# An incomplete record

> From FilmScorecard Help: https://www.filmscorecard.com/help/an-incomplete-record

FilmScorecard can tell you which submissions are missing part of their record. It
names the gaps on the Information tab of the detail panel; nothing marks them on
the [Submissions](https://www.filmscorecard.com/help/submissions.md) list.

**It is advice and nothing else.** Read the next section before you read
anything else on this page.

## Nothing is ever refused for being incomplete

There is no consequence anywhere. Concretely:

- **An incomplete submission saves normally.** No warning dialog, no disabled
  Save button, no field turning red.
- **An incomplete submission imports normally.** No row is rejected for it and
  no import reports it.
- **An incomplete submission is judged normally.** It reaches judges' queues
  and is scored like any other.
- **Judges never see any of this.** No sentence, nothing on the dashboard or
  the scoring screen. It is a coordinator's working note.

The note exists so you can chase the gaps before judging opens, not to stop
anything happening.

## What a complete record is

Four things:

| Item | Where it is filled in |
| --- | --- |
| **Tagline** | Information tab, in the Project card above Synopsis — see [The tagline, the statement and the poster](https://www.filmscorecard.com/help/statements-taglines-and-posters.md). |
| **Synopsis** | Information tab, under Tagline. |
| **Poster** | The Poster card at the bottom of the Information tab. |
| **A statement** | Information tab, in the box under Synopsis — headed *Director's statement* on a film, *Writer's statement* on a screenplay. A submission has one statement, so having it is the whole of this item. |

**A field of spaces does not count.** Whitespace reads as empty.

**All four are also fields the submitter can fill in themselves**, on their own
submission page, while judging is under way — which is the fastest way to clear
a run of gaps you did not create. See
[Letting submitters fix their own details](https://www.filmscorecard.com/help/submission-links.md).

## Imported submissions are measured on less

**A submission that arrived through a FilmFreeway import is measured on the
synopsis and the statement only.** Its tagline and its poster are not counted
against it.

The reason is that FilmFreeway's export carries neither. There is no tagline
column and no poster in the file, so a batch of 148 submissions would arrive
with 148 notes on day one — which is the point at which nobody reads the note
again.

**A hand-entered submission is measured on all four.**

Two consequences worth knowing before you rely on this:

- **An imported submission with a synopsis and a statement reads as
  complete**, even with no tagline and no poster. That is intentional, and it
  means the note is not a checklist for "ready to program".
- **Editing an imported submission does not change which standard it is held
  to.** Add a tagline and a poster to an imported row and it is still an
  imported row; take the tagline away again and no note appears. A submission
  that arrived by import is never measured on all four.

**Today, importing is the only way a submission reaches a season**, so in
practice every row on your list is on the shorter standard, and the note appears
when a synopsis or a statement is missing. See
[Importing submissions](https://www.filmscorecard.com/help/importing-submissions.md).

**This is not the same as the import's own blank-field report.** That one
happens during an import, describes gaps in the *file* — email, category,
running time, synopsis — and is shown once, in the preview grid and on the
batch. This one describes the *record* as it stands today, and is shown on
the submission itself, for as long as the gap is there.

## Where you see it

**Nowhere on the list.** There is no dot, no filter, no column and no count in
the footer; the list does not say which rows are short.

### On the Information tab: the sentence

Open the submission and a quiet grey note sits at the top of the Information
tab, above the first card, naming exactly what is absent:

> This submission is missing a tagline, a poster and a statement.

It lists only items this submission is actually measured on, always in the same
order — tagline, synopsis, poster, statement — and it **disappears when the
record is complete** rather than turning green. It is deliberately not red and
not an error: it is a note about the record, not a problem with the form.

## What it does not tell you

- **Whether anything else is missing.** Credits, runtime, language, country,
  the screener link, and every staff-only field an import fills — none of them
  are counted, however much you may want them.
- **Whether the film is ready to judge.** A submission with no screener link
  reads as complete if it has a synopsis and a statement. That is a different
  problem with a different fix — see
  [Opening a submission](https://www.filmscorecard.com/help/opening-a-submission.md#the-settings-tab).
- **Who left the gap, or when.** Nothing in the note is attributed. That
  question is answered one tab over, on the panel's
  [Audit tab](https://www.filmscorecard.com/help/opening-a-submission.md#the-audit-tab): every edit to the
  record, by a coordinator or by the submitter, with the fields it changed and
  what each held before — so a synopsis that was cleared can be traced to the
  edit that cleared it, and the grey line under this note — "Edited by the
  submitter on 10 Sep 2026." — has a **See what changed** button that takes you
  straight there. A gap that has been there since the import shows as the
  import's own entry and no edit to that field after it: nothing was ever saved
  into it, so there is nothing more to list.