Judge scoring devices

What this is for

Your judges score on their own tablet — or their phone, or one you hand
them at the table. They open a link. That’s the whole sign-in.

There is no account to create, no password, no app to download from a
store. The desk creates one link per seated judge, hands it over with a
tap or a QR code, and from that moment the judge sees their own
running order and types their own numbers. The scores arrive at the
Tabulator lens on their own — nobody at the desk retypes anything.

Paper still works. Nothing here takes it away: the desk can always
type scores into the score grid, and most
producers run a mixed weekend for their first season. Devices are the
option, not the requirement.

Setting it up at the desk

Device links hang off panel seats, so the panel comes first. If you
have already built a rubric and seated your judges — see
Scoring and tabulation — you’re two
clicks from a link.

Do this once per seated judge. One judge, one seat, one link — a judge
sitting on two panels gets two links, because they’re two different
sheets.

Claimed, unclaimed, and last seen

The little line under each judge’s name is the desk’s whole view of
that tablet:

Claimed means one specific tablet has taken the link as its own.
That happens the first time a device actually uses it, and it is a
feature: after that, the link answers only that tablet. A copy of the
URL forwarded to somebody else’s phone gets a polite dead end.

“Seen” is the last time that device talked to us. On a running show it
should read just now or a few minutes ago. If a judge’s line has
gone quiet for half an hour, walk over — that’s the signal something
is wrong with their tablet or your network, and it’s better to find it
at routine 40 than at awards.

Links expire on their own

A device link stops working two days after the event’s last day. You
don’t have to remember to clean anything up — Monday’s grace is there
so a tablet that came home in a bag can still finish uploading, and by
Tuesday the link is simply dead.

Revoke kills a link immediately, whenever you want. The tablet’s
very next action stops working. Use it when a tablet walks off, when a
link went to the wrong person, or when a judge is swapped mid-day.
Clicking Create device link again after a revoke mints a fresh
one; the old URL never comes back.

The judge’s day

The judge opens their link and sees their own event: the event name,
Judge · their name, and a badge on the right that tells the truth
about the network. Under that, the running order — every routine
in their panel’s scope, in the order it dances, each one showing its
routine number and title.

That routine number is the number on the printed program, the same one
the emcee reads. It’s the only number a judge ever sees, which is
exactly how they already work.

Scoring a routine

Tapping any routine opens its full-screen sheet:

• One box per criterion, each labelled with your rubric’s own
  wording and out of 10 (or whatever that criterion’s max is).
  Decimals are fine — half points land exactly.
• Deduction — one box, subtracted from the total, entered as a
  positive number.
• Comment — free text, hinted Notes for the tabulator
  (optional).
• Your total at the bottom, updating as they type, shown against
  the sheet’s ceiling.
• Save scores — one big button, then back to the running order.

Type an 11 into a box that maxes at 10 and the tablet says Max is
10 right under it and won’t save. It never quietly rounds a number
down to something the judge didn’t write. Same for a negative number
(Can’t be negative) and for anything that isn’t a number at all
(Enter a number).

A judge can go back into a routine and change what they entered any
time — until the desk locks it.

Locked routines

When the desk locks a routine’s scores — after checking them, during
awards prep — that routine goes read-only on every tablet. The judge
sees a lock on its row, and opening it shows Scoring is closed:
This routine’s scores are locked. What you entered is shown read-only
below. Their numbers are still there to read; the Save button is
gone.

If a judge saved a score at the same moment the desk locked it, the
tablet says so at the top of the running order rather than swallowing
it: 1 score save couldn’t be applied — Routine 131 — scoring was
locked first. That’s a real message with a real fix: tell the desk
the number, and the desk types it in (unlocking a routine is
admin-only and deliberate — see
Scoring and tabulation).

The sync badge, and why Wi-Fi can’t cost you a score

The badge in the corner of the judge’s screen says one of three
things:

Here is the promise, and it is the reason this is worth doing at all:

Losing Wi-Fi never loses a score. The tablet writes every score
into its own storage before it says saved — before the panel even
closes. The judge keeps scoring at full speed with no network at all;
the badge just turns amber and counts what’s waiting. When the network
comes back, everything uploads on its own, in order, with no button to
press. Even closing the page — or the whole browser — while offline
keeps everything. Reopening the link on that same tablet, still with
no signal, brings back the running order and every score entered while
dark.

What a tablet does need is one moment of internet at the start, to
pull down the running order and the rubric. Until it has had that, it
shows Can’t reach the event yet with a Try again button, and
says so honestly: This tablet needs one moment of internet to load
the running order. After that, scoring works fully offline. Get every
judge’s tablet loaded before the first routine and the day is yours.

What you need to bring

When something goes wrong

“This judging link isn’t active.” The link was revoked, expired,
mistyped — or opened on a second device after another one claimed it.
The tablet even says what to do: Ask the event team for a fresh QR
code. At the desk: Revoke, Create device link, hand over the
new one.

A link stopped working after it worked fine. Almost always the
second-device rule. A link belongs to the first tablet that used it,
on purpose — so a forwarded URL can’t quietly become a second voting
seat. Re-issue for the device you actually want.

A judge’s line says “seen” a long time ago. Their tablet isn’t
reaching us. Check their network first, then their screen — if the
badge reads Offline, their scores are safe and waiting, and they
will land the moment the tablet is back on the network.

Everything is on fire and the show can’t wait. Go back to paper
for that panel and type the scores into the score grid at the desk, as
described in Scoring and tabulation.
Scores already uploaded from tablets are already there; the two ways
of getting numbers in coexist happily, routine by routine, and the
totals don’t care which door they came through.

Honest limits

• One live link per seat. Creating a new link revokes the old one.
  That’s deliberate — two live credentials for one judge is a hole,
  not a convenience.
• A tablet needs its first connection. Fully offline from the
  moment it’s handed over, a tablet has nothing to show. Load every
  device before the doors open.
• Private browsing is a bad idea. Some browsers refuse to keep
  anything on disk in a private window, and a tablet in that mode can
  lose queued scores if the tab is closed before they upload. Use a
  normal browser window.
• Judges don’t see standings. No totals, no ranks, no other
  judges — by design.

Where to go next

• Scoring and tabulation — rubrics, judge
  panels, the desk’s score grid, locking, and live standings
• Show Day — the numbered program these routines come from
• Results and awards — where the totals land
• Set up your first event
  — the Faculty tab where judges are booked in the first place