Importing submissions

Four steps take a CSV of submissions and turn it into the season's submission list: choose the file, say which column holds what, match its categories to yours, then check every row before you commit. A FilmFreeway export arrives with most of the mapping already worked out; a CSV from anywhere else goes through exactly the same four steps with more of it left for you.

Nothing is written until you confirm. You can upload, remap columns, remap categories, sort, hide columns, correct values and walk away, and the season is exactly as you left it. The confirm dialog says so in as many words: "This is the first write; nothing has been saved yet."

Once you confirm, the import runs in the background and the Imports screen takes over.

A festival connected to FilmFreeway gets its films without this page — the sync brings them in on its own; see Connecting FilmFreeway. A CSV import still works beside it: the two share one duplicate rule, so neither brings a film in twice (see How a duplicate is recognized), and a sync that comes round while your import is queued or running changes nothing and leaves the work to the next sync.

Starting an import

1. Open Imports in the left navigation, under your festival's name.
2. Choose Import submissions, top right.

The Import submissions button on the Submissions toolbar, and the one in its empty state, both lead to the same place.

The address of the four-step flow is:

/org/<organization>/<festival>/<season>/imports/new

Opening that address on its own always starts at step 1 with an empty drop target. There is no "you have an unfinished import" prompt — see Leaving halfway through.

Who can import

Everyone in your organization who can open the season, with the same buttons. Owners and staff members have identical capability here, exactly as on Submissions. The one thing that is not the same for everybody is saving a column-mapping template, which needs access to the whole festival rather than to one season — see Who can do what.

That includes step 3's FilmScorecard default list: anyone running an import can map a file's category to it, and that category is then added to your organization's library when the import runs — see Step 3.

Anyone else who opens the address — including hosts of other festivals — sees an ordinary "page not found". A logged-out visitor is sent to the log-in screen first.

Step 1, choose a file

Drag the export onto the dashed panel, or choose Choose a file. Only one file at a time; dropping several uses the first.

The card is explicit about what it takes: any .csv export — FilmFreeway's columns are recognised, others you match yourself. A FilmFreeway export is read as FilmFreeway writes it, so the smoothest file is the one you downloaded and did not open in a spreadsheet. A CSV from any other platform, or a spreadsheet you keep by hand, is accepted just the same — FilmScorecard will not recognise its headings by name, so it works out what it can from the values and asks you about the rest on the next screen.

Every file goes to step 2 next, whatever FilmScorecard made of its columns. The button reads "Reading the file…" while that step loads.

When a file is refused

The drop target is replaced by an amber block naming the file and the problem, with a Choose a different file button. The message stays inside the card — nothing appears at the top of the page — and nothing has been saved, so there is no half-finished import to clean up.

What FilmScorecard reads from the file

• Every column is stored, whether FilmScorecard recognises its heading or not, and every one of them can be shown in the preview grid on step 4. Being stored is not the same as being imported: only the columns you give a field on step 2 fill anything on the submission. The rest are dropped — see Columns that are not imported.
• Headings are matched loosely. Case, spaces, underscores, punctuation and accents are ignored, so "Submitter E-mail", "submitter_email" and "Submitter Email" are one column.
• Two columns with the same heading both survive; the second and any further ones get their file position added to the name — Notes (14) — so you can tell them apart in the column picker. A column with no heading at all becomes Column (14). Only the first of a repeated heading can be matched by name; the duplicate is still choosable by hand.
• Rows where every cell is empty are dropped, so the row count you see matches the rows a person counts in the file.

What a FilmFreeway export brings in

A FilmFreeway export's columns are matched by their FilmFreeway names, and nearly all of them now have somewhere to go. On top of the title, the category, the submitter's name and contact details, the work's details, its credits, its synopsis and statement, the screener and the links, the import fills:

They land on the submission's Information tab, in its collapsed cards, and only your festival's staff can read them. They are never shown to a judge, on the filmmaker's own submission page or scorecard, on the public film page, or to a connected AI app.

These fields are matched by column name only. FilmFreeway's export binds every one of them on step 2 without asking. On a file from anywhere else they are never guessed from the values: each one sits in the list of fields with no column, where you can give it a column by hand.

Page count and Completion year need no column of their own. When the file has no Page Count or Completion Year column, they are read from the column you gave Runtime and Completion date — a screenplay's "112 Pages" in FilmFreeway's Duration column, the year of its Completion Date — and step 2 says so: "Derived from Duration", "Derived from Completion Date".

A re-import does not fill these in on films already here. A row whose film is already in the season is skipped or adds a category entry, exactly as before, so a film imported before these fields existed keeps them empty until somebody types them in.

Judging status sets the selection

FilmFreeway's Judging Status column decides a new submission's selection, matched without regard to capitals:

It counts on the film's first import only. A row for a film already in the season changes nothing about its selection, so a decision somebody made here since is never overwritten. Submission Status is not read at all.

Judging Status decides the selection and nothing else. Whether a new film is offered to judges is a separate choice you make in the confirm dialog — see Ready for judging or On hold.

What a FilmFreeway export carries that is not imported

These columns are left out on purpose. Each stays in the stored copy of the file, readable in step 4's grid, and nothing on the submission holds it:

Step 2, say which column holds what

One row per thing FilmScorecard imports, a dropdown naming the column it will read, and three real values from that column. Every import answers this screen — a FilmFreeway export sees it already filled in, an unfamiliar file sees it with more left to do, and neither is skipped.

The short version:

• Only Project title is required. Everything else may be left empty, and "Left empty" is a real answer rather than an unfinished one.
• A column feeds at most one field. Choosing a column another field is using moves it, and that field turns amber where it stands.
• Two columns can be joined for names, credits and text — first name plus last name, joined with a space.
• One column for both Directors and Writers is one credit. A film's name goes to Directors and a screenplay's to Writers; nobody is credited twice. Two separate columns are read as they are.
• A column no field uses is not imported. The file itself is untouched and the column still shows in step 4's grid, but nothing about it reaches the submission.
• The fields are named the way FilmFreeway names its columns — Submission link, Submission password, Submission date, Name of school, Film color, Submission categories, Trailer URL, Project website, First name, Last name, Email, Phone, City, State.
• You can save the mapping as a template, shared by every season of the festival, and it applies itself the next time a file with the same columns arrives.

The whole screen — the two sections, the amber rows, the column picker, joins, the two lists at the bottom, and templates — is Mapping your file's columns.

Press Continue to categories when it looks right. That is the first thing saved on the import, and it is only the map: nothing has reached the season.

Step 3, match the file's categories to yours

The file carries the category name the submitter chose. Your organization has its own list. This step reconciles the two, and the preview cannot open until every name in the file has an answer.

The table has two columns, In the file and Your category. Each row is one distinct category name from the file, in alphabetical order, with the number of rows that name it underneath. A name FilmScorecard can match is filled in for you — capitals, spaces and punctuation aside; anything else is drawn with an amber edge, an amber picker and the words "Not in your categories" — meaning the name is in none of the lists below.

The match is made against your whole library, not just this season. If the file names a category your organization has written down but this season has not started running yet, that still counts as a match — and choosing it attaches it to the season when the import runs.

And then against FilmScorecard's default list. A name that neither this season nor your library answers, but one of the default list's categories does, is filled in from the default list. Your own categories always come first: a default category is only offered, and only filled in, when you hold nothing by that name. See Importing from the default list.

Open a picker and you get three kinds of answer:

1. Map to a category. The list comes in up to three groups: On this season first, then Organization library — everything else you have written down — then FilmScorecard default list, the default categories your library does not hold yet. All are A–Z, with a search box that matches anywhere in a name, and the list does not reorder as you pick. The number beside a category in the first group is how many submissions are in it today; a category that is not on the season yet has no number, because nothing has been entered in it here. Archived categories are not offered. The group headings are only drawn when more than one group has something in it — with a single group there is nothing to tell apart.
   • Picking from On this season simply maps the rows.
   • Picking from Organization library also attaches that category to this season when the import runs — it joins the season's line-up carrying the library's default judge pay, exactly as attaching it in festival settings would.
   • Picking from FilmScorecard default list imports that category into your library when the import runs — its description, length, default judge pay, its own creative scorecard and your Film Technical or Screenplay Technical and Press Kit, exactly as the library's import would — and then attaches it to this season like a library pick, at that judge pay: $2.00 a scorecard for a short category, $4.00 for any other (see A category). Two names in the file mapped to the same default category import it once.
   • With nothing on the season, nothing in the library and nothing left on the default list, the list reads "No categories yet."
2. Create "<name>" as a new category. It offers the file's name, unless a category in the list already has that name, capitals aside. Type a name into the search box that matches no category and it offers what you typed instead — "Create "Animated Shorts" as a new category". Choosing it asks one more question — Film ("Video file or link") or Screenplay ("PDF upload") — because a category's type can never be changed afterwards; the answer is recorded once you pick the type, and the picker then reads "name · Film". The new category takes the file's own spelling, or the name you typed, and is written in three places: your organization's library, the festival's list of what it offers, and this season's line-up — so next year's season can use it too. It gets your shared technical and press kit scorecards — Film Technical or Screenplay Technical for the type you chose, and Press Kit — and no creative scorecard: its creative slot reads Missing, and it cannot be judged until you attach one in the library.
3. Don't import this category. The option says what it costs: "Submissions only in this category won't be added", and the row keeps saying so once it is chosen. A submission entered in this category AND one you do import still imports, through the other one; a submission whose categories are all set this way is left out of the import.

Choosing any of these records a decision; it does not create anything. Nothing is imported into your library, created or attached until the import runs, so abandoning the import leaves nothing behind.

The search box and the two actions are separate on purpose: a search that matches no category still leaves Create and Do not import reachable at the bottom, with Create offering the name you typed.

The footer counts what is left: "3 of 11 categories unmatched. Map it to continue." in amber, or "All 11 categories mapped." once you are done. Continue to preview stays inert until the second sentence appears.

Rows that name more than one category

A single cell can carry several categories. FilmScorecard splits them on semicolons, vertical bars and line breaks — deliberately not on commas, because real category names contain commas ("Micro Short, under 5 minutes").

The consequence is worth knowing: a cell written as Short Film, Documentary arrives as one category name spelled exactly that way, and turns up in this step as a name your season does not have. Map it, create it, or exclude it — whichever is right — and the rows follow your choice.

When a row does split into several categories:

• Every one of them counts equally. The submission is entered in all of them and is judged separately in each, against that category's own scorecards. The order they appear in the file means nothing — the first one listed is not special, and there is no "main" category. See A submission competes in every category it is attached to.
• A row is skipped only if every one of its categories is set to "Do not import". One usable category is enough to import it.
• If two different file names are mapped onto the same category of yours, the submission is attached to it once, not twice.

Three categories on one row means three sections on the submission's Scoring tab once it lands, and a +2 pill beside its category on the list.

When there is no category column

The table shows a single row reading "No category column in this file", carrying the whole file's row count. Choose one category for the lot, or create one. "Don't import this category" is not offered here — importing a file by importing none of it is not a choice worth making.

You get this row in two cases: the file genuinely has no category column, or you left Submission categories empty on step 2. If the second one was a mistake, Back to columns is the way out.

Smaller things about this step

• Back to columns, beside the primary button, re-opens step 2 with your mapping intact. It is the way to fix a wrong category column — which is usually what is behind a table full of names your season has never heard of. Changing that column gives this step a different list of names, so answers you had already given may come back unmatched.
• Your choices are saved when you press Continue to preview, so coming Back to categories from step 4 finds them as you left them.
• If a category you had mapped to is deleted from the season in the meantime, that row reverts to unmatched rather than quietly pointing at nothing.
• A default-list pick survives the category arriving by another route. If somebody imports that category into your library from the Library, or another import brings it in, before this one runs, your choice still stands and the import uses the library's copy rather than importing a second one. A default category that has been taken off the default list altogether reverts to unmatched.
• A bookmarked link to step 4 with anything still unmatched lands you back on this table.
• If the choices cannot be saved you see "Those choices could not be saved. Try again." under the footer and stay where you are.

Step 4, check the file

The heading reads "Check the file, then import", and the line on the right reads "Nothing has been saved yet." — true right up to the confirm button.

The four numbers at the top

Reading a row

Every row of the file is on screen, skipped ones included. The first columns are always there:

• # — the row's number in the file. It is the number the error report and the cell editor use, so it is the number worth quoting.
• Project Title — pinned, always the second column, and it cannot be turned off.
• What happens — the outcome, in words. See What each outcome means.
• Type — Film or Screenplay, as FilmScorecard worked it out. This is not the file's own Project Type column; it is the conclusion. See How the type is decided.

Rows that will be skipped as duplicates are drawn in a muted fill, so a file that is mostly a re-export reads at a glance.

The row number and Project Title stay put while the rest of the grid scrolls sideways.

Sorting

Every column heading sorts, including What happens and Type. Click once for ascending, again for descending, a third time to go back to file order — there is always a way back to the order the export had.

• Project Title breaks every tie, and does not reverse with the direction.
• Dates sort chronologically and running times by real length. "Sep 1" after "Aug 9", and "9:40" before "11:02" — not the order a plain text sort gives.
• Numbers sort as numbers, including ones with a currency mark or a trailing unit such as $18,000 or 112 pp.
• Hiding the column you sorted by drops the sort, and the caret and the footer note clear with it rather than describing an order you cannot see.

The footer names the current state: "Showing 50 of 312 rows and 13 of 77 file columns. Sorted by Runtime, descending." — or "In file order." when nothing is sorted.

Choosing columns

Choose columns, top right of the grid, lists every column in the file, in file order — not alphabetically, so the column you just saw in the spreadsheet is where you expect it. The number beside each name is its position in the file.

• Picks apply immediately and the popover stays open.
• The search box narrows the list, and the select-all row then reads "Select all 9 matching" and applies to those nine only.
• Project Title is marked Pinned and cannot be turned off.
• Row number, What happens and Type are not file columns, so they are not listed and cannot be hidden.
• The footer reads "13 of 77 shown" and offers Reset to default.

This list is every column in the file, not every column that will be imported. A column you gave no field on step 2 can be shown here and read here; it is still not imported.

The preview opens with Project Title, Category, Tracking Number, Judging Status, Submitted Date, Submitter Name, Submitter Email, Submitter Phone, Runtime, Synopsis, Video Link, Cover Page Acknowledgement and DCP Delivery Terms — whichever of those your file actually carries, plus whatever columns you mapped onto those fields under other names.

Your choice is remembered in this browser, per season, so the next export of the same season opens with the same columns. It is not kept on your account: another computer, another browser or a private window starts from the defaults above, and clearing your browser's stored site data resets it. If your browser will not let a page store anything, the picker still works for as long as you stay on the page.

How many rows you see

Rows per page in the footer offers 50 (the default), 100, 150 and All rows, each labelled with how many rows that actually gives you. Once everything is on screen the footer adds "Every row in the file is shown."

Showing more than 25 file columns holds the page at 25 rows, and the footer says "Wide selection, page size held at 25 rows." Narrow the column selection and your page size comes back.

Correcting a value before it imports

Click any cell to edit it. Only What happens and Type refuse — both are conclusions FilmScorecard drew, not data you typed.

• Short fields edit in place. The text is selected when the editor opens, so typing replaces it. Enter saves, Escape cancels, clicking away saves.
• Long fields open a small panel — Synopsis, Short Synopsis, Logline, Key Cast, Director Bio, Director Statement, Previous Screenings, Awards, Notes to Programmer. It names the column and the row ("Row 42, The Long Way Home"), gives you a five-line box, and offers Save, Cancel and — once you have changed something — Back to the file value. On the last three rows of the page it opens upward so it is not cut off.
• A changed cell keeps a small indigo square, and the toolbar above the grid counts them: "3 values changed on this import. The file itself is untouched."
• Only one editor is open at a time.

Edits never change the uploaded file. They are overrides, held against the import and applied when it runs. The stored copy of your export keeps the values FilmFreeway sent, whatever you type here.

Editing a cell in a column no field uses changes nothing. The edit is kept and the indigo square appears, but that column is not imported, so there is nothing for the correction to reach. If the value matters, give the column a field on step 2 instead.

Because the outcome of a row depends on its values, an edit can change what the row will do — a corrected Submission ID can turn an import into a duplicate. The What happens column may be one edit behind; the confirm dialog is not.

What each outcome means

These seven sentences are the whole vocabulary. They appear in the grid, in the confirm breakdown, and nowhere else with different words.

How a duplicate is recognized

The file's Submission ID is the key, and only within this season. Two submissions with the same ID in two different seasons are two submissions; nothing is matched across seasons.

A submission that has been moved to another season takes its ID with it. Import the same row into the season it now lives in and it is a duplicate there; import the old season's export again and the row lands as a brand-new submission, because nothing is left in the old season to match it against. See Moving and importing.

• With a Submission ID, a row that shares an ID with something already in the season attaches to it. Categories it already has are duplicates; categories it does not are new category entries. A row can be part duplicate and part new.
• Several rows of one file sharing an ID — which is how FilmFreeway, and most platforms, export a multi-category entry — become one submission competing in several categories, not several submissions.
• Without a Submission ID, nothing can be an exact duplicate. A title on its own never matches: the row imports as a new submission, and if it also looks like a re-cut of something already here it says so as Imports as a separate submission.

This is one to think about on step 2. The Submission ID is only read if you gave it a column, so leaving it empty on a re-export turns every row into a new submission.

The FilmFreeway sync uses the same key. On a festival connected to FilmFreeway, a film the sync has already brought into the season is a duplicate here — its row reads Skipped, duplicate, or Imports, new category entry for a category it is not in yet — and a film you imported from a CSV is never brought in a second time by the sync, which takes it over and keeps it up to date from then on. One thing an export cannot do for a synced film is add what the sync left out, such as its screener password: the row is a duplicate, and a duplicate changes nothing.

What counts as a missing field

Only four gaps are called out, and each only when a field has a column and this row left it empty:

• the submitter's email address,
• the category,
• the running time — reported as length unreadable when the length column is there but cannot be read, or as type unclear when FilmScorecard could not settle whether the row is a film or a screenplay (it imports as a film),
• the synopsis.

An export that has no Synopsis column at all is not a file where every row is missing a synopsis; it is simply a different export, and no row is flagged for it. The same is true of a field you left empty on step 2 — no column, no gap, no flag.

A gap never stops a row. It imports as it is, and you can fill the value in before you confirm or on the submission afterwards.

How the type is decided

In this order:

1. A Project Type or Format column FilmScorecard recognizes wins. "Feature Screenplay", "TV Pilot", "Stage Play" and "Manuscript" read as Screenplay; "Short", "Feature", "Documentary", "Animation", "Music Video", "Web Series", "Experimental" and the like read as Film.
2. Otherwise a page count means Screenplay and a running time means Film.
3. Otherwise it is treated as a Film, and the row carries Imports, type unclear.

Each of those depends on the column you gave the field on step 2.

How lengths and other values are read

• Running time is stored exactly, in seconds. 00:07:05 is seven minutes and five seconds; 2:53 is 173 seconds, not "about three minutes". A bare number is read as minutes, so 14 means 14 minutes. A value FilmScorecard cannot read is left unset and reported as a gap; the row still imports.
• Page counts are whole numbers — 112, 112 pages, 112 pp all read as 112.
• One column can play both parts. FilmFreeway's Duration column carries a running time on one row and a page count on the next; if the value will not read as a running time, FilmScorecard tries it as a page count before calling it missing. That is why Duration maps to Runtime alone, and Page count reads "Derived from Duration" on step 2 rather than needing a column of its own.
• Completion year is read from a year column when the file has one, and otherwise from the year of the completion date.
• Dates are understood as 2026-07-27, Jul 27, 2026 and 07/27/2026. The slashed form is read in US order, month first, because the source is a US platform. That includes a submitter's Birthdate.
• Yes/no columns accept yes, y, true, 1 and no, n, false, 0. Anything else is left unanswered, which is not the same as No.
• Budgets are read as money and stored to the cent, and so are the Submission fee and the Discount amount.
• A value that cannot be read imports as empty, and never stops the row. An unreadable birthdate, fee or discount amount, or a cell longer than its field can hold — 4,000 characters for a short field such as an address or a camera, 20,000 for a long one such as a cover letter or lyrics — leaves that field blank on the submission. The value is still in the stored copy of the file.

Confirming the import

The bar under the grid states the commitment plainly — "148 rows will be imported into Pacific Coast Film Festival, 2026 season." — with Back to categories and Import 148 rows.

The confirm dialog is never skipped. It opens on "Checking the file against the season…" while the server recounts everything with your edits applied, then shows the final breakdown. Only the lines that apply are listed — a line whose count would be 0 is left out:

• New submissions
• New category entries on existing submissions
• New submissions with a blank field — with a line under it saying which blanks, for example "3 without a synopsis", and that they import with the field left empty for you to fill in later
• Exact duplicates, skipped (in amber)
• Possible versions, imported as separate submissions
• Left out: every category set to Don't import
• Skipped, no project title

These numbers are the true ones, counted against the season as it is at that moment, and the figure on the button matches them. They are worked out once, when the dialog opens, so a keystroke behind an open dialog cannot move the number under your finger — close it and open it again to recount.

Under the breakdown, the dialog asks one question — see Ready for judging or On hold — and then choose Import 148 rows, or Back to preview to keep working.

Once it starts you are taken to Imports, where the job card takes over. As the dialog says: "The import runs in the background. You can leave this page; the batch appears in Imports either way, and you can roll it back for 30 days."

Two things that promise does not survive. A batch that created a submission you have since moved to another season must not be rolled back — the rollback would strip the moved film's screener and length and then fail without finishing. That is a known gap. And a batch judges have started scoring cannot be rolled back at all: the rollback is refused, and nothing is removed. See Rolling a batch back.

The import writes what you mapped. The job reads the column map stored when you left step 2, not the file's headings, so what lands in the season is what you were looking at — even if somebody changes a template or a category afterwards.

Categories picked from the default list are imported first, before any submission is written, and they stay in your library whatever happens to the batch afterwards — a failure or a rollback takes them off the season, not out of the library.

Ready for judging or On hold

Under the breakdown sits a choice headed New submissions, with two options:

• Ready for judging — selected when the dialog opens. The batch's new submissions are offered to your judges exactly as every import before it, once judging is open.
• On hold — the batch's new submissions arrive On hold for judging. No judge is offered them until you set them Ready on the Submissions screen, one at a time or in bulk. See Holding a submission out of judging.

Leave it on Ready and the import behaves exactly as imports always have.

It decides the batch's new submissions and nothing else:

• Every submission the batch creates takes it — an Imports row, an Imports row with a blank field, and an Imports as a separate submission row alike.
• A film already in the season is never touched. A Skipped, duplicate row changes nothing, and an Imports, new category entry row adds its category without changing whether that film is Ready or On hold. So you can re-import a file that also carries films you have already released to judges without pulling them back.
• Nothing on any screen says who put a film on hold, or when — a hold that came with an import included. The film simply reads On hold.
• It is not a season setting. The next import asks again, and starts on Ready again.
• Selection is separate. The file's Judging Status still decides whether a new film arrives Selected, Not Selected or In Consideration — see Judging status sets the selection.

Held submissions appear on the Submissions list as they are written, with On hold in the Judging column, and the season's dashboard counts them — see The two warnings.

When confirming is refused

Leaving halfway through

You can abandon an import at any point before you confirm, and the season is untouched — no submissions, no categories, no history row.

What that costs you is the work, not the data: FilmScorecard does not list unfinished imports and does not offer to resume one. Choosing Import submissions again starts at step 1 with an empty drop target, and the fastest route back is to upload the file again. Back to upload on step 2 does the same thing and leaves the draft where it is; it deletes nothing. Your browser's Back button still leads to a screen you left open in the same session.

Unfinished uploads are deleted automatically after seven days, along with the stored copy of the file.

A draft started before the Map columns screen existed asks it again. Any column answers such a draft carried are not read any more — one screen, one answer.

What is not here yet

• No merging. A row that looks like a new version imports as a separate submission and stays that way; there is no "merge them instead".
• No custom fields. Columns you leave unmapped are stored with the import and shown in the preview, but nothing on the submission holds them and they are not imported. That includes your festival's own questions.
• No refreshing films already imported. A re-import never fills in or updates a field on a film that is already in the season. On a festival connected to FilmFreeway, the sync does that instead — see Connecting FilmFreeway.
• No way to manage your templates. You can save, apply and update a column mapping, but there is no list to rename, tidy or delete from — see Templates.
• No cross-season matching. Every import is judged against the season you are importing into and nothing else. Templates are the one thing shared, and they are shared across the seasons of one festival, never between festivals.
• No generic creative scorecard. A category created from the file — rather than matched to one of yours or to the default list — has no creative scorecard to be judged on until you attach one.
• No "every import starts on hold" setting. Each import's confirm dialog asks, and starts on Ready for judging.