Atlas / tournament documentation

Judges

The Judges view of Field: the roster, the steps a judge must finish before being seated, availability, conflicts, households, nominations and removal.

Judges is the roster of everyone who may sit in a room as a judge. It answers one question for the director: can the next round be seated. It is the second item in the Field rail, labelled Judges with the line Who can be seated, at /tournaments/<tournament id>/admin/field?view=judges. The older address /admin/judges redirects there. The view has a roster table with a judge panel beside it, and a collapsed section under it headed Nominations, conflicts and households.

A judge is seated by the allocator, the part of the product that proposes which judge sits in which room, or by hand in Rounds. Neither seats a judge who has not finished the steps in Judge steps and statuses. See Registration and field for the rest of Field and Rounds and pairing for seating.

Who can use it

Role	What it can do on Judges
Platform admin	Everything on this view: add, approve, edit availability, readiness, school, paradigm, category and status on a judge's behalf, declare and remove conflicts and households, review nominations.
Organization owner or admin	The same as a platform admin, for tournaments of the organization.
Tournament admin seat, admin	The same as a platform admin.
Tournament admin seat, tab	The same as an admin seat. Nothing on Judges moves money, so no control is withheld.
Compliance seat	Cannot open Judges. The admin layout sends a compliance seat to Records.
Judge	Cannot open this view. A judge accepts a place, acknowledges compliance, completes orientation, files availability and a paradigm, and declares conflicts from their own judge pages.
Coach, competitor, observer	Cannot open this view. A competitor or coach can nominate a judge who has signed up, from a room page.

Every action on this view checks admin access again on the server. A refused account sees You do not have admin access to this tournament.

Two rate limits apply, each per admin and network address. Approving judges allows 200 approval actions in ten minutes, and one Approve all counts once however many judges it approves. Adding a judge, declaring a household and removing a household each allow 30 attempts in ten minutes.

Judge steps and statuses

A judge can be seated only when every step in this table is done. The five steps are checked in the order shown by the allocator and by the Rounds picker, and the first one missing is the reason given.

Step	Who completes it	Label while missing	What it blocks
Accept the place	The judge, from their judge page. A judge the tab adds is accepted at once when no account owns the address or when the tab's own account owns it. A judge tied to another account must accept.	Has not accepted	Seating. Until the judge accepts, email and phone stay hidden and the table shows Not shared yet in Phone.
Compliance statement acknowledged	The judge, or the tab by ticking Compliance statement acknowledged on the judge's behalf.	Needs compliance	Seating, and the Confirmed status.
Orientation completed	The judge, or the tab by ticking Orientation completed.	Needs orientation	Seating.
Approval	The tab, with Approve or Approve all. A judge the tab adds is approved when added. A judge who signs up from the judge page waits.	Awaiting approval	Seating. Neither the allocator nor the Rounds picker offers an unapproved judge.
Available days recorded	The judge, or the tab in the panel's Availability section.	Unavailable	The allocator. A judge with no available day is not offered a room. The Field rail's count of ready judges does not test this step.

A withdrawn judge is never seated. In Rounds the five reasons read Withdrawn, Has not accepted, Needs compliance, Needs orientation and Awaiting approval, in that order of priority.

Roster readiness values

The Readiness column and the filter chips group each judge into one value. The first rule that applies wins, in the order of this table.

Value	Dot	Rule	Note shown in the panel
Withdrawn	Grey	Status is withdrawn.	Withdrawn from this tournament. The allocator will not offer them a room.
Awaiting approval	Amber	Not approved yet.	Not approved yet. Neither the allocator nor the Rounds picker seats them until you approve them.
Compliance	Red	The compliance statement or the orientation is missing.	Names what is missing, then says they cannot be seated until both are done and that either can be recorded here if done on paper or at the desk.
Conflicted	Red	At least one declared conflict is blocking.	A blocking conflict closes some rooms to this judge. They can still take other rooms.
Unavailable	Amber	No available days are recorded.	No available days recorded, so the allocator will not seat them. Set the days here if they told you in person.
Ready	Green	None of the above.	Compliance done, orientation done, days recorded, no blocking conflicts.

Registration statuses

Status	Meaning	How it is set
pending	On the roster, not yet confirmed. Every judge added by hand starts here.	Set when a judge is added, and set again when the compliance tick is removed from a confirmed judge.
confirmed	The judge has acknowledged the compliance statement and is confirmed.	Set from the Status control in the panel. Disabled until the compliance statement is ticked.
withdrawn	Removed from the roster for this tournament. Ballots already in are kept.	Set from the Status control in the panel, or by cancelling a judge invitation in Invited.

On the judge's own pages the same record reads with other words: Invitation to accept before the place is accepted, Needs orientation, Awaiting approval, Confirmed, Awaiting confirmation, Needs compliance acknowledgment and Withdrawn.

The bar

Control	What it does	Default or limit
Judges	The title of the view.	Not applicable.
N nominations waiting	Opens the collapsed section at the nominations list and focuses the first response box.	Shown only when at least one nomination is pending or contacted.
Households & conflicts	Opens the collapsed section at the households form.	Always shown.
Add a judge	Opens the collapsed section and focuses the Judge Name field.	Always shown.
Next round status pill	Reads No rooms to seat yet followed by the count of ready judges when no paired round awaits release. Otherwise reads the next round's name, then N short, or can be seated.	The next round is the lowest numbered round that has an unreleased pairing, ignoring byes.
N ready · N rooms to seat	Ready judges, and the number of rooms in the next round that awaits release.	Zero rooms when no round awaits release.
Panels of N	A reminder of panel size, followed by reduce to fill, or seat N more when short.	Shows 1 for a preliminary round and 3 for an elimination round. The figure is fixed and does not read the panel sizes saved in Setup.

A red banner carries the error from the last action. A green banner carries its result. Only one shows.

Filters and search

Control	What it does	Default or limit
All	Every judge on the roster, withdrawn included.	Selected on first visit.
Ready, Awaiting approval, Compliance, Conflicted, Unavailable, Withdrawn	Show the judges with that readiness value. Each chip carries a count.	The choice and the search text are remembered for the browser session.
Approve all N	Approves every judge in the Awaiting approval view in one write.	Shown only while the Awaiting approval chip is selected and at least one judge waits. Up to 500 judges per click.
Search judges	Narrows the roster by name, school, email or phone, ignoring case. The box shows Name, school, phone.	Substring match. Email is searched but is blank for a judge who has not accepted.

The roster table

Column	What it shows	Notes
Judge	The name, and under it the email and a tag.	The tag is Has not accepted, or No days recorded for an accepted judge with no available day. A placeholder address reads No email on file.
Phone	The phone number, No phone, or Not shared yet.	Not shared yet until the judge accepts the place.
Experience	Level and years, for example Advanced · 6 yr.	A placeholder mark when the profile cannot be read yet.
Category	The judge's category chip.	A placeholder mark when none is set.
Days	One chip per tournament day, filled for each day the judge is available.	At most 31 days are listed.
Load	Rooms the judge sits in across the whole tournament, then of and the judge's maximum rounds per day. Reads full when the judge is at the maximum.	The maximum is 3 for a judge with no availability saved. The count covers every seated room in every round, not one day.
Conflicts	The kinds of the declared conflicts, separated by commas.	A placeholder mark when none.
Readiness	The readiness value with its dot.	See Roster readiness values.

A row with a red or amber edge needs attention. Select a row to open the judge panel. The first judge with a red value opens by default, otherwise the first judge. After Approve or Save, the panel stays on the judge most recently changed. Selecting another judge while the panel holds unsaved edits asks You have changes that are not saved. Leave without saving them? An empty view reads No judge matches this view.

The footer reads either No rooms to seat yet followed by the ready count, or the round name with cannot be fully seated and how many more judges are needed, or the round name with can be fully seated. Its right side reads that load counts every seated room across the tournament against the judge's own daily limit.

The judge panel

The panel is one form. Its sections Readiness, School, Availability, Paradigm and Status are written together by the Save button at the bottom. Approve, the category chips, Save list, Declare and Remove act at once and do not wait for Save. Pressing Enter in a field does not submit the form.

Control	What it does	Default or limit
Approve Name	Approves the judge. Section titled Approval, with the right label not approved.	Shown only for an unapproved judge who is not withdrawn. Name is the first name of the judge.
Compliance statement acknowledged	Records that the judge acknowledged the compliance statement. Helper text says to tick it if the judge signed the paper copy at the desk.	Not saved until Save. Unticking it on a confirmed judge sets the status back to pending in the same save.
Orientation completed	Records that orientation is done. Helper text says to tick it after the in person or video orientation.	Not saved until Save.
Contact	Phone as a link, email as a link. Before acceptance the panel reads Shared once the judge accepts the invitation from their judge page.	A placeholder address reads No email on file. A missing phone reads No phone on file.
Judge's school	The school or club the judge judges for. The allocator never seats the judge with an entry registered under it, compared after spacing and case and never by prefix, and a round that seats them together cannot be released.	Up to 120 characters. Empty means no school. Placeholder reads The school or club they judge for.
Add a conflict	Opens the conflict form. See Conflicts.	Not applicable.
Available on a day	Click a day chip or its description to toggle it. A day that is on shows an hours box.	Days come from the tournament dates, at most 31. Each description names the rounds of that day, for example prelims 1 to 3.
Hours on a day	The hours the judge can sit on that day, written as start and end, for example 08:00 and 18:00 separated by a dash.	Twenty four hour clock. The start must be earlier than the end. Default 08:00 to 18:00.
Max rounds per day	The most rooms the judge accepts in a day.	Whole number, 1 to 8. Default 3.
Round load	A bar of rooms seated against the maximum, labelled N of M today.	Counts every seated room in the tournament, not only today.
Paradigm	The judge's written paradigm, a short statement of how the judge evaluates debates. Shown to competitors before the round and public. Right label reads filed with a date, or not filed.	Up to 4000 characters. Empty clears it. Without one the panel warns that competitors cannot prepare.
Category chips	Place the judge in one of the tournament's judge categories, or None.	Act at once. Only categories on the list are accepted.
Categories for this tournament	A comma separated list of the league's own judge categories.	At most 8 names of at most 40 characters each, duplicates ignored. Placeholder reads alumni, community.
Save list	Saves the category list.	A category still held by a judge cannot be removed from the list.
pending, confirmed, withdrawn	The Status control.	confirmed is disabled until the compliance statement is ticked, with the hint Needs the compliance statement first.
Save changes on Name's behalf	Writes Readiness, School, Availability, Paradigm and Status together.	The line under it reads Not saved yet. or Written to Records.

Withdrawing a judge from the Status control removes the judge from every unreleased pairing, keeps ballots already in, and tells the competitors in released rooms that the judge has withdrawn and that tab is finding a replacement. The reason recorded is that the tab withdrew the judge on the judge's behalf. A withdrawn judge who was never approved comes back unapproved and waits for Approve.

If the same judge is saved elsewhere while the panel is open, the panel keeps the edits and says This judge was saved elsewhere while you were editing. Your changes are kept, and Save writes them over the newer values.

Conflicts

A conflict closes a room to a judge or marks a cost. A hard conflict is absolute. A soft conflict is a preference to avoid when possible. The conflict form has a kind menu, a target, a reason and a soft box.

Control	What it does	Default or limit
Kind menu	School, Team, Household or Adjudicator, each followed by its effect.	School is selected first.
Competitor menu	For Team and Household. Lists competitors registered here, with club when known.	The first option, Competitor, is a prompt and cannot be saved.
School or Judge box	For School, the school name. For Adjudicator, the other judge's name or institution, free text.	Required.
Why	A reason recorded with the conflict. Placeholder reads Why followed by optional.	Up to 2000 characters. If empty, the reason is that it was declared by tab on the judge's behalf.
Soft box	Marks the conflict soft. Label reads Soft followed by avoid if possible.	Off, so hard.
Declare, Cancel	Saves the conflict, or closes the form.	Not applicable.
Remove	On each conflict card. Deletes that conflict.	A household card removes the whole household group.

Kind	Effect when hard	Effect when soft	Enforced by
School	No rooms at this school	Avoid if possible	The allocator closes the rooms of that school. A round that seats the judge there cannot be released.
Team	Never in their rooms	Avoid if possible	The allocator, and the release check, which refuses a round that seats the judge with that competitor.
Household	Never same room	Same as hard	The release check refuses a round that seats the two people together. The soft box is ignored for a household declared from the panel: it is stored as hard.
Adjudicator	Recorded, not enforced	Recorded, not enforced	Nothing reads it yet.

The Conflicts section label reads N blocking · N other, or none declared. A judge who filed a school or team conflict from their own judge page shows it here too, and a tab declaration for the same school or competitor takes it over.

Add a judge

The form sits in the collapsed section under Nominations. A second form for the same job opens from Invited, under Invite someone.

Control	What it does	Default or limit
Judge Name	The judge's name. Required.	Up to 200 characters.
Email, labelled optional	The judge's address. With one, the judge is also queued in Invited.	Up to 320 characters. A valid address is required when filled in. Without one the judge gets a placeholder address that is never mailed.
Send account invite	Also mails the judge an invitation to make or use an account and open their judge page.	Off. Needs an email.
Add	Adds the judge. The label reads Adding... while saving.	Disabled while saving.

The new judge starts pending and is approved at once. The judge is accepted at once when no account owns the address, or when the admin's own account does. When another account owns the address, the judge is not added to the roster: an invitation is recorded, and the judge joins by registering from their judge page. The screen then reads Invitation recorded. This judge has an account, so they join the roster by registering from their judge page.

Nominations

A nomination is a request from a competitor or coach, made from a room page, that a judge who has signed up be preferred for the nominator's rooms. The list heading reads Nominations followed by a count. It shows nominations that are pending or contacted. An accepted nomination is one input to the allocator, which prefers the nominee for the nominator's rooms and never seats the nominee by itself.

Control	What it does	Default or limit
Nominee and context	The nominee's name and address, the status in amber, and the nominator's note.	Not editable.
Optional response	A reply stored with the nomination.	Up to 2000 characters. One row high.
contacted, accepted, declined	Sets the nomination's status and stores the response.	Accepting finds or creates the nominee's judge profile and rosters the judge under the same rule as Add a judge.
No pending nominations.	Empty state.	Not applicable.

Households

A household links two people who live together, two judges or a judge and a competitor, so that they never sit in the same room. The heading reads Households followed by a count. Each household shows its label, or Untitled household, and a Remove button.

Control	What it does	Default or limit
Person A, Person B	Menus grouped into Judges and Competitors. Option text reads the name, a role and the email or club.	Required. The two must differ. Both must be registered in this tournament.
Label, labelled optional	A short name for the household. Placeholder reads Smith family.	Up to 200 characters.
Reason, labelled optional	Why they are linked. Placeholder reads Parent/child.	Up to 2000 characters.
Declare household	Creates the household. The label reads Declaring… while saving.	Disabled while saving.
Remove	Deletes the whole household.	Acts at once.

The form warns with These two people already share a household group in an existing declaration below. when the two chosen people already share one, and with Select two different people. when the same person is chosen twice. When there are no judges or competitors it reads No judges or competitors are registered for this tournament yet. A household can be declared once at least two people are.

Tasks

Approve a judge who signed up.

Open Field, then Judges.
Select the Awaiting approval chip.
Select the judge's row.
Select Approve followed by the first name, or select Approve all N to approve the whole view.

The panel stays on the judge. For one judge the notice names the judge as approved and, when something else still stands in the way, names it. For a group the notice reads N judges approved.

Record compliance and orientation done on paper.

Select the judge's row.
In Readiness, tick Compliance statement acknowledged and Orientation completed as appropriate.
Select Save changes on the judge's behalf.

The notice reads Saved on the judge's behalf. and the section label reads both recorded.

Set the days a judge can sit.

Select the judge's row.
In Availability, click each day the judge can sit. Edit the hours on that day if they differ from 08:00 to 18:00.
Set Max rounds per day.
Select Save changes on the judge's behalf.

The Days column fills in the chosen days and the Unavailable value clears.

Add a judge by hand.

Select Add a judge in the bar.
Enter Judge Name. Enter Email if the judge has one, and tick Send account invite to mail an invitation.
Select Add.

The judge appears in the roster as pending and approved, with Has not accepted under the name if another account owns the address.

Declare a conflict.

Select the judge's row.
In Conflicts, select Add a conflict.
Choose the kind, then the school, competitor or judge.
Add a reason, and tick Soft if the conflict is only a preference.
Select Declare.

The card appears in the panel, the Conflicts column lists the kind, and a hard School, Team or Household conflict can move the judge to Conflicted.

Withdraw a judge.

Select the judge's row.
In Status, select withdrawn.
Select Save changes on the judge's behalf.

The judge leaves every unreleased pairing and reads Withdrawn. Competitors in released rooms are told.

Review a nomination.

Select N nominations waiting in the bar.
Type a reply in Optional response if one is wanted.
Select contacted, accepted or declined.

The notice reads Status set to followed by the status. An accepted nominee joins the roster under the rule for Add a judge.

Declare a household.

Select Households & conflicts in the bar.
Choose Person A and Person B.
Fill Label and Reason if wanted.
Select Declare household.

The household appears in the Households list and the Conflicts column of a judge member reads Household.

Troubleshooting

Message	What it means	What to do
You do not have admin access to this tournament.	The account has no seat that can act here.	Sign in with an admin or tab seat account.
Could not check your admin access. Try again.	The access check failed to run twice. The account was not refused.	Repeat the action.
Too many approvals at once. Please wait a moment and try again.	The approval limit of 200 in ten minutes was reached.	Wait, then approve the rest.
Too many attempts. Please wait a while and try again.	The limit of 30 judge and household writes in ten minutes was reached.	Wait, then repeat.
Nothing changed: no judge here was waiting for approval.	Approve was used on a judge already approved, or on a stale list.	Reload the view.
The judge could not be approved:	The approval write failed. A detail follows the colon.	Reload and try again.
Enter the judge's name.	Add a judge was submitted without a name.	Enter a name.
Name must be 200 characters or fewer.	The judge's name is too long.	Shorten it.
A valid email address is required.	The email is not a valid plain address.	Correct it or leave it blank.
That judge's email could not be looked up:	The lookup of an existing profile failed. A detail follows.	Try again.
Judge added account invite could not be sent:	The judge was added but the account invitation could not be made. A detail follows.	Add the judge again without the invite box, or invite from Invited.
Judge added, but the account invitation email did not send	The judge is on the roster. The reason follows in the message.	Use Resend claim link in Invited.
Judge added, but the invitation queue could not be updated:	The judge is on the roster but not in Invited. A detail follows.	Reload and check Invited.
The invitation could not be recorded:	The invitation for a judge owned by another account was not saved.	Try again.
Could not create the judge profile.	The judge's profile could not be created.	Try again with a different address.
Judge is not registered for this tournament.	The panel named a judge who is not on this roster.	Reload the view.
A judge cannot be confirmed without the compliance statement.	Confirmed was chosen without the compliance tick.	Tick the statement or choose pending.
Invalid judge status.	The form sent a status other than pending, confirmed or withdrawn.	Reload the view.
A school must be 120 characters or fewer.	The school text is too long.	Shorten it.
Max rounds per day must be a whole number of at least 1.	Max rounds per day is empty or below 1.	Enter a whole number from 1 to 8.
Max rounds per day must be 8 or fewer.	Max rounds per day is above 8.	Enter 8 or less.
Invalid hours for the date.	The hours of a day are not valid times, or the start is not earlier than the end.	Write both as 24 hour times, start before end.
Judge availability could not be saved. Please try again.	The availability write failed.	Try again.
Paradigm must be 4000 characters or fewer.	The paradigm is too long.	Shorten it.
Choose a conflict kind.	The kind was missing.	Choose School, Team, Household or Adjudicator.
Say who the conflict is with.	The target was empty.	Fill the school, competitor or judge.
Pick a competitor registered for this tournament.	The competitor chosen is not on this roster.	Reload and choose again.
Reason must be 2000 characters or fewer.	The reason is too long.	Shorten it.
Conflict not found.	A Remove named a conflict that is gone.	Reload the view.
Select two people to link as a household.	A person menu was left empty.	Choose both.
Select two different people.	The same person was chosen twice.	Choose a different second person.
Label must be 200 characters or fewer.	The household label is too long.	Shorten it.
One of the selected judges is not registered for this tournament.	A chosen judge is not on this roster.	Reload and choose again.
One of the selected competitors is not registered for this tournament.	A chosen competitor is not on this roster.	Reload and choose again.
Could not create the household declaration.	The household was not saved.	Try again.
That household group does not belong to this tournament.	Remove named a household that is gone.	Reload the view.
Choose a valid nomination status.	The status was not pending, contacted, accepted or declined.	Use one of the buttons.
The response must be 2,000 characters or fewer.	The reply is too long.	Shorten it.
A tournament can name at most 8 judge categories.	The list holds more than 8 names.	Remove names.
A category name must be 40 characters or fewer.	A name in the list is too long.	Shorten it.
This tournament has no judge categories set up yet.	A category chip was used with an empty list.	Save a list first.
Move them to another category or None first.	The end of the refusal to remove a category that judges still hold. It begins with how many judges are still in it.	Move those judges, then save the list.
No judges could be allocated. Check that judges are registered and available for this tournament.	Shown in Rounds when the allocator found none seatable. A following sentence counts judges awaiting approval and judges who have not finished sign-up steps.	Approve them or finish their steps here.

Confirmation messages

Message	When it shows
Saved on the judge's behalf.	After Save changes.
Judge approved. or N judges approved.	After Approve or Approve all.
Conflict declared. and Conflict removed.	After Declare and Remove in the panel.
Status set to followed by a status.	After reviewing a nomination.
Judge added and invited.	A judge was added and the invitation mail was sent.
Judge added.	A judge was added and the account already existed, so no invitation was made.
Invitation recorded. This judge has an account, so they join the roster by registering from their judge page.	The address belongs to another account.