Managing Tournament Officials

TeamSnap Tournaments administrators with the Assigners role can add and update their tournament organization's designated officials. Officials can be managed within the admin portal under the Officials tab and within the tournament management area. This article describes how you can manually add officials one at a time or add multiple officials via a CSV import, as well as how to adjust settings to assign officials to games. 

In this article


Adding Officials Manually

Attention: Only users with the Assigner role can make these edits. Tournament admins can edit user roles to grant themselves or others the Assigner permissions.

  1. Click the Officials tab
  2. Click Add First Official or Add Official
    1. Don't see the Add Official button? Make sure you have been granted the Assigner role
  3. Complete fields and add tags
    1. First Name, Last Name, and Email are required
    2. If desired, add unlimited customizable tags for messaging or assignment purposes. This can help in tracking certifications, experience, reviews, or anything else you'd like to group officials by. 
  4. Click Save


Import Officials

Note: All officials' fields can be imported with the exception of the tag field. 
  1. Log into TeamSnap Tournaments
  2. Click Import Officials
  3. Prepare your Import File 
    1. You can use TeamSnap's Officials Import Template or your own CSV file.  If you use your own file, you'll want to ensure that the column headings match up to what is listed in the import template. 
  4. Click Choose File
    1. Check the Has Headers box if your import file already has the column headers labeled for field matching
  5. Click Next
  6. Ensure that your fields are properly mapped to the system headers by clicking the drop-down next to Map and selecting the field name that the data from your file corresponds to
    1. If there is no match for the field you are importing, select Ignore
  7. Click Next
  8. Review imported data for accuracy
  9. Click Next
  10. Click Finished

Set Positions, # of Officials per Game, and Required Ability Limits

Once you have your tournament games scheduled and published, you can find additional officials settings within your tournament management portal under the Officials tab and can go ahead and assign or allow officials to assign themselves to published tournament games. 

  1. Click event name
  2. Click Manage
  3. Click the Officials tab
  4. Click the drop-down at the top of the screen to select specific divisions to manage officials for or leave it at the default of All Divisions
  5. Click Settings
    1. Add officials positions
      1. Click the Select Position dropdown 
      2. Click Create New Position
      3. Enter position name
      4. Click Save
      5. Click Add Position
    2. Enter the number of officials to be assigned per game
    3. Add ability  limits
      1. If tags were added to officials during setup for levels of experience (e.g. Level 1, Level 2, Level 3) those tags can be selected here to indicate that only officials with matching tags can be assigned to the division
  6. Optional: Copy officials settings to other divisions 
    1. Click the Copy Division Settings button on the division you have set up your officials on
    2. Select the division(s) to copy the settings over to
    3. Click Copy Settings to Divisions
    4. Voila! Your divisions will all have the same settings!

You are ready to assign officials to games yourself or allow them to assign themselves, just follow our steps in the section below. 


Assigning Officials to Games

  1. Click Assignment
  2. Optional: Click the Add Officials drop-down to select available officials to assign to the game
    1. Only officials with tags matching those added under Settings will be available for assignment
    2. Admins will see a warning for any conflicts if the official is already assigned to another game on the same date/time on the drop-down menu and the assignment
    3. Click Send Assignments to email notifications to assigned officials
      1. Check box for desired notification
      2. Click Send
    4. Assignment Status is displayed by icon before the official's name in the Officials column, allowing you to see the status of each assignment

      1. Once the assignments are sent to the officials, the status will change to Notified
      2. The status will change to accepted or declined when an official accepts or declines the assignment status and those with assignor roles will receive a notification
      3. If a game is rescheduled, the status will change to rescheduled so a new notification can be sent to the official allowing them to accept or decline the new game time












  3. Optional: Click Self Assign 
    1. Toggle Self Assign Open
      1. This allows officials to assign themselves to the games they would like to officiate and/or are available for
    2. Optional: Toggle Auto Approve to allow officials
      1. Turn this off if you want the admin to approve each self-assignment.If toggled on, official game assignments will automatically be accepted once an official assigns themselves to a game.
    3. Click Invite Officials to send email invitations to the officials you want to allow to self-assign. While self-assignment is open, you will be able to see how many games each official has assigned themselves to and how many of those self-assignments have been approved.

    What Notifications Are Sent For Officials

  •  Officials are notified via email when you send out invites or notifications. 
  • If an assigner or Tournaments admin change a game date/time, the Officials assignments will show as ‘rescheduled’ under the Officials tab (there is also an fyi message on the Schedule tab in the Tournaments web app). This event will also no longer display as assigned for that official in their events.teamsnap.com and mobile app views. They will not, however, be notified automatically. If you reassign them, then you can re-send the notifications to alert them of the edits via email.
  • The only time that an official is automatically notified of a game edit (without an assigner manually selecting to send them a notification) is if the game they were assigned to is canceled or deleted.
  • Coaches are never automatically notified of schedule changes. 

    What's Next

    You can view official assignment statuses under Officials>Assignments section at any time. Additionally, assignment notifications can be re-sent as a reminder. Finally, admins can send targeted messages to officials under the Messages tab.

    In the TeamSnap Tournaments mobile app, officials will be able to see an Assignments tab with any assignments they have for an event as well as a jersey icon visible on any games they are officiating. They will be able to view other officials assigned to games they have been assigned to, along with their contact information. 

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