Review Queue

Every filed scorecard lands here, one row per scorecard, and waits for someone on the season's staff to read it and approve it. Approving is the release: until a scorecard is approved on this screen, its score is invisible everywhere else — the Submissions list, a submission's Scoring tab and the award screens all read approved scorecards only. It is also what decides whether the film's own submitter ever reads it, when its scorecard goes out.

Almost every row is a judge's filing. Scorecards a colleague filled in themselves are here too — see Filling out a scorecard yourself — and they arrive already approved, so they land on the Approved tab rather than waiting on anybody.

One tab on this screen is not about scorecards at all. The fifth, Issue, holds the problems judges raise about films: a film a judge skipped because they could not play it, and an issue a judge reported while keeping the film — with what the judge wrote, the screener link to fix, and the buttons that settle each. It has its own guide: Issues your judges raise.

It is a working screen for people who hold the right capability: you can approve scorecards one at a time or hundreds at once, open any scorecard to read and edit it, change one written answer straight from the list, add, change or withdraw an award recommendation, send a scorecard back to its judge with a note and remind them about it, write to a judge, and settle a problem a judge raised. Everyone else on the season gets the same screen read-only. Opening and editing a scorecard has its own guide: Reading and editing a scorecard — and the Rewrite button on its written feedback boxes has another: Rewriting written feedback.

Finding the screen

Review Queue is the fifth row in the season block of the left navigation, under your festival's name, between Judges and Awards. It carries two counts, kept apart:

Amber is the mark this navigation keeps for somebody waiting on a person, and a judge who cannot judge a film is exactly that, so issues carry it and scorecard approvals do not. Each number falls as you work through it and disappears at zero; with nothing waiting of either kind, the row has no count at all. Both counts are re-read about once a minute while the browser tab is in front of you, and straight away after anything you do on this screen — so they follow the tabs closely, though for up to a minute they can be a step behind a judge's newest filing. See The list keeps itself up to date.

Its address is:

/org/<organization>/<festival>/<season>/review-queue

Your tab, search, filters, sort, rows-per-page, how much of the list you have loaded, and any open panel all live in the address — so a narrowed view is a link you can send to a colleague, and reloading the page keeps you exactly where you were. The rows you have ticked are the one thing that is not kept.

The list keeps itself up to date

The season's whole queue is read once and then held in your browser. Everything that narrows or reorders it — the four scorecard tabs, the search box, the Scorecard, Judge and Category filters, every column sort, the Rows picker and Load more — is worked out from what is already loaded. Each one applies as you press it, nothing reloads the page, and the counts on the tabs, in the header and beside the filter options all come from that same read.

The Issue tab is a second read of its own. Its rows are not scorecards, so they are held separately, and they are read the first time you open that tab in a sitting: the tab switches at once, and placeholder rows stand in for a moment while its rows arrive. From then on the Issue tab is as instant as the other four, and its Status filter and its sorts work the same way.

Nothing waits when the screen first opens. The rows you see first are already the held copy, so a filter, a sort or a tab change works from the first moment.

And the list re-reads itself in the background, so a queue you left open after lunch is not a lunchtime's worth out of date:

• Whenever you come back to the tab. Switch to another window or another application and back, and the list re-reads itself as you return — a glance away of a few seconds is too short to bother it.
• About once a minute while the tab is in front of you.
• Never while the tab is behind something else. A forgotten tab asks the festival's records for nothing.
• Straight after anything you change here — an approval, a saved edit, a saved written answer, a withdrawn or restored recommendation, a scorecard sent back or deleted, a settled issue, a saved screener link. Each of those waits for the server and then re-reads the list before it reports back, so when a dialog closes or a panel says "Saved", the rows behind it already agree. The two exceptions are a rewrite reminder and a message to a judge, which change nothing on the list and so re-read nothing.
• The Issue tab's rows re-read only while you are on that tab. Leaving it stops the clock; coming back re-reads them if more than a few seconds have passed.

What arrives that way is what other people have been doing: a scorecard a judge has just filed appears on Pending, a scorecard a colleague approved moves to Approved, a problem a judge has just raised appears on the Issue tab — each within a minute, in place, under whatever tab, filter and sort you are working in. A row that no longer belongs in your view leaves, and a new one arrives in its right position rather than at the end. The counts on the tabs, the header's "22 scorecards submitted" and its pill, the filter counts and the footer all move with it. On the Issue tab the Waiting column ages by the minute even between refreshes.

A refresh never moves you. Your scroll position, the rows you have ticked and an open panel all survive it. The one thing it takes away is a tick on a row that has left the tab — a scorecard a colleague approved while you had it ticked on Pending drops out of your selection and out of the count on the bulk bar, because there is nothing left there to act on.

The counts in the navigation keep their own clock. The two Review Queue numbers are re-read about once a minute, on a timer of their own rather than with this screen's list, and straight after a change you make here. So for a moment the navigation can disagree with the counts on this screen's tabs; within a minute they agree again.

When the list cannot refresh

A refresh that fails is retried a few times before anything is said. If all of those fail, one message appears at the bottom of the screen:

Couldn't refresh the list. Showing what was last loaded.

The rows stay exactly where they are. Nothing is emptied, nothing is greyed out and nothing you were doing is lost — what you are reading is simply the last version that arrived, and the next refresh that works replaces it. When that refresh lands the message goes away on its own, because it has stopped being true; you can also clear it sooner with Dismiss. Tabs, search, filters and sorts keep working over what was last loaded.

If the very first read never lands — the screen opened, and the read behind it failed every retry — the screen carries on the way it used to: every filter, sort and tab change asks the server, and the rows dim briefly while it answers. Everything still works; it is a round trip rather than instant.

If your session has ended, this is where you find out: you signed out in another tab, or somebody removed your access to this festival while you had the queue open. The screen does not leave you on rows you can no longer act on — it sends you to the log-in screen, or to an ordinary "page not found" if the season is no longer yours to see.

Who can work here

This is the first screen in FilmScorecard with a real read-only version, and the first where the capability tick boxes actually decide something.

• Everyone who can open the season sees the queue — every row, every score, every judge's name, every written answer, every panel, and the whole Issue tab. That includes people whose festival role is Viewer or Programmer.
• Changing anything needs the "Approve scorecards and resolve flags" capability. Festival admins and coordinators have it by default; organization owners and org admins always have it. It can be granted to or taken from a person on the festival access panel — a coordinator without it gets the read-only screen, a programmer with it gets the working one. The same capability governs every button on the Issue tab — Send back, Dismiss, Mark resolved and Reply.
• Without the capability, the write controls are gone rather than greyed: no checkboxes, no bulk bar, no remind, Send back to judge or Delete scorecard item, no Send back, Dismiss, Mark resolved or Reply, and a scorecard panel whose fields cannot be changed — and whose feedback boxes carry no Rewrite button — with the reason written in its footer: "Your role cannot approve scorecards. Ask a coordinator or festival admin." Clicking a written answer in the list still opens it, whole, but as plain text under the line "You can read this scorecard but not change it.", with a Close button and no field.
• The message icon beside a judge's name is not part of the capability. It is drawn for everyone who can open the season; whether a message goes through is the Inbox's own rule, and a viewer on the festival is refused. See Writing to a judge from the queue.
• One field is the exception. The Screener link inside an issue panel can be edited by anyone who can open the season, capability or not — it is the submission's own field, and the Submissions screen does not narrow it either. See Issues your judges raise.
• Ticking the capability for a Viewer does not make a viewer who can write. A viewer's changes to a scorecard are refused at the database whatever the boxes say, so leave a viewer's boxes alone.
• Judges cannot open this screen. A judge account without festival access gets an ordinary "page not found", exactly as if the address were mistyped. Nothing on a judging roster opens this screen — a judging coordinator is a member of your organization holding a Coordinator grant on the festival, which is what gets them in. Someone who is both a judge and on your staff gets in the ordinary way, as staff. See Judging coordinators are staff, not judges.

What is on the list

Everything from here to Writing to a judge describes the four scorecard tabs. The Issue tab has its own guide.

One row per filed scorecard. A film reviewed by three judges is three rows; a judge who filed a creative and a technical card on the same film is two rows. Scorecards a judge abandoned or that were voided — for example when a judge declared a conflict after filing — are not here and do not count. A scorecard stays on this list even if its submission is later withdrawn from the season: the filing is a record.

Scorecards your own staff filled in are rows here too, and they behave like any other row except in four places, each marked below: the Judge column names them "Name (staff)", that name is not a link, it carries no message icon, and Elapsed has nothing to measure.

Every row is in exactly one of four states:

Three things about the states worth knowing now:

• Nothing on FilmScorecard sets Flagged yet. The queue handles it in full — the tab, the pill — but a judge flagging their own card arrives in a later release, so the state sits empty. A judge's Report an issue reaches you on the Issue tab rather than as a flag on a scorecard. Returned is real now: it is what Send back to judge in a row's menu sets.
• Approving settles a flag, but not a return. A flagged scorecard can be approved like any other, and the row reads Approved. A returned scorecard cannot be approved while it is with its judge — it has no checkbox, and its panel has no Approve button — until they file it again and it is back on Pending.
• Approved is not the end of the line. An approved scorecard can still be corrected, and stays approved while you do it — see Editing an approved scorecard. What can never be undone is the approval itself.

Scorecards on a removed category

Removing a category from a submission never removes its scorecards from this list. A creative scorecard filed under a category the film no longer competes in stays here as an ordinary row — and a judge who was part-way through one when the category was removed can still file it, and it arrives here like any other. Its category reads "Drama Film (removed)" in its panel, and the Category filter still finds it under Drama Film.

• It can be approved, one at a time or in bulk, and an approved judge's scorecard is payable exactly as it would have been.
• It no longer counts toward the film: not its score, its panel, its fully judged count or what its filmmaker reads.
• A judge's is still editable. A colleague's is not: a scorecard your own staff filed on a category that has since been removed opens read-only, with "This scorecard's category was removed from the submission, so it can no longer be edited." in the panel's footer.

See A scorecard on a removed category and Editing a submission's categories.

The header

Under the title: the season, a monospace count — "22 scorecards submitted", which is the All tab's number — and a pill reading "10 awaiting review, 3 flagged, 2 issues". The pill shows its zeroes rather than disappearing: "0 awaiting review, 0 flagged, 0 issues" is a statement about your season, not a decoration. At one, the last clause reads "1 issue". Issues are open ones only, skipped films and judges' reports together.

The pill describes the season, not the tab, so it says the same thing wherever you are standing. Both figures move as the list refreshes itself: a scorecard a judge files while you are reading raises them within a minute.

The five tabs

Each tab carries its count, and two of them are amber — Pending and Issue, the two that count work waiting on a person. The other three are plain monospace. Issue's count is open issues only, of both kinds, so it reaches zero when the work is done.

The counts are whole-tab counts, always: they do not move when you search or filter, and they stay true beyond however many rows you have loaded. They do move as the list refreshes — a judge's new filing lifts Pending within a minute, and an approval of yours moves one from Pending to Approved the moment the server answers.

Switching tabs keeps your search and filters, clears any rows you had ticked, and closes any panel you had open. A search that found nothing in Pending is still set when you look in Approved. A panel is closed because Pending and Issue hold different kinds of record, and a panel left standing across a switch would describe a row that is no longer behind it. A switch is instant, apart from the first visit to the Issue tab in a sitting — see The list keeps itself up to date.

Reading a row

• Submission — the title, which is a button that opens the scorecard panel, and wraps onto a second line rather than being cut off. Under it: the submitter's name, and an indigo "1 award rec" chip when the judge recommended the film for awards. Any of those is left out when it does not apply. Nothing on the row marks a scorecard a coordinator has edited — the edit is on the scorecard's history, not on the list.
• Judge — the judge's name, which is a button that opens the judge panel, with their email in small text underneath — and, beside the name, a small speech-bubble icon that writes to them; see Writing to a judge from the queue. A judge who has not accepted their invite has no name on record yet, so their email stands alone in the cell, with no icon. A staff filing reads "Fay Festival (staff)" and is plain text, not a button, with no icon — there is no judge record behind it to open.
• Scorecard — a pill: Creative, Technical or Press kit. There is no Category column: the categories a scorecard belongs to are named in the panel's header — with (removed) after a category the film has left — and the Category filter above the table is what narrows the list by them.
• Score — the banded chip; clicking it opens the scorecard, same as the title. See The score is the card's own.
• Positive feedback and Opportunities — the judge's written answers, whole, each in a box that scrolls inside the row once it runs past about five lines. Clicking one opens it on its own, to read in full or to change. A technical or press-kit row shows "—" in both, and so does a creative row whose scorecard has that box switched off. See The two feedback columns.
• Elapsed — from the judge first opening the film to filing. See Elapsed.
• Length — the film's runtime (14:02) or the screenplay's page count (112 pages), from its current cut, the same figure the Submissions screen shows. Empty when it was never measured. Read beside Elapsed, it shows whether the judge had at least as long as the film.
• Status — the state pill, one word each: indigo Pending (awaiting review), amber Flagged (by the judge) or Returned (to the judge), green Approved.
• Date — the date the scorecard was filed (Aug 11), with the time under it (2:14 PM) in your computer's time zone — not the date the film entered the festival.
• The three-dot menu at the end of the row — see The row menu.

Approved rows are drawn quieter than the rest, so a worked-through list still reads at a glance. If you can approve, hovering a row turns its row number into a checkbox; on a phone the checkboxes are simply always there.

Press-kit rows

A press-kit row is a card somebody filled in, exactly like the others, but two things about press kits change what you find here.

A press kit that needs nobody produces no row. Press kit items are of two kinds — items that watch a field on the submission and satisfy themselves, and items a coordinator marks by hand — and when a press kit scorecard holds only the first kind, no card is ever created for it. It never holds a film short of fully judged, and its points join the film's score in a category once another scorecard in that category has been approved — a judge's creative scorecard or the technical review. Nothing is missing from this list; there was never anything to file. See Press kit items.

A press kit card is half read-only. Open one and the panel splits it:

• From the submission — the items that watch a field. Each shows its points, a badge reading On file or Empty, a short shape of what is there ("12 words", "vimeo.com", "1 file"), and the line "Filled by the submitter. Nothing to mark here." There is no Pass, no Fail and no override, here or anywhere else.
• Marked by a coordinator — the rest, with the ordinary Pass / Fail toggles, editable exactly as a technical item.

To change what a field item says, change the submission, not this card: fill the field in on the submission's Information tab and the item satisfies itself everywhere at once, on this card included, with nothing to re-file and nothing to re-approve.

The read-only half keeps moving after you approve. Approving a press kit card freezes the marks you made and releases the whole press kit into the film's score — on its own, if nothing else in the category has been approved yet; the field half carries on answering for itself, so the press kit's contribution can rise weeks later because somebody finished the record. That is working as intended — see What approving does. Until judging closes, that is: from then on, a season set to Keep its score as judged — every season, unless somebody chose Keep counting edits — stops the field half moving, so a change to the record no longer reaches this card or the score. See Freezing the press kit when judging closes.

A card can outlive its own job. If somebody removes the last hand-marked item from a press kit scorecard, cards already filed against it stay on this list, still open, still readable — but they no longer change any number, because the only thing they recorded was marks on items that no longer exist.

The row and the panel give a press kit the same figure. The Score chip on the row is the whole press kit — the items a coordinator passed and the field items the submission satisfies, against every item's points — which is the figure the panel shows and the number the film's score uses. The submission's Scoring tab lists the same items with the same marks.

A press kit card with no field items at all is headed "Technical review" in the panel, because the heading follows what the card contains rather than what it is. The Press kit pill in the panel header and on the row is what tells you which one you have open.

The score is the card's own

The Score chip reads the card's score on a ten-point scale, to one decimal — 8.6. On a creative scorecard that is the average of the judge's 1-to-10 answers; on a technical card it is the points earned against the card's own items, rescaled onto ten; on a press-kit card it is the whole press kit, both halves, rescaled the same way. Two rows can be built from different questions and still compare: each is measured against its own scorecard, then read on the same scale. A figure that falls exactly on a half rounds up — 163 points of 200 reads 8.2.

The chip's colour is the card against its own maximum, in five bands: green from 80%, light green from 70%, yellow from 50%, orange from 40%, red below 40%. It is taken from the card's exact points, before the figure is rounded — 159 points of 200 reads 8.0 in light green.

A press-kit row's figure can move after you approve it, as the submission's record is filled in — see Press-kit rows.

Sorting by Score sorts by that same figure. An 8.6 sorts above a 6.0 whatever each card's own maximum was.

A scorecard whose questions are worth nothing — a card filed against a scorecard that was still being written — shows "No scores" in plain text instead of a chip, and sorts to the bottom whichever way the column points.

The two feedback columns

Between Score and Elapsed, Positive feedback and Opportunities hold the judge's written answers on a creative scorecard — the whole text of each, not a preview. A short answer sits in its cell; a longer one is capped at about five lines and scrolls inside the row, so a row never grows to the length of what the judge wrote. Neither column sorts.

A technical or press-kit row shows "—" in both, because only a creative scorecard asks for written feedback. A colleague's creative filing shows theirs like any other row.

A creative row shows "—" in a column its scorecard has switched off. Each creative scorecard decides which of the two boxes its judges fill in — see Written feedback — so a scorecard that asks only for Positive feedback shows "—" under Opportunities, and one that asks for neither shows "—" in both. The cell is not a button then: there is nothing to open. The column follows the switch as it stands now, so a box switched off after a judge filed shows "—" here even though the judge wrote something, and a box switched on after they filed shows "—" until somebody writes in it.

Written feedback is proofread just after it is filed, for spelling, grammar and punctuation, and the filing does not wait for it. So a scorecard filed a moment ago can show the judge's words as they typed them, and the corrected wording replaces them a few seconds later — you see it the next time the list re-reads itself. Approving the scorecard in between does not stop it. Your edits always win: once anybody has saved a change to either answer on the scorecard, the correction is not applied. Nor is it applied once the scorecard has been released to its filmmaker, and if the proofread cannot be done the words stay as filed. The same goes for a scorecard your own team fills in — see What filing does.

Reading and editing one answer

Click an answer and it opens on its own, in a pop-out over the list: the answer's full name as the title — "Positive feedback" or "Opportunities for improvement" — with the film's title and the judge's name under it, and the answer in a box you can edit. It is the same box the scorecard panel has, with the same Rewrite button and the same selection bar over highlighted words — see Rewriting written feedback. Nothing else about the scorecard is on it.

1. Click the answer in its column.
2. Change the text — by hand, with Rewrite, or by highlighting words and using the bar.
3. Press Save. Cancel, Escape or a click on the list behind it close the pop-out without saving.

Save writes that one answer and nothing else. The other feedback box, every score, every mark and every recommendation stay exactly as they were. The rules are the panel's: the answer cannot be left empty — a blank is refused with "This answer needs text before saving." and the pop-out stays open — and it holds up to 4,000 characters. The save is recorded in the scorecard's history under your name like any other edit. When it lands the pop-out closes, "Saved." appears at the bottom of the screen, and the cell already shows the new text. Save lights up only once you have changed something; a pop-out you opened just to read closes with Cancel.

Worth knowing:

• Approved scorecards can be edited this way too, and stay approved — the same rule as the panel; see Editing an approved scorecard. On a released scorecard the filmmaker reads your saved wording the next time they open their page.
• A rewrite that is still out holds Save until it comes back. Closing the pop-out drops the rewrite.
• If a colleague saves the same answer while your pop-out is open, their version replaces the text in the box as long as you have not touched it; once you have typed, yours holds and Save writes what you see.
• If the box is switched off on the scorecard while your pop-out is open, the pop-out closes; a save that still reaches the server is refused with "This feedback field is turned off on the scorecard, so it can no longer be edited."
• A colleague's scorecard on a removed category opens read-only, with "This scorecard's category was removed from the submission, so it can no longer be edited." under the answer — see Scorecards on a removed category.
• Without the capability the pop-out opens with the answer as plain text, the line "You can read this scorecard but not change it.", and a Close button — see Who can work here.
• A refused save keeps the pop-out open with the message inside it, in the same words the panel uses — see If something is refused. A scorecard that leaves the queue while the pop-out stands open closes it: there is nothing left to save.

Elapsed

Elapsed runs from the moment the judge first opened the film to the moment they filed. Closing the film and coming back later — the next day, or on another device — does not restart it, so a judge who watched one evening and scored the next shows the whole span, breaks included. Read it as an upper bound on the time spent: an Elapsed shorter than the film's Length means the film cannot have been watched through. It reads 26m, 1h 03m, 48h 10m — hours never roll into days, because "two days" would read as a calendar claim about a working span.

It is a plain figure for your own reading — nothing on the screen colours it, flags it or acts on it.

A staff filing has no sitting to measure and this column reads "—". A scorecard filled in from the Submissions list is written and filed in one act, so there is nothing between the two stamps; the scorecard panel leaves the figure out for the same reason. Sorting by Elapsed still herds every staff filing to one end of the list, as the shortest sitting there is. Every press-kit card is a staff filing, so the whole of that filter option reads "—".

Searching and filtering

The toolbar above the table. Every control on it applies the moment you set it, over rows already in your browser — nothing reloads:

• The search box matches the submission's title, the filer's name and the tracking number, and nothing else. It waits a moment after you stop typing before it runs; Escape clears it.
• Scorecard — one of four, fixed: Any scorecard, Creative, Technical, Press kit. The Press kit option still stands, and lists the press kit cards that exist — remember that a self-filling press kit has none.
• Award recs — Any award recs, Has award recs or No award recs: whether the judge recommended the film for an award on this scorecard. Only creative scorecards carry recommendations, so No award recs also lists every technical and press kit card unless you narrow by Scorecard too.
• Judge — tick as many as you like, from every judge with a scorecard in the queue. Colleagues who filed scorecards are in this list too, written "Fay Festival (staff)" and sorted in among the judges. The list has its own search box, a Select all row and a Clear link.
• Category — the same, over the categories the queue's scorecards belong to. The table has no Category column, so this filter is where a category narrows the list. A scorecard on a category the film has since left is found under that category too.
• Clear filters appears as soon as anything is set, and clears the search and all the filters at once — including the Issue tab's Status filter, so switching tabs never lands you on a view that is silently narrowed.

A row matches any of the options ticked inside one filter, and must satisfy all of the filters together. On the four scorecard tabs there is no Status filter — the tabs own that axis. The Issue tab swaps the set: it drops Scorecard and Category, keeps search and Judge, and gains a Status filter of its own.

Every judge on the roster is an option, whether or not they have filed — an empty count is information. Staff filers appear only once they have filed something, because there is no roster of them to draw on.

The counts beside the judge and category options are measured inside your current tab and search — deliberately unlike the Submissions screen, whose filter counts are season-stable. Here the count answers "how many rows would this leave, in the tab I am looking at?", so a judge with nothing in Approved shows a 0 while you are on that tab. The Scorecard filter's four options carry no counts at all.

Changing a search or a filter clears any rows you had ticked and takes you back to the first batch of results. Sorting and loading more rows keep your selection.

Sorting

Every column heading is a sort button, except the two feedback columns — prose has no order worth sorting by. Click once to sort by a column, click again to reverse; the list reorders as you click. Score and Elapsed open with the useful end first — highest share, longest sitting; the rest open ascending, so Date opens oldest filing first. Status sorts in workflow order — Awaiting review, Flagged, Returned, Approved — never alphabetically.

The list arrives sorted by Date, oldest first, so the scorecard that has waited longest is at the top. Submission title, then judge name, breaks every tie, so the order never shuffles between reloads or refreshes.

The footer names what you are looking at, in words: "13 scorecards, pending, sorted by date, ascending." — or, narrowed, "Showing 4 of 13 scorecards in Pending, filtered, sorted by score, descending."

How many rows you see

The footer holds a Rows picker — 25, 50 or 100, starting at 50 — and FilmScorecard remembers your choice in this browser. Load 50 more beside it brings in the next batch at once — the rows are already in your browser — while more matching rows remain; the button names your rows-per-page setting rather than the number actually left. Loading more never ticks anything for you.

Neither control appears on the Issue tab, which loads its whole set at once.

Approving scorecards

What approving does

Approving a scorecard, from the bulk bar here or from inside the scorecard panel, does six things at once:

1. It records who approved it and when, and adds that to the scorecard's history.
2. It releases the score. The Submissions list's Score column and Scores-in ticks, the Scoring tab of a submission's detail panel, and the score on every award screen all count approved scorecards only — a filed scorecard still sitting in this queue contributes nothing to any of them. Approval is the moment it starts counting. The first approved scorecard on a film starts its score in every category it counts toward — a technical review or a press-kit card as much as a creative one. On a press kit card it releases both halves: the marks you approved, and the points every satisfied field item carries — which then keep moving as the record is filled. A scorecard on a removed category counts toward no category, so approving it moves no score.
3. It enters the scorecard's award recommendations. Each film a creative scorecard recommends for an award — at most three on one card, the judge's and any a coordinator added together — joins that award's pool, marked as a judge recommendation — see Award pools. A film already in that pool by any route stays exactly as it was; nothing is duplicated. Recommendations a coordinator withdrew are not entered.
4. It makes a judge's scorecard payable. On a paid season, the amount recorded on the scorecard when it was filed joins that judge's row on the season's Payouts ledger the moment you approve — filed work waiting in this queue is counted there separately, in amber, and is worth nothing until it is approved. See Paying your judges. Staff filings earn nothing, and a press kit is always a staff filing. A judge's scorecard on a removed category is paid exactly as it would have been, at the rate of the category it was filed or started under.
5. It puts the scorecard in line for the filmmaker. Approved creative scorecards — their answers and the written feedback boxes their scorecard asks for — are what a submitter reads once their scorecard is released: with the season, from Settings → Results, or on its own from the submission's detail panel. Nothing is sent at the moment you approve: releasing is its own deliberate step, either way. But a submission with nothing scored cannot be released to anybody, and one approved after the release appears on its submitter's page the next time they open it. A scorecard on a removed category never reaches the filmmaker.
6. It is permanent — but it is not a lock. There is no un-approve, for anyone, ever: check the selection before you confirm, because an approval cannot be taken back. What you can still do is correct the scorecard — its answers, its feedback, its marks — and it stays approved while you do. See Editing an approved scorecard.

Approving works on any filed scorecard that is not already approved, including flagged ones — approval supersedes the flag. It does not work on a returned one: that scorecard is with its judge until they file it again.

Approving a technical review also opens the film to creative judges. On a season where creative judging waits for technical approval — every season, unless you switched it off — no judge is offered a film's creative scorecard in a category until the technical review that category uses has been approved here. Approving it, on its own or in bulk, puts the film in front of the creative judges who can take it the next time each of them looks. A technical review still on Pending, or returned to its judge, keeps them waiting. A technical review your own team fills in is approved as it is filed, so it opens the film at once.

Approving a card as it stands never waits for its feedback. If a creative scorecard's box is switched on and the card's answer in it is empty — most often because the box was switched on after the judge filed — the panel's Approve and the bulk bar below both approve it as it is: a switch turned on after filing reopens nothing. Only a correction you SAVE in the panel must fill the box in.

Approving in bulk

Tick rows — the checkbox in the heading row selects every row currently loaded, except returned ones, which have no checkbox — and a bar floats up from the bottom: "6 scorecards selected", a reminder that "Approving here releases the scores without opening a scorecard.", Clear selection, and Approve.

Approve opens a confirmation headed "Approve these 6 scorecards?" — the number counts only the not-yet-approved rows in your selection — over the sentence that matters:

The scores are released to the season's scoring and reports. Approved scorecards leave the queue. Any edits you saved travel with them.

"Leave the queue" means leave Pending: the rows move to the Approved tab, they do not vanish. Under it, a monospace line breaks the selection down by state — "2 awaiting review, 1 flagged by judge" — so a flagged card in the batch is named before you commit. Confirm with Approve 6 scorecards; the dialog stays put until the commit finishes and the list has re-read itself, so when it closes the rows have already moved to Approved.

Three edges worth knowing:

• If part of a batch fails, the rest still lands. The dialog stays open and says exactly what happened — "5 scorecards were approved. 1 failed: Solstice." The approved rows have already moved to Approved; the failed ones stay ticked so you can retry them.
• At most 500 scorecards go through in one commit. A bigger selection is refused with "Approve at most 500 scorecards at once. Narrow the selection and repeat." — nothing partial happens.
• If every row you ticked is already approved, the bar says so — "Every selected scorecard is already approved." — and the Approve button is not there at all. A selection of staff filings behaves this way, since they arrive approved.

The Issue tab has a bar of its own, with its own verbs — see Several at once.

The row menu

The three-dot menu opens with the submission's title and a monospace line — PCFF24-142, Ben Achterberg, filed Aug 11 — so you can be sure which scorecard you are acting on. It offers:

• Open and edit scorecard — the same as clicking the title. On an approved row it reads Open approved scorecard, which is a label about what you are opening, not a warning: the panel it opens is editable like any other.
• View submission — the film's own record, in the same detail panel the Submissions screen uses, opened on top of the queue. It shows every tab and changes nothing; close it and the queue is exactly as you left it, filters, scroll and any open scorecard included. To edit the record, go to Submissions.
• All scorecards from Daniel — the judge panel. On a staff filing the same item narrows the queue to that person's filings instead, exactly as ticking them in the Judge filter would: there is no judge panel to open.
• Remind Daniel to rewrite, in amber — only on a Returned row, and only if you can approve. See Reminding a judge. It never appears on a staff filing.
• Send back to judge, in amber — on a judge's filed scorecard that is awaiting review or flagged, and only if you can approve. See Sending a scorecard back to its judge.
• Delete scorecard, in amber, at the foot of the menu with "Reopens the slot for another judge." under it — on any row not yet approved, and only if you can approve. See Deleting a scorecard.

Issue rows have no menu. Everything one of them can do is inside the panel its title opens.

Sending a scorecard back to its judge

Send back to judge returns a filed scorecard to the judge who wrote it, with a note, so they can make changes and file it again. Use it when the fix is theirs to make — moderating a word or two is quicker in the scorecard panel.

It is offered on a judge's scorecard that is awaiting review or flagged. It is not offered on an approved scorecard, one already returned, a scorecard your own staff filed, or one on a category the film no longer competes in.

1. Open the row's menu and choose Send back to judge.
2. The dialog names the film and the judge. Write a Note to the judge — it is required, up to 1,000 characters, with a counter under the box. It is what the judge reads, so say what you want changed.
3. Press Send back. Cancel changes nothing.

What happens the moment it lands:

• The row moves to the Returned tab and reads Returned. The dialog waits until the list has re-read itself, so when it closes the row has moved.
• The judge is emailed within the hour — "A scorecard for your festival was sent back to you" — naming the film and carrying your note as "A note from the festival". Your name is not on it.
• The scorecard opens up for the judge. It heads a Returned list at the top of their judging home with your note and a Make changes button, and your note sits above the scorecard while they edit it. It never stops them taking new films. See Your judging home.
• It cannot be approved meanwhile, from the bulk bar or the panel. You can still open it, read it, edit it and remind the judge about it. A technical review sent back keeps the film's creative judging waiting until it is filed again and approved, on a season where creative judging waits for technical approval.
• It stays the judge's work in every count — their Completed count on the Roster, the film's place on the panel — and it is not payable until it is approved.

When the judge files it again, it comes back to Pending as Awaiting review, at the rate it was first filed at, and approving it works as for any other scorecard.

Sending back twice is refused: a second press reads "Already sent back".

This is not the Issue tab's Send back. That one hands a film a judge skipped back to them after you fixed its screener — see Issues your judges raise. This one returns a scorecard they filed.

Deleting a scorecard

Delete scorecard takes a scorecard that is not yet approved out of the queue. It asks first — Delete this scorecard? — and says what it does:

The slot reopens and any judge on the panel can pick this film up again. The judge's answers are kept as a record but stop counting toward anything, and this scorecard leaves the queue.

Confirm with Delete scorecard. An approved scorecard cannot be deleted, and nothing brings a deleted one back. A refusal reads "This scorecard could not be deleted. It may have been approved or already removed. Refresh the page."

Reminding a judge to rewrite

On a returned scorecard's row menu, Remind Daniel to rewrite queues an email to the judge. The quiet line under the item says what you are committing to: "Queues an email. The judge is reminded within the hour."

What the judge receives:

• The subject names your festival: "A scorecard for Pine City Film Festival is waiting on a rewrite".
• The body names the film — Your scorecard for "Solstice" in Pine City Film Festival Spring 2026 was returned for a rewrite. — and asks them to open their judging dashboard.
• If a reason was recorded when the scorecard was returned, it travels in the email as a note from the festival. It is the one place the judge reads it.

Three things to know:

• The email is queued, not sent on the spot. A background sender picks it up within the hour. No confirmation appears on screen, and nothing on the list changes — a reminder changes nothing about the scorecard — so the menu item's own line is the promise.
• If the scorecard stops being Returned before the email goes out — approved, or rewritten — the reminder is quietly not sent. A "please rewrite" about a scorecard that no longer needs one would be worse than silence.
• Nothing stops you reminding twice. Each use queues another email, so give the first one a day.

Trying to remind on a scorecard that has already moved on is refused with "Only a returned scorecard carries a rewrite reminder."

Writing to a judge from the queue

Beside a judge's name in the Judge column is a small speech-bubble icon — "Message Daniel Kwon" when you hover it. It opens the same Send a message dialog a judge's row menu offers on the Judges roster: a Message box, a Send button, and an Open conversation link that takes you to your conversation with that judge in the organization's Inbox.

1. Click the icon beside the judge's name.
2. Write the message — up to 2,000 characters, plain text — and press Send. Send is dim until you have written something.
3. The dialog closes and "Message sent to Daniel Kwon." appears at the bottom of the screen.

What that does and does not do:

• It is a message in your Inbox conversation with that judge, exactly as if you had written it there — the conversation is created if it did not exist. The judge reads it on their own Messages screen and is emailed it, and their answer comes back to your Inbox, not to this screen. See What the judge receives.
• It says nothing about where you sent it from. The message does not name the scorecard or the film you were looking at — write that in. (The Reply on a reported issue is the one place this dialog opens with the film already written in — see Replying to a report.)
• Nothing on the queue changes, and the list is not re-read; a sent message is not a change to a scorecard.
• The icon appears only for judges who have signed up and are still on the roster — accepted their invitation, hold an account, and have not been removed. A judge whose email stands alone in the cell has no icon, a removed judge's old scorecards have none, and a staff filing never has one.
• A refused send keeps the dialog open with the reason under the box, in the Inbox's own words — a viewer on the festival, a judge no longer on a roster you cover, and so on. See If something is refused.

The judge panel

Clicking a judge's name — or All scorecards from Daniel in a row menu — slides in a panel about that judge's place in the queue. Its header carries their name, JDG- number, role pills, an Active or Paused pill, and their email address.

It opens on the click, like the other panels, and keeps up while it stands open. Its list of scorecards moves with the queue, and its counts are re-read about once a minute and straight after anything you change here.

The first card is the season's arithmetic: a large count of the scorecards this judge has filed this season, then a four-cell grid — Awaiting review, Flagged, Returned, Approved — with any non-zero count that is waiting on a person drawn amber. Under it, one sentence totals what is waiting on you from this judge.

The second card lists this judge's scorecards in your current tab, newest filing first, each linking straight into its scorecard panel — a scorecard on a removed category with (removed) after its category. Its foot line tells you whether you are seeing everything — "This is the judge's whole queue presence." — or a slice: "A Pending subset — this judge has scorecards in other tabs too."

Open judge record, in the footer, takes you to their row on the Judges screen, with their roster panel open — that is where their roles, scope and access live, not here.

These numbers are about judges only. A scorecard a colleague filled in is never counted into anybody's panel here, or into anybody's row on the Judges screen — nobody is credited with work they did not do. No press kit is ever counted into a judge's panel, for the same reason: no judge fills one in.

This panel cannot be opened from the Issue tab, and the judge's name there is not a link: the panel is about scorecards, and an issue has none.

When the list is empty

Each scorecard tab has its own honest empty state, with no button, because clearing filters would not change anything:

A tab emptied by your own narrowing reads "No scorecards match these filters" instead, with a Clear filters button.

The Issue tab has three empty states rather than two, because "nothing has gone wrong" and "you have fixed everything" are opposite facts:

If something is refused

A refused action reports at the bottom of the screen — except inside the approve dialog, the panels, the feedback pop-out and the message dialog, which keep their messages inside themselves and stay open.

A refused message to a judge uses the Inbox's own sentences — see Messaging your judges. The Issue tab has its own set — see If something is refused.

What does not work yet

• Nothing flags a scorecard. The Flagged state, its pill and its tab are all live, and the judge-side control that raises a flag is a later release. A judge's Report an issue is a different thing: it is about the film, and it arrives on the Issue tab.
• The note you send back with a scorecard is not shown on this screen. It reaches the judge — in the email, on their judging home and above the scorecard — and travels again in a reminder email. A flag's note, likewise, is recorded and not shown.
• Nothing sends back an approved scorecard. Correct it in the panel instead.
• Nothing un-approves a scorecard, and an approved one cannot be deleted. Correcting it is the only way back.
• Nothing here fills in a submission field a press kit item is waiting on. Use View submission in the row menu and edit the record there.
• Nothing moves a scorecard on a removed category into another category. It stays filed under the category it was scored in; the film is judged afresh in whatever categories it competes in now.
• A judge's reply never arrives here. A message you send from a row goes into your Inbox conversation with that judge, and their answer lands there — the Inbox row in the navigation is what moves, not anything on this screen. See Messaging your judges. And there is no writing to a colleague who filed a scorecard, or to a judge who has not yet signed up.
• Nothing is sent to a submitter from this screen. Approving releases the score to your own screens and enters award pools; the filmmaker hears nothing until their scorecard is released — with the season from Settings → Results, or on its own from the submission's detail panel — and there is no control here that sends, previews or resends anything to one — including when a judge reports that their screener is broken.
• Nothing announces what a refresh brought in. Rows change under you quietly — there is no "2 new scorecards" notice and no highlight on a row that has just arrived or moved. New issues do email you — see The emails staff are sent — but nothing on this screen pops up for them.
• There is no export.

Related guides

• Issues your judges raise — the fifth tab in full: skipped films and reported issues, reading each, fixing the film, and the ways to settle each kind.
• Reading and editing a scorecard — the panel behind every row.
• Rewriting written feedback — the Rewrite button on the panel's feedback boxes and on the queue's feedback pop-out: what it sends to OpenAI, what it does not, and Undo.
• Building a scorecard — the two switches that decide which feedback columns a creative scorecard fills.
• Messaging your judges — the Inbox that the speech-bubble icon beside a judge's name writes into.
• Filling out a scorecard yourself — where the staff-filed rows on this screen come from, including every press kit.
• Building a scorecard — where a press kit's two kinds of item are decided.
• Releasing scorecards — what happens to approved scorecards afterwards, and what each filmmaker then reads; and Releasing one submission's scorecard for doing it one film at a time.
• Paying your judges — approving is what makes a judge's scorecard payable on the season's pay ledger.
• Festival access — the Coordinator grant that opens this screen, and the capability that makes it a working one.