Eligibility Check

Most programs check entries before anyone judges them: is the consent form signed, is the right file attached, does the entrant meet the rules. The eligibility check is that pass, done by your team on the Entries page as entries come in. It is separate from judging on purpose: staff check rules here, jurors judge merit in a round.

The four marks

Every entry carries one mark:

• Not checked: nobody has looked yet. The default for every new entry.
• Eligible: checked and fine.
• Needs follow-up: something is missing (a consent form, the right file). The entry stays in judging, and your note says what is missing.
• Ineligible: left out of judging, results and the entry gallery. Judges who already held it no longer see it. You can change this at any time.

Only Ineligible changes what judges see. A program that never marks an entry judges exactly as before.

Where it appears

Nothing shows until your first mark. Open any entry and the Eligibility control sits at the bottom of the panel. Once one entry is marked, the Entries page gains:

• Status tabs on the top edge of the table: All, Not checked, Eligible, Needs follow-up, Ineligible, each with its count. Click a tab to filter the list; All clears it. The exports follow the tab you are on. While some entries are in progress, All reads Submitted and an In progress tab follows the marks.
• An Eligibility column, with the reason and who checked it on hover.
• Ineligible entries are struck through in the table.

Checking entries one after another

Open any entry. Under Details, every answer appears in form order, and each uploaded file shows right under the question that asked for it, so a consent form sits next to the question it answers. At the bottom:

• Eligible, Follow-up and Ineligible buttons. Eligible saves the mark and moves you to the next entry still to check. Follow-up and Ineligible save the mark and open the reason line; press Enter in it to move on. Tap the active Eligible again to clear the mark.
• Keyboard, while focus is in the entry panel: E for eligible, F for follow-up, X for ineligible, and the left and right arrows to move between entries. The arrows next to the Eligibility heading do the same.
• Under Follow-up and Ineligible, an optional one-line reason. Reasons you have already used on this program appear as chips, so the wording stays consistent and one tap fills it in and moves on.

There is no confirmation dialog. Every mark is reversible: once you have moved on, a line at the bottom of the panel names the entry you just marked, with View to go back to it and Undo.

Marking several entries at once

Select entries in the table. The selection bar offers Mark eligible in one click, and a menu for Needs follow-up, Ineligible (each asks for the shared reason) and Back to not checked. The toast carries an undo for the whole batch.

Judging and results

An ineligible entry is left out of judge assignment, the judges' lists, results and the public ballot, in every round. The Judging page says how many entries are left out and links back to them. Entries marked Not checked or Needs follow-up are judged like any other.

Exports

The entries spreadsheet gains Eligibility and Eligibility Reason columns once any entry is marked. The judge-safe files export never includes them: the mark and its reason are your team's notes.

What entrants see

Nothing. The mark and the reason stay on your side. If you want to tell an entrant their entry is missing something, write to them as you do today.