Finishing and signing the match protocol

Three federations use a longer sign-off screen instead of the single button: Swedish handball, Swedish water polo and Swedish beach volleyball. It is headed Please sign the protocol and lists everyone who has to confirm the protocol before it can be sent in.

The list is built from the match itself, so it differs from match to match:

The button at the bottom reads Sign and complete the match where a referee signature is required, and Send in where it is not.

If something is missing you stay on the screen and get the specific error — for example "At least one referee must sign." or "Timer must sign". Nothing is saved until everything required is ticked.

Where the federation allows it, the sign-off screen has a Comment box with the note "Comments are sent to the competition organizers."

What happens to a comment:

• it is stored on the match as the internal comment, where it is visible to people who can see the match's administrative details — it is not shown to the public;
• it is e-mailed to the tournament's own contact address, with the match number in the subject line, together with the name and e-mail of the person who signed and the time of signing.

If the tournament has no contact address, or is configured not to send e-mail, the comment is still saved on the match but you get the warning "Comment not sent. Check tournament settings." Read that as: the organiser will not see it in their inbox, only on the match.

The comment box is not a protest form. Formal protest times are separate fields on the match, and fair play and delegate reporting are separate features — see the links at the end of this page.

This is what every federation except Swedish handball, Swedish water polo and Swedish beach volleyball uses. Which sign-off screen you get depends on the federation the match belongs to, not on whether it is a series match or a standalone tournament — a training match or a weekend cup under one of those three federations still gets the full signature list.

When the match has been ended, the protocol shows:

The match protocol is completed. Please confirm the result and sign the protocol.

Click Sign the protocol. The result is calculated from the events, the standings are queued for recalculation, and the block changes to The protocol is signed. with the name of the person who signed.

The name you are signed in with is recorded as the signer.

There is no separate confirmation dialog — one click commits the result.

The match must have at least one registered event before anyone can sign.

Three routes work on every match, series or standalone:

• you are the person who opened the protocol for that match (the protocol writer),
• you are a federation administrator for the federation that owns the match, or
• you are one of the match's own referees — it has to be your assignment, not just any referee account.

All three require the protocol to have been opened and its setup completed, because that is what records who the writer is.

In a standalone tournament there is one extra route on top of those: holding match-edit rights or results-edit rights in that tournament is enough on its own, even before a protocol has been opened. That includes the tournament's secretariat when it registers results with the shared results password. This shortcut does not exist for series matches.

Note the asymmetry that surprises people: a team leader or club administrator who is not the protocol writer cannot sign a series match, even for their own team. Whoever opened the protocol owns the signing. If the wrong person opened it, see "Changing the protocol writer".

These are set per federation. Contact Profixio support if your federation needs a different combination.

Two settings that people often expect to affect signing do not: the leaders-compulsory setting (Swedish bandy and Swedish basketball) and the leader identification step (Swedish handball) are both enforced earlier, when the line-up is set — see the match setup page.

Once the protocol is signed and the match has events, the protocol is closed for the people who filled it in. The protocol writer, the referees and anyone who came in with a result-registration password can no longer add, change or delete events, edit the line-up, or change the timekeeper and other match officials. The screen switches to a read-only view of the finished protocol.

What is still open:

• The result itself can still be corrected the normal way, on the match, by someone with match-edit rights.
• Fair play and delegate reports are written after the match and are not blocked by signing.

What signing does not undo: it does not release the protocol back to the general public, and it does not free the match for a different writer.

In Swedish handball there is an extra effect in the other direction: the events in the printed match protocol are hidden until the protocol is signed, and become visible in the PDF once it is. People with edit rights on the match see them either way, which is why an administrator often cannot reproduce a club's complaint that the protocol is empty.

Administrators who hold match-edit rights for that tournament keep full access. They can still open the protocol, correct events and recalculate the result. This is deliberate: it is the correction route for a mistake found after the match. It depends on the match-edit right applying to that particular tournament, so a federation administrator who has not been given match-edit rights there may find themselves locked out along with everyone else — if that happens, ask the tournament administrator to give you match-edit rights there.

There are four different "undo" actions and they do different things. Choose carefully.

Update score from the protocol. For administrators with match-edit rights, a signed or finished match shows an extra block with the current public result and a button Update score from the protocol. Use it after correcting events: it recalculates the result from the events as they now stand and queues the standings and player statistics to be recalculated. This is the normal way to fix a signed match.

Reset the match result to enable signing. The same block offers this button when a match has a result but has not been signed — typically because someone entered the result manually while the secretariat was still working in the protocol. It clears the result so the protocol can be signed properly. It is not offered once the protocol has been signed.

Unlock this game report. In the match protocol list, a match whose protocol has been opened but has no result yet shows a padlock with the secretary's name and the time the protocol was opened, with a button Unlock this game report. Unlocking releases the match so somebody else can open the protocol. It does not delete any events and does not remove any signatures — it only removes the claim on the match. A message then tells you whether the secretary was removed, whether you are not allowed to remove the secretary, or that the protocol has no secretary.

Reset all and restart match. Under More... in the protocol, administrators with match-edit rights can start the match over, also after signing. It deletes every event, clears the result and all signatures, updates the standings and player statistics, and sends the match back to protocol setup with the line-ups kept, so a new secretary can take over. Use it only when the whole protocol must be redone; to correct single events, edit them and use Update score from the protocol.

The person who opens the protocol for a match becomes its writer, and only that person (plus federation administrators and the match's referees) can sign it. If the wrong person opened it — the wrong volunteer, a phone that went flat, someone who left at half time — another person has to take over as writer, or the writer has to be released.

Under Protocol writer the match shows the current writer's name, e-mail, id and the time they were assigned, with a Remove button and the warning:

Click here to remove this user from this match. This will not remove the user from the system. It should only be done when someone else should register events

Removing the writer requires match-edit rights in that tournament, and it only works while the match still has no result. Once the protocol is signed there is no writer left to change; correct the match instead.

To hand the protocol to a colleague mid-match, an administrator removes the current writer, or a person who may open the protocol takes over: they open the protocol from the match protocol list, and the protocol setup shows who set it up and when, with a Take over as secretary button. Taking over works while the protocol is not signed and the match has no result. Administrators with match-edit rights get no take-over button: they remove the writer under Protocol writer first, and can then set up the protocol themselves with Save and go to match (you become secretary). The events registered so far are untouched. If the previous writer still has the protocol open, they see "The protocol is no longer assigned to you. Reload the page." the next time they register something, and can no longer register events.

The match protocol list is the working screen for people who run protocols across a whole federation rather than one tournament. It is headed Match protocol list and needs a Profixio account.

You reach it if you may open match protocols in at least one federation; see Preparing a match in the electronic match protocol for who may open them. If several federations qualify you pick one first, and Profixio remembers your choice.

The list shows matches from series that use the match protocol, in a federation whose sport has the protocol set up. Three views:

• Open new protocol — matches in the next few days. By default only matches involving your favourite teams; Show all matches widens it to everything in the federation.
• Historikk — matches where you have registered events, newest first.
• Search specific match number — an exact match number, ignoring the date window and the favourites filter.

There is also a free-text filter over competition name, team names, class and match number.

Each row shows the class, match number, date, time, venue, competition and the two teams, plus:

• Open match protocol, with the running result from the events and a count of registered events — unless the match already has a result, or you are not allowed to open a protocol for it, in which case you get the result itself linking to the match;
• and, whenever the protocol has been opened but the match has no result yet, a padlock with the secretary's name and the time the protocol was opened — plus Unlock this game report for those allowed to use it. That padlock can appear next to an open protocol button, so seeing both is normal.

Unless the protocol already has events and you may keep writing in it, Open match protocol first asks you to confirm, with your federation's own instructions or the text "The match will be locked to you as match secretary. Only continue if you are going to record this match."

The screen also carries a Manual link, where a federation can publish its own PDF instructions for the secretariat, and Create training match for practising without touching real fixtures.

Every match that uses the protocol has a score sheet — the paper-style layout with both line-ups and the full event list, split home and away and grouped by period. It is available before, during and after signing, as a screen view and as a PDF.

Which download buttons you see on the protocol depends on the federation:

The same buttons are also on the match page, in the Match documents row of the Match data tab. When the federation uses the electronic match protocol and both teams are known, they are shown there already before the match is played. Otherwise the round A and M buttons appear there once the match has a result with registered events.

On the federation-specific match protocols, the individual signatures are printed as ticks — secretary, timekeeper, each referee and, where they are used, the two team captains. That is the main practical reason for ticking each row rather than just pressing a button.

The score sheet is generated from the events at the moment you open it, so a protocol corrected after signing produces an updated sheet. The exception is Swedish handball, where a stored match report, once it exists, is served instead of a freshly generated one.

The layout of each federation's score sheet, and which events can be registered at all, is covered on the sport-specific protocols page.

For federations that have it switched on, signing a league match sends out the finished protocol automatically. Today that is Swedish basketball.

The e-mail has the subject Match protocol for followed by the match number, opens with "The match protocol is completed.", attaches the score sheet as protocol.pdf, repeats the competition, class, time, venue, teams and result, and ends with a Go to the match button.

It goes to:

• both teams,
• the match's referees,
• the person who wrote the protocol,
• any addresses the federation has registered as match protocol recipients for that series.

Standalone tournaments never send this e-mail, and neither do federations that have not asked for it. If your federation wants it, contact Profixio support.

This is a different e-mail from the comment mail described under "Comments when signing", which goes only to the tournament's own contact address.

Work down this list; it is close to the order the checks happen in.

1. Has the match been ended in the protocol? The end-of-match event must be registered. Ending the last period is not the same event.
2. Are there any events at all? A protocol with nothing registered can never be signed.
3. Does the match already have a result? If a result reached the match from anywhere else, the sign block is replaced by the result. An administrator with match-edit rights can use Reset the match result to enable signing.
4. Are you the one who opened the protocol? In a series match, only the protocol writer, a federation administrator, or a referee assigned to that very match can sign.
5. Are you signed in as the right person? A referee has to be recognised as that match's referee in that federation. A referee account that is not the one on the assignment will not do.
6. In a standalone tournament, do you hold match-edit or results-edit rights? Logging in with the tournament's result-registration password is enough on its own. Without it you still need to be the protocol writer, the federation administrator or an assigned referee.
7. Did the click fail rather than the button being missing? Look for the spectator-count message or the playoff-winner message — both stop the signing and leave the button in place.

If the protocol is stuck with the wrong writer, the fix is not to sign it from another account but to remove the writer — see "Changing the protocol writer".