Automatic Event Scheduling

Applies to: Organizers

Your event already carries dates: when registration opens, when it closes, when the competition starts and ends. Normally those dates are a promise you keep by hand: you come back on the day and open registration yourself. Hajime can keep them for you instead.

Two settings control this, and both are off until you turn them on. Nothing about your existing events changed when this feature arrived.

Where to find the settings

Open your event, choose Edit, and look just below the registration dates for the Automatic scheduling box. There are two checkboxes:

Open and close registration automatically
Close the event automatically once it is over

Tick either, both, or neither. You can change your mind at any time, and you can always open or close registration yourself even with the setting on.

[Screenshot placeholder: the Automatic scheduling box on the event form]

Opening and closing registration

With the first setting on, registration opens at your Registration Opens date and closes at your Registration Closes date.

Changes happen within 15 minutes of the time you set. If you set registration to open at 09:00, it opens between 09:00 and 09:15. Hajime checks four times an hour rather than watching the clock continuously, which is why the promise is a window rather than an exact minute. If you need registration open at a precise moment, open it yourself.

The day before each change, you get a notification saying what will happen and when. After the change, you get a second one confirming it happened.

Closing registration does not remove anybody. Everyone already registered keeps their place: the only thing that changes is that no new entries are accepted.

Closing the event

With the second setting on, your event is marked complete 24 hours after its end date. The delay is deliberate: events run late, and an event that closed itself while the final was still on the mat would be worse than one that stayed open an extra day.

Closing an event does not touch results, registrations or brackets. It changes the event's status, which is what moves it out of your active list and into your history, and it settles anyone still waiting on the standby list.

If your event never opened registration, it is never closed this way. An event that was drafted and abandoned stays as it is, because completing it would put a competition that never happened into your history.

If you leave both settings off

Nothing happens automatically, which is exactly what most organizers want for their first event.

There is one exception, and it is a reminder rather than a change. If an event has been over for more than a day and is still open, you get one notification a week listing those events, so a competition that finished in March does not sit in your list until December looking like it is still running. Nothing is closed for you: the reminder just asks you to do it.

Frequently Asked Questions

Can I still open or close registration myself?

Yes, at any time, whichever settings are on. If you close registration by hand before its scheduled time, the automatic close simply finds nothing to do.

What if I change the dates?

The new dates are what count. Move your closing date a week later and registration closes a week later.

Who gets the notifications?

You, as the event organizer, and the administrators of the federation the event belongs to.

Can I turn the notifications off?

Yes, in your notification preferences. Be aware that turning them off means an automatic change happens without telling you. The event page always shows the next scheduled change, so you can check there.

How do I know whether a change was automatic or made by a person?

The event's history records automatic changes as made by the system rather than by a user, with both the time it was scheduled for and the time it ran.