# Opening judging

> From FilmScorecard Help: https://www.filmscorecard.com/help/opening-judging

**Open judging** is the card at the bottom of a draft season's dashboard — under
every other card, below everything it gates on. Pressing it declares the season
open: the [Finish setting up](https://www.filmscorecard.com/help/finishing-setup.md) strip and this card both go,
the state pill turns to **Judging open**, and the page carries on as the
ordinary [Season overview](https://www.filmscorecard.com/help/season-overview.md).

It is a small act with a small footprint — nothing is announced and no date is
written anywhere. What it changes is the season's own state, and that state is
half of what decides whether judges are offered films: a judge sees none until
this button has been pressed **and** the season's **Judging opens** date has
arrived.

## Until it is pressed

Every screen of a draft season carries a banner under the top bar:
"Judging hasn't started. Judges see no films until you open judging." Once the
opening date has passed it turns amber: "Judging isn't open yet. Judges can't
see any films until you open judging from the dashboard." If you can open judging, an **Open
judging** link beside it goes to the season dashboard, where this card is. The
banner cannot be dismissed; it goes when judging opens. Organization-level
screens, and seasons already open, never show it.

## The three requirements

The card carries the title, a count — **"2 of 3 requirements met"** — and, while
anything is outstanding, a **Locked** pill. Below the button, the three
requirements in a fixed order, each with a mark that fills in green and a line
of its own:

| Requirement | The line under it |
| --- | --- |
| **Submissions imported** | "None imported yet" until your first import lands, then the real count — "148 imported". Anything above zero meets it. |
| **Judging dates set** | "Not set" until both dates are in, then the window — "Aug 17 to Sep 12, 2026". |
| **Payouts connected** | "Connected" or "Not connected", read from your organization's payout account. |

The work behind them lives on [Imports](https://www.filmscorecard.com/help/imports.md), the
[Season tab of Settings](https://www.filmscorecard.com/help/festival-settings.md#dates) and
[Connecting payouts](https://www.filmscorecard.com/help/connecting-payouts.md) — and each has a row on the
[setup strip](https://www.filmscorecard.com/help/finishing-setup.md#the-three-required-steps) with a button
straight to it.

Three things about the set:

- **Payouts are required whatever your season charges.** A season with free
  scorecards still needs the Stripe account connected, and an account still
  being verified by Stripe reads as not connected — which holds opening until
  Stripe finishes.
- **The dates are checked for existence only.** Both have to be set; nothing
  asks whether the window has already opened or already closed.
- **Judges are not a requirement.** They used to be — three had to have accepted
  before the button unlocked — but judges answer invitations in their own time,
  and holding a season closed on people who had not replied yet gained nothing.
  Invite, and keep inviting, from [Judges](https://www.filmscorecard.com/help/judges.md) before or after you open.
  The card does warn you when your judges could not cover the season — see
  [The two warnings](#the-two-warnings).

**Dismissing the setup strip changes none of this.** Dismissing hides a prompt;
this card is the requirement itself, and it is drawn on every draft season
whether or not the strip is there.

## The two warnings

Under the three requirements, behind a divider of their own, the card can carry
up to two amber warnings. **They are warnings and nothing more**: neither is a
fourth requirement, neither changes the count, and neither ever greys out the
button. A season with both showing opens exactly as it would without them.

**Not enough eligible judges.** One line for each place your current roster
could never fill, followed by an **Open Judges** link to the season's
[Judges](https://www.filmscorecard.com/help/judges.md) roster:

| The line | What it means |
| --- | --- |
| "Documentary needs 1 more judge" | Only two active judges with the creative role have this category in their scope, and **Judges per category** asks for three, so it is one short. The figure is the gap — how many more eligible judges the category needs — not the size of the panel. Each category that has at least one submission in it gets a line when it is short. |
| "Documentary needs 1 more judge (1 invited)" | The same, but invitations still waiting for an answer — to judges who would have the creative role and this category in scope — would close the gap once accepted. The "(1 invited)" is added only when it would close the gap; a category still short after its invitations reads the plain line. |
| "No technical judge yet" | No active judge with the technical role has a category using this technical scorecard in their scope. When the season uses more than one technical scorecard, the line names it: "No technical judge for Film Technical yet". |
| "No technical judge yet, so creative judging is on hold" | The same, on a season where [creative judging waits for technical approval](https://www.filmscorecard.com/help/festival-settings.md#creative-judging-waits-for-technical-approval) — the default. No judge can file the technical review, so no judge is offered the creative scorecard in the categories using it either — until a judge who can file it joins, or your own team [fills the review in](https://www.filmscorecard.com/help/filling-out-a-scorecard.md), which approves it as it files. |
| "3 films short of judges for their own reasons" | Their categories have enough judges, but for these films too few of those judges could ever take them — because of the judge's format scope, the judge being the film's own submitter, FilmFreeway access being off for a FilmFreeway-only screener, or a judge having already skipped, declined or had a card voided on it. |

- **It asks "could they ever?", not "will they?".** It counts who your roster
  allows to score each category, not how much work each judge will actually
  take on. A category with three eligible judges reads as covered even if one
  of them never logs in.
- **Pending invitations are not counted as judges** until they are accepted —
  they only ever appear as "(N invited)".
- **A season with no active judges at all** shows every category with
  submissions as short by the whole panel: "Drama needs 3 more judges".
- **Films on hold are included.** They will need judges once you set them
  Ready, so they count here. Withdrawn films do not.

**N submissions on hold.** "4 submissions on hold" — the submissions you have
kept out of judging — with an **Open Submissions** link to the season's
[Submissions](https://www.filmscorecard.com/help/submissions.md#holding-a-submission-out-of-judging) list,
already filtered to **On hold**. A held film is offered to no judge, so opening
judging with every film on hold opens it on empty queues.

Each warning disappears by itself once there is nothing to say: no line for a
category that is covered, and no hold line at zero. If the figures behind them
cannot be read, the card simply draws neither — the requirements and the button
are unaffected. **They are read when the page loads**, like everything else on
the dashboard, so reload after changing your roster or your holds.

**They follow the season once it is open.** After you press the button, the
same two warnings move to the **Needs attention** section of the Season
overview for as long as judging is open — see
[Two warnings about judging](https://www.filmscorecard.com/help/season-overview.md#two-warnings-about-judging).

## The button

- It is **never hidden**. Until all three are met it is drawn and greyed out, so
  you can always see what stands between you and opening.
- It reads **"Opening judging…"** while it works.
- At three of three the card's opening line gains a sentence: "All three
  requirements are met. Judges see no films until you open judging and its
  opening date arrives. Judges can accept invitations before or after it
  opens."

Pressing it is the whole ceremony — there is no confirmation dialog. The page
comes back as the Season overview of an open season.

**The requirements are checked again at the moment you press**, not just when
the card was drawn: a tab left open while a colleague cleared the judging dates
is refused with the reason rather than trusted, and the marks refresh to the
server's current answer. If two people press at once, the second press finds
judging already open and simply lands on the overview; opening twice is not an
error.

## What it does not do

- **It does not touch the judging dates.** **Judging opens** and **Judging
  closes**, on the [Settings Season tab](https://www.filmscorecard.com/help/festival-settings.md#dates), are a
  separate mechanism with separate effects. What Settings calls open and closed is
  worked out from those dates, but its fields only lock once this button has
  been pressed too. Opening judging sets no dates and moves none.
- **It does not bring the opening date forward.** Judges are offered films only
  once this button has been pressed **and** the season's **Judging opens** date
  has arrived; what each judge is offered beyond that is worked out from your
  roster, the scope you set and the season's submissions — see
  [How the judging queue works](https://www.filmscorecard.com/help/how-the-judging-queue-works.md). Press it on
  a season whose opening date has passed and its films reach the judges'
  queues the next time they look; press it on a season whose window opens next
  month and they get nothing until that date. Until it is pressed, a judge on
  the season sees "Judging hasn't opened yet" once its opening date has
  passed, and "Judging opens {day}" before it.
- **It does not release films you put on hold.** A held film stays out of every
  judge's queue after you open, until you set it Ready on the Submissions
  screen.
- **It does not lock setup.** Importing, inviting judges, editing categories and
  scorecards, and every Settings field carry on exactly as before, from the same
  navigation rows. Nothing about your library freezes when judging opens.
- **It does not announce anything.** Nothing becomes public and no filmmaker is
  told that judging opened. The one filmmaker email it can set going is a first
  email the season was already holding (next).
- **It does not time the filmmakers' first emails.** On a season set to
  **Email each one as it arrives**, each new submission's filmmaker is sent the
  link to their submission page within minutes of the film arriving, once it
  is in a category — whether or not this button has been pressed. See
  [How filmmakers hear from you](https://www.filmscorecard.com/help/season-overview.md#how-filmmakers-hear-from-you).
  **The exception is a draft season whose Judging opens date has passed**:
  there, those emails are held, and nothing is sent until you press this
  button. Pressing it sends the held ones within minutes, saying judging is
  under way. A season set to send them yourself, or one nobody has decided
  for, sends nothing on its own, open or not.

## There is no un-open

Nothing puts a season back into draft. Once judging is open the setup strip and
this card are gone for good — including after the season is archived. If a
season is genuinely finished,
[archive it](https://www.filmscorecard.com/help/season-actions.md#archive-the-season); do not open judging on a
season you are not ready to run.

## Who can press it

Opening judging is a change to the season, so it takes the same permission as
changing the season's other records: organization owners and org admins, and
festival admins, coordinators and programmers on a festival or season they hold.
A read-only **viewer** is refused, and so is anyone whose access does not cover
this season — for them the button is drawn and greyed even at three of three.
The two warnings are drawn for everybody who can open the season, viewers
included.

## If it is refused

The refusal appears in amber under the button, and nothing is changed:

| Message | What it means |
| --- | --- |
| "No submissions are imported yet. Import submissions before opening judging." | The season has no submissions — they were removed, or were never there. |
| "Judging dates are not set. Set them on Settings → Season before opening judging." | One or both dates are missing. They are on the Season tab of Settings, on the Dates card. |
| "Payouts are not connected. Connect Stripe payouts before opening judging." | Your organization's Stripe account is not connected, not finished, or paused. |
| "You do not have permission to open judging for this season." | Your account cannot change this season — or the address is not one you can reach. |
| "Running festivals is paused until an owner of *your organization* accepts the Festival Host Agreement." | **No owner of your organization has agreed to the current Festival Host Agreement yet.** It is checked before the three requirements, so it can appear at three of three. An owner agrees the next time they open any of the organization's screens; then press again. See [Until an owner agrees](https://www.filmscorecard.com/help/terms-and-privacy.md#until-an-owner-agrees). |
| "Something in the form is not valid. Check the fields and try again." | The request was rejected before it reached the database. Reload and try again. |
| "The change could not be saved. Try again." | Anything else. Nothing partial happened. |

**Only one requirement is ever named** — the first outstanding one, top to
bottom, in the order the card lists them. Fix it and press again to hear about
the next. **Neither warning is ever a reason for a refusal.**

**The Festival Host Agreement is not one of the three requirements**, and the
card draws no mark for it: the button looks ready and the refusal is the first
you hear of it. While it stands, everybody at the organization who is not an
owner also sees a banner along the top of its screens saying so.