Imports

Every FilmFreeway export this season has taken, and the one running right now — and, on a festival connected to FilmFreeway, every sync that brought new films in. This is where you watch an import, stop it, retry it, and — for thirty days — undo it.

Starting an import is a separate four-step job; see Importing submissions. This page is about what happens after you press the button.

Finding the screen

Imports is the third row in the season block of the left navigation, under your festival's name, below Dashboard and Submissions. Like Submissions it carries no count — a tally of past imports is not something anyone is waiting on.

Its address is:

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

The Import submissions button on the Submissions toolbar, and the one in its empty state, both land here. So does the Season overview, whether or not judging is open yet: its Import batches card shows this same history, and both its All imports link and its rollback strip's Continue in Imports button end up on this screen.

Who can work here

Everyone in your organization who can open the season, with the same buttons. There is no read-only version: owners and staff members have identical capability, including rollback.

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.

One import at a time

A season runs one import at a time. While a batch is queued or running, the Import submissions button is not on the screen at all — the job card has taken its place — and it returns as soon as the batch finishes, however it finishes.

If a second tab tries to start one anyway it is refused with "An import is already running for this season. Wait for it to finish, then try again."

A FilmFreeway sync gives way to your import. On a festival connected to FilmFreeway, a sync that comes round while a CSV import is queued or running in the season changes nothing — the FilmFreeway tab of Settings reads "The 9:00 AM sync waited for an import to finish." — and the next sync does the work. A sync never holds up an import: its own batches are never queued or running here, so Import submissions stays on the screen while one runs.

Half-finished imports are not the same thing. You can leave as many unconfirmed uploads behind as you like, none of them blocks anything, and they are deleted automatically after seven days.

The job card

One card, three states — Queued, Running, Failed. Only the pill, the bar, the count, the time and the buttons change, and there is no spinner anywhere: the work is not being done by this page's request, so the page never pretends to be holding it. The card refreshes itself every few seconds while a batch is queued or running, and you do not need to reload.

Queued

Waiting for the next run, usually under a minute. Nothing has been written yet, so cancelling now leaves the season untouched.

The card shows the file name, "0 of 312 imported", the time it was queued, and one button: Cancel import.

The number on the right while a batch is queued is the rows read from the file. Once it starts running, it becomes the number that will actually be imported — so the total can drop when the bar starts moving. That is the skipped rows leaving the count, not rows going missing.

Running

Submissions appear in the list as they are written. This page updates on its own, and the import keeps going if you close it.

A progress bar, "33 of 148 imported" ticking upward, the time it started, and two things to do: Stop after the current row, and View the 33 imported so far, which opens the season's Submissions list. That list is the whole season, not just this batch — there is no per-batch filter yet.

Closing the page does not stop the import. Come back and the card is where the work got to.

Once you have asked it to stop, the copy changes to:

Stopping after the current row. The whole batch will be rolled back, so the season ends up unchanged.

Failed

The pill turns amber, the line reads "Stopped at row 87 of 148", and an amber block gives the row and the cause, followed by:

The whole batch was rolled back, so all 148 rows are still unimported and the season is unchanged. Retrying cannot double import.

Two things to do: Retry this import and Download the error report.

Cancel, Stop and Retry

Cancel — only while it is queued

Cancel import is offered in the queued state and nowhere else, because queued is the only state in which nothing has been written. It removes the job, the season is untouched, and no history row is created for an import that never started.

If the import began in the moment between your click and the request arriving, Cancel refuses with "That import has already started. Use Stop after the current row instead." — and the card will already be showing that button.

Cancelling returns the import to an unconfirmed state with your column mapping, your category mapping and your cell edits intact. The screen does not offer a way back into it: Imports lists finished batches only, and Import submissions starts a fresh upload at step 1. Your browser's Back button leads to the preview you were on; otherwise, upload the file again.

Stop — while it is running

Stop after the current row does exactly what it says: the row being written finishes, and then the entire batch is rolled back. It is not a pause and not a partial import — a batch is either fully in or fully out.

The batch lands in history as Canceled, reading "Stopped. The whole batch was rolled back.", with Retry offered.

If the import finished in the meantime, Stop refuses with "That import had already finished. Refresh to see what it did."

Retry

Retry this import runs the same file again, and it is offered on any batch that failed or was stopped. Both of those are empty by definition — their rollback has already run — so retrying cannot import anything twice.

Everything is decided again from scratch when the retry starts, against the season as it is now. That matters if you fixed the cause in the meantime: a category you have since renamed, or submissions another import added, are taken into account. Your column mapping is not re-derived — the retry reads the same map you settled on step 2, so it imports what you saw. So is your Ready for judging / On hold choice: a retried batch puts its new submissions where the original confirm said.

Retry is on the job card while a failure is on screen, and on the history row afterwards.

Two refusals you may see: "An import is already running for this season. Wait for it to finish, then try again.", and "This import could not be queued again. Nothing was written; try Retry once more."

Why an import fails, and what it costs you

Nothing in the season. Every failure path rolls the whole batch back before it reports itself, so a failed import leaves the season exactly as it was.

The one thing a failure can leave behind is in your library, not the season: a category you mapped to FilmScorecard's default list on step 3 is imported into your library before any submission is written, and it stays there — with its scorecards — however the batch ends. A retry finds it already there and does not import it again. See Importing from the default list.

Causes you may see on the card, in history, and in the error report:

The error report

Download the error report on a failed batch gives you a plain text file named after the batch, such as IMP-2026-08-08-1-errors.txt. It holds the batch code, the file name, the season, how many rows were read, the failing row number, the cause, and every column of the failing row exactly as the file has it — so you can open it beside the CSV and fix the row.

The report stays available for as long as the history row does, which is forever.

History

Every batch that reached an end is listed, newest first, with the date and time in the left column, the file in the middle, and a status pill on the right. The list shows the 200 most recent batches.

Each row carries:

• The file name, as you uploaded it.
• What it did — one of "148 imported", "148 imported, 6 skipped as duplicates", "Failed. The whole batch was rolled back.", "Stopped. The whole batch was rolled back." or "Rolled back. Nothing from this file is in the season."
• Who ran it, and how many rows were read from the file.
• A pill: Complete in green, Failed in amber, Canceled in grey, Rolled back in grey. Rolled back replaces whatever the batch was before.

A FilmFreeway sync that brings new films adds a row of its own. On a festival connected to FilmFreeway, it is named FilmFreeway sync where a file name would be, names nobody as who ran it, and counts the new films that sync brought in. A sync that brings nothing new — only updates to films already here — adds no row. A sync's row reads Complete — or Rolled back, once Undo sync has taken the sync's films out — so it never offers Retry or an error report; trouble reaching FilmFreeway shows on the FilmFreeway tab of Settings instead. View opens the films it brought in, as on any other row. No sync's row offers Undo — see FilmFreeway syncs are undone from Settings.

Before your first import the panel reads "No imports yet" — "Every import you run appears here, with the option to roll it back for 30 days."

History rows are permanent. A batch you rolled back keeps its row and says so; a batch too old to roll back keeps its row and simply loses the button. The row never disappears, because this list is the record of what was done to the season.

Rolling a batch back

Undo appears on a completed batch imported from a file, beside View (which opens the submissions it imported), for 30 days from the moment it finished, and then goes away. The deadline is enforced when you press the button, not just when it is drawn, so a tab left open overnight cannot talk you past it: "The 30 day rollback window for this batch has passed. The batch stays in history."

The Roll back batch button on the Season overview's Import batches card is a signpost to this one: it names the batch and what removing it would cost, and hands you over here — nothing is ever removed from that dashboard. This screen is the only place a rollback happens.

The dialog names the exact cost:

Removes all 148 submissions imported in this batch. Scorecards and assignments on them will be removed.

Underneath it sits the batch code and file name — IMP-2026-08-08-1, pcff-2026.csv — and a single checkbox: "I understand these 148 submissions will be removed." There is no phrase to type; the count in the sentence is the thing worth reading. Then Keep the batch or Roll back 148 submissions.

The dialog's second sentence promises more than a rollback will now do. A batch any creative scorecard has been started on is refused outright, before anything is removed — see A batch judges have scored is refused. The scorecards a rollback can still remove are technical and press-kit ones.

What a rollback removes, exactly

Only what this batch wrote, and all of it:

• The submissions it created, with their versions, their category attachments and any flags people put on them — and whatever On hold marks they carried.
• Category entries it added to submissions that already existed — those come off, and the submission itself stays. A batch that only added a second category to an entry you already had removes the second category and nothing else.
• Categories the import added to this season, unless something outside the batch has come to use them since. A category that has picked up other submissions is kept. The category comes off the season only: your library keeps it — whether step 3 created it, attached it from your library, or brought it in from the default list with its scorecards and award links.

Nothing that arrived by another route is touched, and no other batch is affected.

Anything you typed onto a submission this batch created goes with it — the statement, the tagline, a poster you uploaded, corrected credits. They are part of the submission's own record, so removing the submission removes them, and there is nothing to tidy up first.

An email already sent stays sent. On a season set to email each filmmaker as their film arrives, the batch's filmmakers have most likely been sent the link to their submission page already — it goes within minutes of the import finishing. A rollback cannot take that email back; the link in it stops working.

A batch holding an unlocked scorecard is refused

A submission whose filmmaker has unlocked their scorecard cannot be removed — a receipt is never quietly destroyed — so a batch holding one is refused whole, and nothing is removed at all. The question is asked before the rollback starts, and the answer names what is in the way:

1 submission in this batch has had its scorecard unlocked by the filmmaker, and a scorecard somebody has opened is never deleted. Nothing has been rolled back, and rolling back will keep refusing while those receipts exist. Withdraw those submissions instead, or ask support to remove the receipts first.

• The count is submissions, not unlocks. A film unlocked in two categories holds two receipts and is still one submission in the way.
• Every kind of unlock counts, and so does one that was refunded afterwards: a purchase, a comp somebody on your staff granted, a free unlock on a $0 season.
• The season is exactly as it was. Nothing was deleted, no categories were detached, and the history row still reads Complete with its Roll back button.
• Pressing it again changes nothing. The refusal is permanent while those receipts exist. Withdraw the submissions you wanted gone instead — see Withdrawing a submission — or ask whoever administers FilmScorecard for you.

The rule to work by: once any of a season's scorecards have gone out — with the season's release, or one submission at a time — treat its imports as final. See Releasing scorecards and Releasing one submission's scorecard.

Rolling back a batch whose submissions have codes but no unlocked scorecards is not blocked: the access codes go with the submissions, and those links stop working.

A batch judges have scored is refused

A judge's scorecard is never deleted by a rollback, so a batch that any creative scorecard has been started on is refused whole, and nothing is removed at all. This is asked after the unlocked-scorecard question and before anything is touched:

1 submission in this batch has been scored by a judge, and a judge's scorecard is never deleted. Nothing has been rolled back. Withdraw those submissions instead.

— or "3 submissions in this batch have been scored by judges, …" for more than one.

• "Scored" means any creative scorecard on the film, from the moment a judge presses Start scoring — filed or not, approved or not. A creative scorecard a colleague filled in from the Submissions list counts too, even though the sentence says "a judge". So does one filed under a category the film has since left.
• It covers the category entries this batch added to older submissions as well: a judge scoring a submission in a category this batch attached is enough to refuse it.
• Technical and press-kit scorecards do not refuse a rollback. They go with the submissions, as the dialog says.
• The season is exactly as it was, and the history row still reads Complete with its Roll back button. Pressing it again refuses the same way for as long as those scorecards exist.

So once judging has started on a batch's films, treat that batch as final: withdraw the submissions you wanted gone — see Withdrawing a submission — or put them On hold to stop any more judges taking them.

FilmFreeway syncs are undone from Settings

No FilmFreeway sync row carries Undo — the first sync's included. The films the sync brought into the season come out together, every sync at once, with Undo sync on the FilmFreeway tab of Settings. See Connecting FilmFreeway.

• It is refused whole, before anything is removed, while a sync is queued or running, more than 30 days after the season's first sync row, once a judge has started scoring any of those films, or once a filmmaker has unlocked the scorecard for any of them. The reason shows under the greyed Undo sync — for example "A judge has scored 2 of these submissions."
• A film you had imported from a CSV before the sync found it stays, and stops syncing.
• Afterwards every sync row here reads Rolled back. With the key still saved, nothing syncs again until somebody presses Finish setting up on the FilmFreeway tab and chooses a season.
• A tab left open from before can still show Undo on a sync row. Pressing it is refused with "Undo FilmFreeway syncs from Settings → FilmFreeway." — and nothing is removed.
• The Season overview's Import batches card agrees: no sync row there has Roll back batch.

To take one synced film out of judging without undoing the rest, withdraw it — see Withdrawing a submission.

Do not roll back a batch whose submissions have been moved

This is a known gap, and it is not caught for you. A submission that has been moved to another season is no longer in this season, so the rollback does not remove it — but its screener link, screener password, running time and page count were written by this batch, and the rollback removes those wherever the submission now is. It then fails on that submission, with "That did not work. Try again.", and retrying fails the same way every time. By then the batch's other submissions have left the season, the moved film sits in its new season with no screener and no length, and the history row never reads Rolled back.

The rule to work by: once any submission a batch created has been moved to another season, treat that batch as final. If you have already tried it, do not keep pressing Retry — ask whoever administers FilmScorecard for you.

After a rollback

The history row stays, its pill becomes Rolled back, and its line reads "Rolled back. Nothing from this file is in the season."

There is no undo. The way back is to import the file again, which is a clean import like any other — nothing is left behind to collide with it.

Six refusals: "Only a completed batch can be rolled back." (a failed or stopped batch is already empty), the 30-day message above, the unlocked- scorecard sentence and the scored sentence in full — the two refusals that tell you exactly what is in the way — the FilmFreeway sentence above, and "That did not work. Try again.", which is usually a transport fault rather than anything about the batch's contents, and safe to retry: a rollback removes what it finds, so running it again finishes whatever an interrupted attempt left. The one exception is the moved-submission case above, where retrying cannot help.

Smaller things worth knowing

• The batch code — IMP-2026-08-08-1 — is the date plus that day's number for this season. It appears in the rollback dialog and in the error report, and is what to quote if you need to ask about a particular import.
• Where an import shows up elsewhere. Imported submissions reach the Submissions list as they are written, count towards the number in its title, and — while the season is still a draft — finish the Import submissions step of the Finish setting up strip, which then reads "148 imported from FilmFreeway on Aug 3, 2026". The Season overview carries this same batch history in its Import batches card.
• They also reach your judges — unless you put them on hold. Once judging is open — the season opened with Open judging on its dashboard, and its opening date passed — an imported submission is offered to whichever judges are in scope for it, exactly as a submission you entered by hand would be — there is nothing to activate and no second step. Import mid-window and the new films join everybody's queue on their next visit. An import into a season nobody has opened yet reaches no judge, whatever its dates say, until somebody presses Open judging. A batch confirmed with On hold reaches no judge at all until you set its films Ready — see Ready for judging or On hold. See How the judging queue works and Opening judging.
• And their filmmakers, on a season set to email each one as it arrives. Each submission the batch brings in that is in a category is sent the link to its submission page within minutes of the import finishing — or, on a draft season whose Judging opens date has passed, once you open judging. On a season set to send them yourself, or one nobody has decided for, nothing goes until you send it. See How filmmakers hear from you.
• A row FilmFreeway had already marked withdrawn arrives like any other. Nothing reads FilmFreeway's Submission Status column, so such a row lands as an ordinary submission and is judged unless you withdraw it yourself on the Submissions screen. Worth a pass down the list after a late-season import. Its Judging Status is read, but only to set the selection — see Judging status sets the selection. The FilmFreeway sync does read a film's status there. A film the sync brings in, or keeps up to date, whose filmmaker withdrew it on FilmFreeway is withdrawn here by that sync — unless a judge has started scoring it or its scorecard has been unlocked, in which case it only carries a notice on its record. The sync withdraws a film once, and never again. Like any withdrawal, it cannot be reversed on your screens. A film disqualified on FilmFreeway is never changed here; it carries a notice. See FilmFreeway notices.
• Withdrawn submissions still count as imported. A batch that imported 148 rows keeps saying 148 even after you withdraw some of them on the Submissions screen — and rolling it back removes them all, withdrawn ones included.
• Moved submissions still count as imported, too. A film moved to another season stays in the batch's count and keeps the batch as its origin — which is exactly why the batch can no longer be rolled back; see above.
• What an import writes into the record. A FilmFreeway export carries no tagline and no poster, so imported submissions arrive without either. The column you mapped to Submitter statement becomes the submission's one statement, exactly as the file has it — headed Director's statement on a film and Writer's statement on a screenplay, and credited to nobody. The submitter's personal details, technical specs, background and the entry's own record land in staff-only cards on the submission's Information tab. See What a FilmFreeway export brings in.