# Festival access

> From FilmScorecard Help: https://www.filmscorecard.com/help/festival-access

Being in your organization and being able to work on a festival are two
different things. This guide covers the second one: the panel behind a person's
name, the four festival roles, and the **Roles and permissions** tab that
describes them.

Both live on [Organization settings](https://www.filmscorecard.com/help/organization-settings.md), which only an
owner or an org admin can open.

## Opening the panel

Click somebody's **name** on the People tab, or choose **Edit festival access**
in their row menu. The panel slides in over the list, so you do not lose your
place.

Close it with the **✕**, with **Cancel**, or by clicking the darkened
background.

**The panel is not part of the address.** Reloading the page closes it, and you
cannot send a colleague a link straight to one person's panel — send them the
screen and the name.

**Opening a different person discards a draft you never saved.**

## The top of the panel

### Organization role

The same three roles as everywhere else — **Owner**, **Org admin**,
**Member**. **Owner is offered only if you are an owner.** If the person
already holds a role that would not otherwise be offered, it stays in the menu
so the field never quietly reads as something else.

Changing it here is a draft like everything else in the panel: nothing happens
until you press **Save access**.

### Status

The current pill — **Active** or **Suspended** — and one button beside it,
**Suspend** or **Restore**.

Pressing it does not act immediately: it changes the draft, and **Save access**
commits it. What suspending and restoring actually do is described in
[Organization settings](https://www.filmscorecard.com/help/organization-settings.md#suspending-restoring-and-removing).

The Suspend button is greyed in two cases:

- **on your own row** — you cannot suspend yourself;
- **on the organization's last active owner**, with the reason underneath:
  "Transfer ownership first, an organization keeps one owner."

## Owners and org admins reach every festival

Choose Owner or Org admin and **the festival list is replaced** — not greyed —
by a note:

> **Org admins reach every festival**
> The org role overrides per-festival access, so all 8 festivals and every
> season are open. Change the role to Member to grant access festival by
> festival.

That is the honest shape of it: their grants do not merely sit unused, they do
not apply at all while the org role lasts. **Nothing is deleted.** Switch the
draft back to Member before saving and the list comes back exactly as it was.

## The festival list

For a **Member**, the panel lists the festivals they have been granted, above a
line counting them: "2 of 8 festivals, 1 changed".

**Add festival** adds the first festival they do not already have, at
**Viewer**, with its capability list already open. It is greyed out once they
have every festival — and one person can hold **one grant per festival**, never
two.

Somebody with nothing yet gets a dashed block instead:

> **No festival access yet**
> This person can sign in and see the organization, nothing else, until a
> festival is added.

### A festival card

Each card carries the festival's name, its **current season** underneath (or
"No season yet"), a **role menu**, and a **Capabilities** button that opens the
detail.

Some cards read "*Spring 2026* · this season only". Those are grants to **one
season** rather than to the whole festival. You can change their role, change
their capabilities and remove them here — but **new grants are always
festival-wide**; Add festival cannot make a season-only one.

### Removing a festival

**Remove access** is inside the card's capability list: open **Capabilities**
and it is the amber button at the bottom right. Like everything else in the
panel, it takes effect when you save.

## The four festival roles

A festival role is what somebody is *for* on that festival. Change it from the
menu on the card.

| Role | What it is for |
| --- | --- |
| **Festival admin** | Everything on that festival, including its settings, its team and its revenue. |
| **Coordinator** | The day-to-day: submissions and imports, judges and assignments, reviewing scorecards, and the category line-up. Not revenue, not settings. |
| **Programmer** | Submissions and imports, and the category line-up. No judges, no scorecard review, no revenue, no settings. |
| **Viewer** | Read-only. The festival, its seasons and their figures, and nothing they can change. |

**Coordinator is the judging-coordinator role.** Somebody who runs a season's
judging — reviewing filed scorecards, chasing judges, settling screener
problems — is a member of your organization with a Coordinator grant on that
festival, granted here or in their invitation. There is no separate
coordinator role on a season's judging panel; see
[Judges](https://www.filmscorecard.com/help/judges.md#judging-coordinators-are-staff-not-judges).

**Changing a card's role clears any capabilities you had customized on it**, so
the role is always the baseline. That is why the pill on a changed grant says
how far it has moved from the role, not from whatever it used to be.

## Capabilities

**Capabilities** on a card opens the seven things a festival role covers, each
with a tick box:

| Capability | Which work it covers |
| --- | --- |
| **View festival and dashboard** | The festival home, its seasons and their figures. |
| **Manage submissions and imports** | Import, edit and withdraw submissions. |
| **Manage judges and assignments** | Invite judges and set what they score. |
| **Approve scorecards and resolve flags** | Review filed scorecards and clear flags. |
| **Edit categories and scorecards** | The season line-up and the scorecards attached to it. |
| **View revenue and payouts** | Entry-fee revenue and payout records. |
| **Edit festival settings and team** | Festival identity, rules, and who works on it. |

The boxes start at the role's own defaults. Tick or untick one and an indigo
**Added** or **Removed** pill appears beside it, and the button that opened the
list starts counting: **"2 changes"**.

**Reset to *role*** puts every box back to that role's defaults. It is greyed
while nothing differs.

On the People list, a person holding at least one changed grant shows
**"2 customized"** under their festival count.

### What the capabilities do today

**Four of the seven are enforced now; the rest are still recorded.** Say it
plainly, because the boxes look like they should all bite:

- **"Approve scorecards and resolve flags" is real.** It decides who can act
  on the [Review Queue](https://www.filmscorecard.com/help/review-queue.md) — approving scorecards, editing a
  filed one, withdrawing an award recommendation, sending a rewrite reminder,
  and settling a screener problem a judge reported (sending the film back to
  them, or dismissing it). It also decides who is offered **Release
  scorecard** on a submission's Settings tab — releasing one filmmaker's
  scorecard ahead of the season — together with being somebody who can change
  the season, so a viewer given the box is not offered it; see
  [Releasing one submission's scorecard](https://www.filmscorecard.com/help/releasing-one-scorecard.md).
  Festival admins and coordinators have it by default; ticking it gives it to
  a programmer, and unticking it takes it from a coordinator, who then gets
  the queue read-only. Owners and org admins always have it, whatever any
  grant says.
- **"Manage judges and assignments" is real too, and it now covers every
  change to a season's judges.** It decides two things:
  - **Whether the two judging tabs exist for you.** It gates the
    [Judge requests](https://www.filmscorecard.com/help/judge-requests.md) and
    [Invites sent](https://www.filmscorecard.com/help/invites-sent.md) tabs on a season's Judges screen and
    every action behind them. Somebody without it **loses those two tabs**,
    with the tab strip gone altogether, leaving the Roster on its own — and
    both tabs' addresses open the Roster for them instead.
  - **Whether they can change the Roster.** Inviting judges by email,
    resending, changing roles and scope, the FilmFreeway switch, pausing,
    resuming, removing and deleting a record on the
    [Roster](https://www.filmscorecard.com/help/judges.md#who-can-work-here) all need it now — and so does
    inviting somebody onto one of this festival's seasons from the
    [Judges directory](https://www.filmscorecard.com/help/judges-directory.md#when-you-cannot-invite-anybody),
    whose season picker lists only the seasons whose judges you manage.
    **This changed**: the Roster used to let anyone who could change the
    season do all of that, programmers included. Somebody without it still
    sees most of the Roster's buttons and is refused when they press one —
    "You do not have permission to change this roster." — but **the
    FilmFreeway switch is greyed for them**.

  Festival admins and coordinators have it by default; programmers and viewers
  do not. Owners and org admins always have it. So ticking it for a programmer
  now hands them the judges screens, and unticking it for a coordinator takes
  them away.
- **"View revenue and payouts" is real now, and it is the money one.** It
  decides six things: whether the **Revenue** card appears on the
  [Season overview](https://www.filmscorecard.com/help/season-overview.md#who-can-open-it), whether the
  scorecard-sales CSV will download, whether the **Payouts** section
  appears in a season's left navigation at all — the section holding the
  judge-pay ledger, where what each judge is owed is tracked and payments made
  outside FilmScorecard are logged, the **Invoices** tab where judges' invoices
  arrive, and the payments log (see
  [Paying your judges](https://www.filmscorecard.com/help/paying-your-judges.md),
  [Judge invoices](https://www.filmscorecard.com/help/invoices.md) and
  [The payments log](https://www.filmscorecard.com/help/payments-log.md)) — whether the amber
  [payout banner](https://www.filmscorecard.com/help/season-overview.md#the-payout-banner) is drawn on the
  season's dashboard when the organization's payout account is not finished,
  and whether a submission's drawer carries its **Scorecard access** card,
  which states whether that filmmaker has unlocked their scorecard and offers
  the comp — see
  [Selling scorecard access](https://www.filmscorecard.com/help/selling-scorecard-access.md) — and whether a
  submission's [Audit tab](https://www.filmscorecard.com/help/opening-a-submission.md#the-audit-tab) shows its
  money entries: a started checkout, an unlock with its order and amount paid,
  a refund, and a release's price. Without it those entries are left out
  entirely, and out of every count.
  **Festival
  admins have it by default; coordinators, programmers and viewers do not** —
  so unticking it for a coordinator, or ticking it for a programmer, now
  changes what they see. Owners and org admins always have it. Somebody
  without it gets the overview with **no Revenue card and no explanation**, no
  Payouts row in the navigation, no payout banner, and no Scorecard access card
  in any submission drawer. The Payouts address, on any of its three tabs,
  sends them to the season's dashboard, and the download address, every pay
  statement, every invoice and every receipt answer "page not found".

  **The banner is the one thing on that list a non-owner can only read.** Its
  **Open Payments settings** button appears for organization owners and org
  admins only, because [Organization
  settings](https://www.filmscorecard.com/help/organization-settings.md#who-can-open-it) refuses everybody else
  — so a coordinator with revenue reads the line, and is not handed a link that
  would answer them "page not found". Ticking this capability for somebody
  never gives them the payout account itself; only the owner can act on that,
  see [Connecting payouts](https://www.filmscorecard.com/help/connecting-payouts.md).

  It does not pair with *Manage judges and assignments* and does not nest
  inside it. The two are read separately and now gate different parts of the
  app entirely, which makes both one-sided cases ordinary: a **coordinator**
  runs the whole judging pipeline and has no Payouts section, and a board
  member or accountant given revenue alone gets the whole Payouts section
  while the Judges screen shows them the Roster with no tab strip, and refuses
  any change they try to make on it.
- **This is the one place a Viewer's tick box genuinely changes something.**
  Revenue is a read, so a viewer with *View revenue and payouts* ticked really
  does see the card, really can export the file, really can open the
  Payouts section and read the whole of it — breakdowns, statements, the
  payments log and receipts included — and really can read a submission's
  Scorecard access line and the money entries on its Audit tab. What they cannot do there is log or void
  a payment, or **Accept**, **Return** or **Mark paid** an invoice: those take
  somebody who can change the season, and for a viewer those controls are
  simply absent. That is deliberate — it is
  the way to give a board member or an accountant the figures and nothing else.
  It is the opposite of the capabilities around it, where ticking a box for a
  viewer gives them nothing they can use.

  **The Comp scorecard access button follows the same rule.** It is drawn
  only for somebody who can change the season, so a viewer holding revenue
  reads the Scorecard access line and is not offered the button — see
  [Who can actually comp](https://www.filmscorecard.com/help/selling-scorecard-access.md#who-can-actually-comp).
- **Ticking a WRITE capability for a Viewer still does nothing.** A viewer's
  changes are refused at a deeper level regardless of the box. On the judging
  tabs the effect is visible rather than confusing: a viewer with the box ticked
  can open the tabs and read everything, and every control that would change
  something is greyed with "You need permission to manage judges on this
  season." **On the Roster it is not greyed**: the same viewer sees the
  buttons live and every press is refused with "You do not have permission to
  change this roster." — the FilmFreeway switch is the one control drawn
  greyed for them. If somebody should manage judges, give them a role that
  writes.
- The standing **coarse split** is enforced everywhere, as before: a
  **Viewer cannot change anything** on that festival — not a submission, not
  an import, not a season, not a judge.
- **"Edit festival settings and team" is enforced.** It decides who can open
  the Settings screen and who gets **Edit page** on the festival's public page
  — and, now, **who has Email submission links** on a season's Submissions
  list, the bulk send of submitter page links. The button is shown only to
  people with this capability and a role that can change the season; everybody
  else's bulk bar simply does not have it. See
  [Who can send them](https://www.filmscorecard.com/help/submission-links.md#who-can-send-them).
- **The remaining tick boxes are decisions FilmScorecard stores and shows.**
  Each capability starts biting when the screen it
  belongs to is rebuilt to ask — the Review Queue was the first, the judging
  tabs the second, revenue the third, and the Roster joined the judging tabs.
  One consequence worth naming: **the screener link inside the Review Queue's
  Issue panel is not gated by "Manage submissions and imports"**, so anyone who
  can open the season can correct it there, exactly as they can on the
  Submissions screen.

So set them to describe what you intend. Beyond scorecard approval, the judges
screens, revenue, settings and viewer-versus-not, do not rely on them to
prevent anything yet.

## Saving

Nothing in the panel is written until you press **Save access**. Until then:

- **Cancel**, the ✕ and a click on the background all discard the draft.
- **With unsaved changes, all three ask first**, with your browser's own
  confirmation: "You have unsaved changes on this page. Leave without saving
  them?" The same prompt appears if you try to leave the screen, close the tab
  or reload.

The footer states what a save means:

> Changes take effect the next time *Ada* loads the festival.

Somebody working in FilmScorecard while you change their access does not see it
change under them and is not signed out; their next page load has the new
answer. **That includes the Revenue card and the whole Payouts section**: take
the capability away and both are gone the next time they load, with nothing to
say they went.

A refusal appears in a red block at the top of the panel and the panel stays
open, with your draft intact:

| The message | What it means |
| --- | --- |
| Only an owner can manage another owner. | You are an org admin and this person is an owner. The panel opens on an owner's row; the refusal arrives here. |
| An organization keeps one owner. Transfer ownership first. | The draft would demote or suspend the last active owner. |
| You cannot suspend your own access. | The draft suspends you. |
| Something on this screen changed while it was open. Reload and try again. | Somebody else changed this person, or a festival was deleted, while your panel was open. **Nothing was half-written** — reload and redo it. |
| You do not have permission to change this organization. | Your own access here is not what it was when the screen loaded. |

On success the panel closes and the list behind it is already up to date.

Every change made here is written to the
[Audit log](https://www.filmscorecard.com/help/organization-settings.md#audit-log), one line per change: the
role change, each festival granted or removed, and each grant whose
capabilities moved.

## The Roles and permissions tab

**Nothing on this tab writes anything.** It is the reference the rest of the
screen is built on, in two cards.

**Organization roles** — the three org roles, each with a live count of how
many people hold it and a pill reading "Reaches every festival" or
"Per-festival access applies".

**Festival roles** — the seven capabilities down the side, the four festival
roles across the top, and a tick where the role has it by default. Underneath:
"7 capabilities, 4 festival roles. 3 people currently hold a customized role."

On a narrow window the grid becomes one block per capability, each listing the
four roles, rather than a table you have to scroll sideways.

Read it as a description of what each role is *for*. What is actually enforced
today is in [What the capabilities do
today](#what-the-capabilities-do-today).

## Suspending somebody, and what it reaches

A suspended member reaches nothing in your organization, and that now shows up
in one more place: **your organization stops appearing in their account menu.**
Somebody who works for two organizations and is suspended from yours can still
switch into the other one and will not see a row for you at all. See
[Working in two organizations](https://www.filmscorecard.com/help/working-in-two-organizations.md#when-the-group-appears).

## What this panel cannot do

- **Grant one season rather than a whole festival.** Existing season-only
  grants are fully editable; new ones cannot be created here.
- **Give one person two roles on the same festival.** One grant per festival,
  and the role is the whole of it.
- **Grant anything to somebody who is not in your organization.** Invite them
  first — see [Inviting people](https://www.filmscorecard.com/help/inviting-people.md).
- **Let somebody create a festival.** Adding a festival is an owner or org
  admin act and no festival role reaches it — see
  [Adding a festival](https://www.filmscorecard.com/help/adding-a-festival.md).
- **Let somebody manage the organization's payout account.** No festival role
  and no capability reaches it: that is the organization owner's alone — see
  [Connecting payouts](https://www.filmscorecard.com/help/connecting-payouts.md).
- **Change what a scorecard costs.** The price is the platform's, the same at
  every festival, and no role or capability reaches it — see
  [Selling scorecard access](https://www.filmscorecard.com/help/selling-scorecard-access.md).

## Related guides

- [Organization settings](https://www.filmscorecard.com/help/organization-settings.md) — the People list, the
  row menu, suspending and removing, and the audit log.
- [Inviting people](https://www.filmscorecard.com/help/inviting-people.md) — festival access can be chosen in
  the invitation, before they even accept.
- [Judges](https://www.filmscorecard.com/help/judges.md) — a judge is not given a festival role. Judging access
  is granted per season, on its own screen, by people holding "Manage judges
  and assignments".
- [Judge requests](https://www.filmscorecard.com/help/judge-requests.md) — the first screen "Manage judges and
  assignments" actually gated.
- [Letting submitters fix their own details](https://www.filmscorecard.com/help/submission-links.md) — the
  Email submission links button "Edit festival settings and team" now gates.
- [The Season overview](https://www.filmscorecard.com/help/season-overview.md),
  [Paying your judges](https://www.filmscorecard.com/help/paying-your-judges.md),
  [Judge invoices](https://www.filmscorecard.com/help/invoices.md),
  [The payments log](https://www.filmscorecard.com/help/payments-log.md) and
  [Selling scorecard access](https://www.filmscorecard.com/help/selling-scorecard-access.md) — the screens
  "View revenue and payouts" gates.
- [Connecting payouts](https://www.filmscorecard.com/help/connecting-payouts.md) — the organization's payout
  account, which no festival role reaches.
