Your staff portal
This page is for you if you work events — judging, running the stage, announcing, shooting photos, driving the truck. It is not for the office. It covers everything on your side of Herding Cats, which mostly lives on your phone.
Your portal has one job: tell you where you are going and what is expected of you, and let you tell your coordinator when you cannot make it.
Signing in
Go to the log-in page. It is headed Welcome back.
There are two tabs, Password and Email code. If you have never set a password, use Email code:
The portal works in your phone’s browser. Once you have signed in, use your browser’s Add to Home Screen option so it opens like an app.
If you see a message saying your account is not attached to a company yet, ask your coordinator to send you an invitation. Your access comes from them, not from us.
What is on the menu
Down the side (or behind the menu button on a phone) you will find:
- My Events — your home page.
- Availability — where you tell them when you cannot work, and when you would like to.
- My Profile — your details.
- Settings — how and when we contact you.
If your company uses the surveys module, you will also see Debriefs and Feedback.
At the top there is a bell for notifications and your picture, which opens Account settings and Sign out. There is also a floating chat button — the Herding Cats assistant — which can answer questions about your own events.
My Events
Your home page has three things on it, top to bottom.
Your time off. A card at the very top. If you have not marked anything it reads Going to miss any weekends? with a note explaining that you are assumed available. Tap it to go and mark your dates.
My tasks. This card only appears when a coordinator has actually given you something to do. Tap the circle at the left of a row to tick a task off. If you tick one by mistake, press Undo.
My Events. Every event you have been assigned to. Each card shows the event name, your position, the airport code, how you are getting there, the venue name and address, and the dates. Tap a card to open it.
Only confirmed assignments show here. If your coordinator has you pencilled in but not confirmed, it will not appear yet. Ask them.
One event’s page
Tap any event to open it. At the top is your position, the event name, the dates, and a badge telling you where it is in time — Today, In 12d, Live, or Completed. The All events link takes you back.
Underneath, in cards:
| Card | What it tells you |
|---|---|
| Your weekend | Your whole weekend on one card — call time, venue, hotel, your room confirmation number, who you are rooming with, and your flights. It is also what arrives as a message two days before the event. See Your weekend packet |
| Venue | Where the event is, with the address and the airport code |
| Hotel | The hotel name and address. Once rooms are set, your room, who you are Sharing with (or that You have the room to yourself), and your Confirmation # |
| Schedule | Load in: and Load out: times |
| On-site contact | Who to call when you arrive — tap the number to dial it |
| Travel | How you are getting there, and a Rental car badge if one is assigned to you |
| Travel crew | A group chat with the people travelling with you |
A card shows Not yet assigned or a dash when that detail has not been decided yet. That is normal early on — check back closer to the date.
On the Travel card, and again at the top under Your weekend — airline, flight number, airports and times, in your own timezone. A leg your coordinator has not booked yet says so rather than going missing.
Messages are peer-to-peer — no AI or coordinator in this chat. It is for sorting out who is sharing the ride from the airport, not for reporting a problem. For that, message your coordinator or use the assistant button.
Telling them when you cannot work
This is the most important thing you do in the portal.
Go to Availability. The page is headed My Availability and it says: You’re assumed available all season. Mark any days you’re away — a trip, exams, a family weekend — and update them whenever plans change.
Read that twice. Saying nothing means yes. If you do not mark a day, you can be booked on it.
There are two views, chosen with the Time off and Calendar buttons. Time off is where you make changes; Calendar is a month-by-month picture of the same marks.
Marking time off
- Tap the first day, then the last
On the Time off view’s month grid, tap the first day you are away, then the last. Tapping the same day twice marks just that one day. Any days work — a Tuesday-to-Thursday is as normal as a weekend.
- Say how firm it is
Everything you mark appears at the top under Marked time off. Tap a marked day (or the pencil on its row) to open it: choose Not available, Prefer not (Schedule me only if you’re stuck) or Prefer to work (I’d like this weekend), and add a short note if it helps, like family birthday. Your coordinator sees it.
- Every change saves by itself
There is no Save button — every change saves straight away. Until you mark something, the page says No time off marked — you’re assumed available all season, and that is a real answer too.
To take a range off, press the bin button on its row under Marked time off.
Marking weekends you would like to work
Above the month grid, Marking switches between Unavailable and Preferred. Choose Preferred, then tap the first and last day you would like to work. Those days turn green and read Prefer to work.
A day cannot be both. Marking Preferred over days you marked as time off clears the time off from those days, and marking time off over preferred days clears those.
Your coordinator sees Prefers this weekend next to your name when they staff those dates, and staffing suggestions put you a little higher. It is a wish, not a booking — you can still be left off, and you are never booked on days you marked as time off.
Submitting your availability
When your calendar is right for the season, press Submit availability at the top and confirm. The page then shows Submitted with the date, and your calendar is locked so it cannot change by accident. If something changes, ask your coordinator to unlock it. When they do, you see their note — make your changes, then submit again.
Some competitions ask a coordinator to okay availability changes first. You will know because the page says Changes here go to your coordinators for a quick approval, and what you mark appears under Waiting on your coordinators with a Pending approval chip instead of landing on the calendar.
Nothing has changed until it is approved, so keep the dates free until you hear. You will get a notification either way, and you can press Withdraw to take a request back before anyone has looked at it.
With approvals on, you cannot mark Preferred over days you already marked as time off. The page tells you which days: remove that time off first (it goes for approval too), then mark the days you would like to work.
The Calendar view
Calendar shows the season as real month grids, with your marked stretches painted across whatever days they cover and a note that Unmarked days = available. It is for looking, not editing — the Mark time off button jumps you back to the view that edits.
Prefer not is not the same as Not available. It means: I would rather not, but I will if you are stuck. Coordinators can see the difference and it genuinely affects who gets picked. Use it honestly instead of blocking out weekends you could actually work.
My Profile
The My Profile page shows your Name, Email, and Home Airport, plus your Positions and whether you are marked as a Local Driver.
You cannot change the first three directly. Each has a Request Change button. Press it, type the New value, and press Submit for Approval. Your coordinator gets the request and approves it. You will hear back once they have.
There is also an Availability card here with an Edit availability button, as a shortcut.
Your first name, last name, and phone number live under Account settings — the menu behind your picture at the top right. Those you can edit yourself and save with Save changes.
Your email address cannot be changed there. Ask an admin.
Choosing how we contact you
Go to Settings. It says Manage how and when you hear from Herding Cats.
The first card is Contact. Put your number in Mobile phone (for SMS notifications) and press Save. As the helper under the field says, it is used for SMS alerts where enabled — leave empty to opt out of SMS entirely. The phone number is your text-message setting; there are no separate SMS toggles.
The second card is Notifications. Rather than a switch for every single kind of message, they come in four groups:
- My assignments & schedule — being added to an event, changes to your position, travel, or schedule, tasks, travel actions that need you, and your weekend packet before each event.
- Messages — event chat, messages from coordinators, event-wide broadcasts, and updates from travel buddies.
- Debriefs & feedback — debrief surveys, reminders to finish them, and peer feedback that mentions your work.
- Account & profile — team invitations, profile nudges, and decisions on changes you requested.
Each group has three controls: In-app and Push are simple on/off switches, and Email is a dropdown with Instant (as it happens), Daily digest (one email a day with everything in it), or Off. Changes save as you make them — there is no save button.
At the bottom, Urgent broadcasts has no controls at all. It says Always delivered on every channel, and it means it: that is the one your coordinator uses when something is genuinely on fire.
Keep My assignments & schedule on for at least one method you actually check. It is how you find out you have been put on an event, or taken off one.
An admin can still tune the individual message types behind a group. If they have, the group’s control shows Mixed — changing it then applies your choice to the whole group.
The bell at the top of the screen keeps the same messages in the app. Open it to read them, or press Mark all read to clear them.
Debriefs and Feedback
These two pages are part of the Debriefs & Surveys module. If your company does not use it, you will not see them at all.
Debriefs are the post-event surveys your company sends after a weekend to collect feedback — how the event went, and how the crew worked — from staff, and from studios where the company runs those too. Your answers feed the company’s knowledge base for the next event. The page lists what is waiting under To do, each with a due date. Open one, answer the questions — the ones with a red star are required — and press Submit. Answered ones move to Submitted.
Feedback goes the other way. It is Anonymized feedback tagged to your position on events you worked — what your colleagues said about the work, with names removed. You cannot reply to it; it is there to read.
Quick answers
Tell your coordinator directly, as early as you can — marking yourself unavailable will not take you off it, because you are already assigned. Dropping an event you have accepted may carry a change fee or penalty under your company’s policy, so check your staff manual. Your coordinator handles finding a replacement and any flight or room changes.
Rooms usually get sorted a few weeks out, sometimes closer. It is not an oversight. If the event is nearly here and it is still blank, ask.
You get a different portal built for the cab of a truck, not this one. It opens automatically when you sign in.