgent checkbox when the notice cannot wait.
Select an Opens chip when the template's default does not fit.
Check the preview and the Delivery list. Confirm that Recipients is the expected number.
Select Send to N recipients. Read the receipt in the footer.

After a send the footer shows the receipt. It begins with Sent in-app to a number of people, followed by the email line when the channel includes email and the words Marked urgent when the checkbox was on. An email only audience skips the in-app part. The receipt turns red when the email failed or the transport is not configured, and turns neutral when no address was available.

To warn judges who still owe a ballot:

Open Announce and select the template Ballots outstanding.
Select the audience Judges with an open ballot. Read the number on the chip. A zero means no seated judge in the live round owes a ballot.
Select Send to N judges with an open ballot.

To tell one program about a change:

Open Announce and select the template Schedule change.
Select the audience One program, then choose the program. Competitors of that program receive the notice. Coaches and parents are a separate audience and receive nothing from a One program send.
Select Send to N competitors.
Repeat with the audience Coaches & parents when the coaches should hear too. That audience reaches every coach and parent in the tournament and cannot be narrowed to one program.

To set up the pending payment reminder:

Open Announce. Select Emails in the rail.
Edit the Subject and the Message. Use the placeholders in double braces.
Enter a Reply-to address. Replies to the reminder reach this address.
Set Hours after registering.
Select Send me a test. Read the test in the director's inbox.
Select the checkbox Send this reminder automatically.
Select Save reminder. The notice below the form confirms that the reminder is on and for how many hours.

To stop the reminder, clear the checkbox and select Save reminder. The notice reads Saved. The reminder is off. Reminders already sent stay in the delivery log. Rows still queued are not sent while the reminder is off.

Troubleshooting

Compose messages appear in the footer. Emails messages appear in the notice below the form.

Message	What it means	What to do
Announcements are sent by a full admin of this tournament.	The signed in account holds a tab seat. The page and every action refuse it.	Ask a full admin to send the announcement, or to change the seat on Users and roles.
You do not have admin access to this tournament.	The access check ran and refused the account.	Sign in with an account that administers the tournament.
Could not check your admin access. Try again.	The access check could not run. It says nothing about the account's permissions.	Wait a moment and send again. The draft is kept.
A title and message are required.	The subject or message is empty after trimming, the subject is over 200 characters, or the message is over 5000.	Fill both fields within the limits.
Choose who the announcement is for.	The audience is not one the form offers.	Select an audience chip.
Coaches and parents are reached by email only. Choose Email to send to them.	The audience Coaches & parents was sent without email.	Select the Email channel.
Choose an event before sending to one event.	One event was chosen with no event.	Choose an event in the list.
Choose a program before sending to one program.	One program was chosen with no program.	Choose a program in the list.
This announcement was already sent, so it was not sent again. Change it to send another.	Records already holds a send under this message's key.	Edit the message or the audience to send a new one. Check Records first when the earlier receipt was lost.
Records could not log this send, so sending the same message again would not be caught as a duplicate.	The send went, and the Records entry that guards against duplicates failed to write. The sentence is added to the receipt.	Do not send the same message again.
No registrant has an email address on file, so no email went out.	The audience had no address on file.	Nothing to do. The in-app notices went.
Email is not configured, so no email went out.	The mail transport is not set up on this server.	Report it to the platform. The in-app notices went.
Email failed: followed by a reason	Every mail was refused by the transport.	Read the reason. Send again later, or use the in-app channel.
Email sent to a number of addresses.	The count of addresses actually mailed.	A count lower than the audience means addresses were skipped. See the next row.
A number of addresses skipped, since no mail can reach them	The receipt lists how many were test addresses on the reserved .invalid domain and how many were placeholders for a hand entered entry or judge.	Collect real addresses in Field for those entries and judges.
Email failed for a number of addresses: followed by a reason	Some mails went and some did not.	Read the reason and resend to the missed audience after a fix.
Email is not configured, so a number of addresses got nothing.	Part of the send reached a transport that is not configured.	Report it to the platform.
Could not read the rounds for the open-ballot audience: followed by a reason	A database read for the live round failed.	Reload and try again.
Could not read the ballots for the open-ballot audience: followed by a reason	A database read for ballots failed.	Reload and try again.
Could not read who registered entries for others: followed by a reason	The cart read for Coaches & parents failed.	Reload and try again.
Could not read the coaches' and parents' email addresses: followed by a reason	The address read failed, so nothing was sent to part of the audience.	Try again.
Could not load the tournament name for this announcement: followed by a reason	The tournament row could not be read after the in-app notices were written.	Check the in-app notices in Records, then resend by email as a new message.
Could not load announcement reach: followed by a reason	The page could not read the counts for the chips and shows an error page.	Reload. Contact support if it persists.
Write a subject for the reminder.	The reminder subject is empty.	Enter a subject.
The subject must be 200 characters or fewer.	The reminder subject is too long.	Shorten it.
Write the reminder's message.	The reminder message is empty.	Enter a message.
The message must be 5,000 characters or fewer.	The reminder message is too long.	Shorten it.
A placeholder name followed by is not a placeholder this email fills.	The text uses a word in double braces that the email does not fill. The message lists the five that work.	Use only the five listed placeholders.
Send the reminder after a whole number of hours from 1 to 720.	The hours are blank, fractional or out of range.	Enter a whole number from 1 to 720.
The reply-to address is not an email address.	The reply-to value is malformed or over 254 characters.	Correct the address.
Add a reply-to address before turning the reminder on, so an entrant's reply reaches you.	The reminder was turned on with no reply-to address.	Enter a reply-to address, then save.
The reminder could not be saved. Please try again.	The database refused the save.	Try again. The draft stays on screen.
You have sent several tests in the last few minutes. Please wait before sending another.	The limit of 30 test sends in ten minutes for this admin and tournament was reached.	Wait and send again.
This feature is temporarily unavailable. Please contact support.	The limiter that counts test sends could not be reached.	Try again later.
Your account has no email address to send a test to.	The signed in account has no email address.	Add an address to the account.
The tournament could not be read, so the test did not go. Please try again.	The tournament row could not be read for the test.	Try again.
Email is not configured, so the test did not go.	The mail transport is not set up.	Report it to the platform.
The test did not send: followed by a reason	The transport refused the test.	Read the reason.
Test sent to followed by an address.	The test went.	Check the inbox.
Saved. The reminder is off.	The save went with the checkbox clear.	None.
Saved. The reminder is on: each entry still owing its fee is sent it once it has been registered for a number of hours.	The save went with the checkbox ticked.	None.

Things to know

An announcement cannot be recalled or edited after a send. The in-app notice stays on each recipient's dashboard.
Compose has no scheduled send and no draft storage. Leaving the page discards the draft.
The Email and Both channels behave the same: the notices are written in both cases and the mail goes out in both cases.
Compose has no rate limit. The duplicate key and the state of the Send button are the only guards against a repeat.

Related pages: Registration and field for entry addresses and payment status, Judges for the roster, and Roles and permissions for seats.