The referee register, roles and referee types
How a federation maintains its list of referees — levels, sports, districts and contact details — where those referees come from, and how the official slots on a match and the referee types used by tournaments are configured.
Looking for something else? Referee registration for a tournament Referee setup: assigning, publishing and restoring referees on matches Appointing referees across a series
The referee register is a federation's own list of the people who referee its matches. It is kept once, at federation level, and every season, series and tournament that federation runs reads from the same list.
A person is entered in the register per sport and per referee level. The same person can therefore appear with two levels in the same sport, or with one level in indoor volleyball and another in beach volleyball — those are separate entries on the same person.
Three things are constantly mixed up, and it helps to keep them apart:
- The register — who counts as a referee in this federation at all, and how to reach them.
- The referee level — the grade the federation has registered on that person. Used mainly to filter and to decide who may do what.
- The role on a match — main referee, assistant, secretary, timekeeper, delegate, and so on. These are the slots a match has, and each federation has its own set.
Signing up as a referee for a single tournament, and putting referees on actual matches, are separate jobs with their own pages — see What this page does not cover at the end.
- Putting referees on series matches — nominating, switching, publishing, referee groups and fixed pairs are all in the series appointment console. See Appointing referees across a series.
- Putting referees on a single tournament's matches — see Referee setup: assigning, publishing and restoring referees on matches.
- Referees signing up for one tournament — the sign-up form, what it asks for, and how the organiser opens and closes it. See Referee registration for a tournament. Signing up there does not add anybody to the federation register.
- What a referee sees and maintains themselves — assignments, availability, photo, calendar subscription. See The referee's own pages.
- Fees and money — see Submitting a referee expense claim and Reviewing and paying referee claims.
- What a delegate report or fair play report asks for, and who may read it — see Delegate reports and fair play reports.
- Federations, districts, sports and the club register — see Federations, districts, sports and other base data.
Other federations
The referee register looks noticeably different between federations, because most of it is configured per federation rather than chosen by the user.
| Federation | What is different |
|---|---|
| Swedish Handball | The only federation with the full set: add referees by hand, import from file, edit referee person data, change referee level, change district, show identity numbers, and the Find duplicates / Merge referees buttons. Districts have the same referee rights as the federation. The referee list is titled Referees/officials. |
| Swedish Basketball | The register is built from the licence system, and the only federation where that import is actually switched on. Districts may send referee logins to referees, but cannot open the calendars of referees in other districts. Referees are not added by hand and levels are not changed from the register page. |
| Swedish Rugby | Add by hand, edit person data, change level and change district are open. Changing a referee's sport is switched on, but the sport column is hidden on this federation's page, so there is nothing to change it with — ask support if you need it. Club is hidden too. |
| Swedish Water Polo | Add by hand, edit person data and change level are open; sport and club columns are hidden, and district cannot be changed. |
| Swedish Bandy | Referee levels can be changed, but referees are not added by hand and district cannot be changed. |
| Swedish Beach Volleyball | Neither adding referees nor changing levels from the register page — the register comes from elsewhere. |
| Norwegian Rugby, Federation of International Bandy | Add referees by hand, edit person data and change referee level. |
Everything above is federation configuration, not a user setting: if a button is missing for you, it is switched off for your federation; contact Profixio support to change it.
One thing is not federation-specific, although it looks it: which referee levels are offered at all. Every federation is given its own selection from the shared catalogue, and that is why two federations see different level lists. It is the same mechanism everywhere.
Rules such as "only this level may referee this division" are federation policy. Profixio can warn about them in the league system, but the register itself does not enforce them.
For other roles
The Referees menu item (whistle icon) opens the federation's referee list. In Swedish handball the same page is called Referees/officials.
Who can open it
- Federation-level users: always.
- District-level users: only when the federation has switched on Allow referees to see contact list.
- Referees themselves: only when that same setting is on. They reach it through Conctact List in their own menu.
Everybody else gets a "no access" page, even with a direct link.
What it shows
One card per person: photo, name, District, the person's Dommerlevel badges, mobile number, e-mail address and town. Mobile and e-mail have a copy button. Federation and district users also see an Assignments count — the number of series matches that person is appointed to in the selected season.
Narrowing the list
- Search — free text over first name, last name, e-mail and mobile.
- District — one district at a time.
- Dommerlevel — one referee level at a time; only levels your federation uses are offered.
- Poststed — free text on the town.
- Season — federation and district users only. It changes the Assignments count, and your choice is remembered while you are signed in.
Only people who hold at least one active referee entry in your federation appear here. Somebody who has been set inactive, or who is registered in another federation, is not in this list.
What you cannot do here
This page is a contact list. There is no add, edit or delete on it. Changes to the register itself are made on the federation administration page described below.
The photo is the one exception: federation administrators can change any referee's photo, district administrators can when the contact list setting is on, and referees can change their own.
A referee level — labelled Dommerlevel in the referee list — is the grade the federation has registered on a person. Names differ completely between federations: a grade, a step, a licence class, or a functional label such as a referee appointer.
How levels are set up
There is one shared catalogue of level names in the system, and each federation picks the subset it uses. For its own subset a federation also controls the order the levels are listed in, and which levels give access to the electronic match protocol.
Contact Profixio support to add or rename a level, or to change which levels your federation uses.
What a level is used for
- Filtering the referee list.
- Filtering the pool of referees when appointing them to matches, and as the starting point when building a referee group.
- Deciding who may open the electronic match protocol. A referee whose level is marked as allowed can open the protocol for matches in that federation.
- Some federations attach the level to what the referee is paid — see the referee fee pages.
Rules of the kind "only a level 3 referee may take this division" are federation policy; apply them when you appoint referees.
A separate competence list exists in the league system
The older league system (PL) keeps its own list of referee competences, per season, with a numeric ranking and its own names, set up in PL. That is what produces PL's competence warning on a match. It is a different list from the referee levels described on this page, and the two are maintained separately — changing one does not change the other.
The register itself is maintained in the older federation administration.
Federation-level users can open it and change it. District-level users get their own version of the page, but they only get the editing actions (New referee, changing what is registered, signing in as a referee) in federations where districts have been given the same referee rights as the federation. Elsewhere the page is read-only for them.
The list
One row per person, grouped so that a person who referees in two sports appears once per sport with their levels listed. The list opens filtered to active referees only — clear the filter on the inactive column to see everybody. Columns can be shown and hidden, and the visible rows can be exported to Excel or PDF.
Depending on the federation, the row shows: name, e-mail, mobile, address, postcode and town, date of birth, personal identity number, district, club, sport, referee levels, a calendar icon for that referee, the number of matches in the current season, and where the person's data came from.
Adding a referee
The New referee button opens the table's own add dialog. Fill in first name, last name, e-mail, referee level and sport — all five are required — plus mobile, address and the district's short name if you want them. Where the federation shows identity numbers, that field is required too.
There is no "search for this person first" step, and this is worth understanding. Saving runs exactly the same routine as the file import: it looks for an existing person by identity number only, and attaches the new referee entry to them if it finds one. If it does not find one, it creates a brand new person.
So in the federations that do not use identity numbers, adding somebody who is already in the system by hand creates a second person record rather than reusing the first. Check whether the person already exists before using the button, and see Duplicates below if one slips through.
The button only exists in federations where adding referees by hand is switched on.
Changing what is registered
- Referee level and sport — open the small sub-table on the referee's row. It lists the levels that person holds per sport. You can add a level, change one, or take one away. Only levels your federation uses are offered, and a level the person already holds for that sport is not offered again.
- District — editable in the federations that allow it.
- Contact details — editable where the federation is allowed to edit referee person data. Where the data comes from a member system, the member system stays the master and edits can be overwritten on the next import.
- Inactive — a checkbox on the row; see the next section.
Helping a referee get in
The row has actions to create a user account for the referee, to send a new password by e-mail or by SMS, and to sign in as that referee after a confirmation prompt, which is the fastest way to see what they see.
Signing in as a referee works for federation-level users only. District administrators do not get it even in the federations where districts otherwise have the same referee rights — the link is shown to them, but the page behind it refuses.
Duplicates
Swedish handball has two extra buttons: Find duplicates, which re-lists the register by identical e-mail, identical name or identical mobile number, and Merge referees, which merges a selected pair after showing you which person is kept and which is removed. A duplicated referee breaks the referee calendar, the assignments shown in the app, and sometimes the expense side, so it is worth cleaning up rather than living with.
Bulk import
Swedish handball can also import referees from a file. Each row needs first name, last name, e-mail, personal identity number, referee level and sport, and may carry the district's short name. The import finds an existing person by identity number, or creates one, attaches the referee level or levels, links the district and connects the e-mail address as the referee's login.
A referee entry is either active or not, and only active entries count. An inactive entry means the person keeps their history — old matches, old claims — but disappears from the referee list, from the pick lists when appointing, and from the contact list.
There are two separate switches behind this, and they behave differently:
- The inactive checkbox on the referee's row is the one federation administrators use. Tick it to take a referee out of circulation, untick it to bring them back.
- A second, older flag exists; contact Profixio support to change it. If a referee looks inactive but the checkbox is clear, that is the one to ask about.
Taking a level away does not delete anything. Removing a level from a referee's sub-table sets that entry inactive; the row stays.
Whole-register resets happen. Where the register is built from a licence system, a separate pre-season step sets every referee entry inactive in one go, and the ordinary import then reactivates everybody the licence system still lists. The import itself never deactivates anyone — only that reset does. If a referee vanishes from the list around a season change, this is nearly always why: the licence system did not send them, or they could not be matched.
A person can reach the register in four ways.
1. From the federation's member system, continuously. Swedish federations are synchronised from the national member system. Every person message is inspected, roles in the "officials" category are picked out, and matching referee entries are created, updated or deactivated together with the person's club and district links. This runs by itself and has to be switched on per federation.
2. From a licence or education system. Swedish basketball builds its register from who holds a valid referee licence. The import runs about once an hour through the day and only ever activates: it sets everybody it is told about to active and never deactivates anybody. Clearing the register before a new season is a separate step, run once — see the previous section. That combination is what makes a referee who is no longer licensed disappear at the season change.
The import can only work with people it can identify. Somebody the source system already knows is matched even when the message carries no reference to the national register; but a person Profixio has never seen, sent without such a reference, cannot be created at all, and stays out of the register until the federation links their account in the source system.
3. By hand, on the federation administration page — see the previous section.
4. From a file, where bulk import is switched on.
Nothing here creates a referee from a tournament sign-up. A person who signs up as a referee for one tournament is a participant in that tournament, not an entry in the federation's register.
In series play each match has a fixed set of official slots, and the set is defined per federation. That is why a handball match has a secretary and a timekeeper while a basketball match has a crew chief and umpires — the appointment screen simply shows one column per role your federation has defined.
The standard sets are:
| Federation | Roles on a match |
|---|---|
| Swedish Handball | Domare, Domare, Sekreterare, Tidtagare, Delegat, Delegat, DI |
| Swedish Basketball | CREW_CHIEF, UMPIRE, UMPIRE, COMMISSIONER, Referee supervisor |
| Swedish Beach Volleyball | 1:a domare, 2:a domare, Linjedomare 1–4 |
| Swedish Bandy | HD, AD1, AD2, 4:e, SV, MI |
| Swedish Rugby | HD, AD1, AD2, MD1, MD2, ML |
| Federation of International Bandy | Head Referee, Assistant Referee 1, Assistant Referee 2, Fourth Official, Supervisor |
A federation can have its own edited set instead: names, order and which roles are still in use are all changeable. What you see on the appointment screen is what is actually configured, and the table above is only the set each federation started from.
A slot holds at most one person — putting somebody new in a slot clears whoever was there. The number of roles is the number of slots a match has; there is no separate "how many referees" setting. Turning a role off removes that column for every match in the federation, so it is not something to try mid-season.
Contact Profixio support to change the roles. Renaming one is safe; changing the order or the internal numbering is not, and support will tell you the same.
Permissions decide which matches somebody may work on.
Standalone tournaments do not use the federation's series roles. They use a separate, system-wide list of referee types, and the same list does two jobs:
- it is what a referee chooses when signing up for a tournament, next to a free-text grade field, and
- it names the referee slots on a tournament match — typically a main referee, two assistants, a fourth official and a supervisor.
Each type has a name, a position number that decides which slot it is, and the text shown in the interface. Handball tournaments are a special case: the second slot is always presented as Hoveddommer 1 ("Main referee 1") rather than as an assistant.
The list is shared by all tournaments in the system, not owned per federation or per tournament. Contact Profixio support to request a new type; the change affects every tournament. If your tournament needs a wording of its own, the free-text grade field on the sign-up form is usually the better answer.
A federation user can carry a Referee Admin flag. It is set on the person's federation membership, on the Federation Users list of the federation, by somebody who administers users for that federation.
What the flag does:
- it lets the holder into the series referee console and into its administrative tabs, including handing out referee permissions to other people;
- it lets the holder see the real names of officials in competitions the federation has made anonymous — though it is not the only way through: somebody given rights to one specific competition also sees the names in that competition.
The flag also lets the holder switch anonymity on or off. That is set per competition: to show referees anonymously in a competition, open Competition settings in the series referee console and set Anonymous referee for that competition.
The flag is deliberately narrow. Somebody who holds only this flag can work with referees but does not get the rest of the federation's administration.
What the flag unlocks inside the appointment console — which matches, which competitions, which permissions can be handed on — is described on the series appointment page.
A tournament has its own small referee-report administration, reached from Reports in the tournament's Referee menu.
It has two parts:
- Incoming Reports — every report referees have handed in for this tournament, with the match it belongs to and the referee who wrote it. Each row can be opened for editing, viewed as PDF or downloaded. Select rows and use Send report by email to send each selected report to its referee as a PDF attachment. Download Reports as ZIP packs every report in the tournament into one archive.
- Referees — every referee registered for this tournament, whether or not they ended up on a match, with how many reports they have handed in, how many matches they have had, and the average, lowest and highest grade they have been given. Mobile number, e-mail and date of birth can be corrected directly in the table; the rest is read-only. The table can be exported to Excel.
Access needs the tournament's referee-reports permission; a full tournament administrator has it automatically.
What a report asks for is configured elsewhere — see the delegate and fair play reports page.
| Setting | What it does | Where it is set | Also means |
|---|---|---|---|
| Allow referees to see contact list | Opens the Referees list to referees and to district-level users | Set per federation. | Referees get a Conctact List menu item; district administrators may also change referee photos |
| Referee Admin (checkbox on a federation user) | Referee administration rights for that federation | Federation → Federation Users, set by somebody who administers users there | Also lets the holder see through referee anonymity, and switch it on or off per competition under Competition settings in the series referee console |
| Referee levels used by the federation, their order, and Allow matchprotocol per level | Defines the Dommerlevel values offered everywhere, and which levels open the electronic match protocol | Contact Profixio support to change it. | Removing a level in use hides referees who hold only that level from the level filter |
| Roles on a series match | Defines the official slots every match in the federation has | Contact Profixio support to change it. | Directly decides how many officials a match can hold |
| Tournament referee types | The types a referee can sign up as, and the slots on a tournament match | Contact Profixio support to change it. | Shared by every tournament in the system |
| Add referees by hand / import referees from file / edit referee person data / change referee level / change sport / change district / show identity number | Which of these the federation administration page offers at all | Fixed per federation in the product configuration; ask support to change | Explains why two federations see different buttons on the same page |
| District has the same referee rights as the federation | Lets district-level users maintain the register, not only read it | Fixed per federation; ask support | Currently Swedish handball only |
| Inactive (checkbox on a referee row) | Takes a referee out of every list and pick list, keeps their history | Federation administration → Referees | Removing a referee level does the same thing to that one entry |
Work down the list; the cause is nearly always one of these.
- Are you in the right federation and the right sport? The register is per federation, and a referee entry is per sport. Someone who referees beach volleyball is not automatically in the indoor list.
- Is the entry active? Open the federation administration page, clear the filter on the inactive column and search again. If the person is there but struck through or ticked as inactive, untick it.
- Was the season reset? Federations that import from a licence system deactivate everybody before a new season and let the import bring back whoever is still licensed. If a whole group disappeared at once, the import is the place to look, not the register.
- Did the import skip them? A person the source system cannot identify is skipped quietly. The person, and even their licence, can look perfectly fine while the referee entry never gets reactivated. Contact Profixio support to find out why the person was skipped.
- Do they hold a level your federation uses? A referee whose only level is not in your federation's selection will not match the level filter.
- Is it a duplicate? Two person records for the same human split the matches, the calendar and the claims between them. Use Find duplicates and merge, where that is available.
- Missing from the contact list only? That page needs Allow referees to see contact list for district users and referees. Federation users always see it.
- Missing from the appointment screen only? Then the register is fine and the problem is in the appointment console — competition, district or anonymity — see the series appointment page.
See also
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