Tournament Notifications
ChessRoster sends two distinct types of notifications: organizer alerts for registration activity, and player pairing notifications via SMS and email. Both are configured in the tournament form.
Preview feature: SMS pairing notifications are in preview and not fully active in production. Enabling the setting in your tournament form will make the opt-in visible to players, but end-to-end delivery is still being rolled out.
Organizer Notifications
Staff members can be notified by email when registration activity occurs — new registrations, withdrawals, and bye requests.
How to Configure
Open the tournament form
Edit your tournament (or create a new one) and navigate to the Organizer Notifications step (step 6 in the creation wizard).
Add staff to notification groups
The step shows a pool of staff and external directors. Drag members into one of two groups:
- Registration Events – Any Time: Sends immediately for every registration, withdrawal, or bye request.
- Registration Events – Within 24 Hours: Sends only when the tournament is within 24 hours of its start time. Useful for reducing noise during a long pre-registration period.
A staff member can appear in both groups. They can only be in one timing group per notification type.
Save the tournament
Assignments take effect on save. No emails are sent unless you explicitly assign recipients.
Who Can Be Added
The notification pool includes:
- All staff with ADMIN or TOURNAMENT_DIRECTOR roles in your organization
- External tournament directors you added in the Directors step
Only organizer admins can assign notification recipients — tournament directors cannot modify this setting.
Player Pairing Notifications (SMS and Email)
When enabled, players can opt in to receive SMS and/or email notifications when round pairings are posted.
How to Enable
Open the tournament form
Edit your tournament and navigate to the Player Notifications step (step 8 in the creation wizard).
Enable pairing notifications
Toggle Enable pairing notifications on. This adds a pairing notifications opt-in step to the player registration flow, where players can choose SMS and/or email notifications.
Save the tournament
Players who register after this is enabled will see the notification opt-in during registration.
What Players Experience
During registration, players see a Pairing Notifications step where they can opt in to SMS and/or email notifications. Opting in is fully voluntary — it is not required to complete registration.
Players can opt in through three paths:
- During tournament registration (checkboxes in the registration flow)
- From the tournament page in their player account
- By replying START to any ChessRoster SMS (for SMS notifications)
Players can opt out by:
- Replying STOP to any ChessRoster SMS
- Updating notification preferences in their player profile
The Approval Workflow
After you upload pairings from SwissSys, ChessRoster detects the new data and prepares a notification release. Directors receive an approval email before any notifications are sent.
Pairings are uploaded
You submit pairings in SwissSys and upload to ChessRoster. The system detects the new round data automatically.
Approval email is sent
All tournament directors receive an email asking them to review and approve the notification release.
Director approves
A director clicks the approval link in the email. This triggers SMS and email delivery to all subscribed players in the affected sections.
TTL expires if not approved
If no director approves within 1 hour, the release expires and notifications are not sent for that round.
Notification Quota
Each tournament has a notification quota based on paid registrations. You can review your tournament’s notification activity from the tournament management panel.
The Global Consent Model
Important: SMS consent in ChessRoster is tied to a player’s phone number, not to a specific tournament. When a player replies STOP to any ChessRoster SMS, they are unsubscribed from all ChessRoster notifications across every tournament — not just yours. You cannot override or reset a player’s opt-out status on their behalf.
Consent states you may encounter:
| State | Meaning |
|---|---|
| Subscribed | Player has opted in and will receive notifications. |
| Pending Confirmation | First opt-in attempt is waiting for the player to confirm via reply. |
| Unsubscribed | Player replied STOP or opted out in their profile. No SMS will be sent. |
If a player tells you they are not receiving notifications, direct them to their player profile to review their consent status.
Troubleshooting
Staff members are not appearing in the notification pool.
Make sure the person has been added to your organization with an ADMIN or TOURNAMENT_DIRECTOR role. External directors added in the Directors step also appear in the pool. See Managing Organizer & Staff for instructions.
Players are not seeing the notification opt-in during registration.
Confirm that Enable pairing notifications is toggled on in the Player Notifications step of the tournament form. Players who registered before this was enabled will not see the opt-in retroactively.
A player opted in but is not receiving SMS.
The player may have replied STOP at some point, setting their consent status to Unsubscribed. Because this is a global consent record, you cannot resubscribe them. The player must opt back in themselves — either by replying START or updating their profile settings.
The approval email arrived but pairings notifications were not sent.
The approval window is 1 hour. If no director approved within that window, the release expired. Upload and resubmit pairings to trigger a new approval email.
Related Topics
- Creating Tournaments — Full walkthrough of the tournament creation wizard
- Managing Participants — View and manage individual registrations
- Managing Organizer & Staff — Add staff so they can receive notifications