Setup

Setting the Basics

Navigate to Staff -> Fair Setup to configure most things for your fair. There are 6 tiles with various pages and setting modals that you will see and have the ability to configure but the first place to start is in the top left with the blue Start Here! tile.

General Information

Title, Subtitle, Logo, Fair Abbreviation, Fair Location Name, Director Name & Number, Fair Address, Point of Contact Name, Email & Phone Number and the Description for your Fair can all be configured on this page.

• You also have the ability to renumber all projects on this page

Schedule

Here you can set the important dates for your fair. Optional dates don't need set but they do impact the system depending on the setting so be sure to keep that in mind.

These dates are public and viewable on the Fair -> Schedule page

For additional information on Registration see the Registration section below

Settings

This is where you turn on/off and configure all the features you want for your fair. This page also allows you to specify which built in questions to ask Students, Teachers, Judges etc... (If there is something not asked here then you can always add it later in the Custom Questions section but these fields are recognized by the system and part of / used by other features so use these if at all possible). This will take some time to get through, but remember most of this will only need to be done once and all settings are saved from year to year. It would be wise to glance though each year as we are updating and adding new features. If you see a premium feature that you want that is not turned on it may be that that feature was not included with the plan you purchased. If you would like to add a feature just let us know.

Categories

Add, Remove or Edit Categories for your fair on the Staff -> Fair Setup -> Categories page.

Categories are for your convenience and we offer a standard set of ISEF categories with each new fair we create

• You can add to, edit or remove these as needed to fit your fair
• Category Abbreviations are used in Project IDs values

Rubrics can be created specific to each category (Configured on the Judging -> Setup -> Rubrics page)

Sub-Categories and Sub-Sub-Categories are available as well if needed or wanted and can be Created, Removed or Edited on their respective pages

• Staff -> Fair Setup -> Sub-Categories
• Staff -> Fair Setup -> Sub-Sub-Categories

Customize Text

This section will take some time. Remember it is saved from year to year and many times it's just dates that need changes. All pages can be customized. You will notice that it is broken up into sections such as “General” and “Students” this is letting you know who will be able to see these pages. Ctrl f is an amazing feature that allows you to search a page for a specific text on a page. This can help you easily find and change dates year to year.

Other places you can customize the pages and text for your site are the Staff -> Fair Setup -> Customize System Text page and the Staff -> Fair Setup -> Guidelines & Requirements page.

Guidelines & Requirements

This is where you will set up the rules for your fair and configure statements, agreements or items for each participant to review.

• You can require that they acknowledge they've read and or accept the statements here with a checkbox that is tracked with a date & time in the system.

Ask Your Own Questions

If there was a question you needed to ask or another piece of information not asked / covered in the basics this is where you can set that up and configure it. Custom Questions are a way for you to tailor a number of things about your fair including asking for additional information during the registration flow and capturing and displaying additional information in Online Judging & the Showcase. There are 6 different Custom Question types. All of which are asked during registration of their given user type.

• Student's Custom Questions
• Project's Custom Questions - Unique in that they can be displayed in Online Judging
• Teacher's Custom Questions
• Judge's Custom Questions
• Volunteer's Custom Questions
• Attendee's Custom Questions

Divisions & Awards

Awards

Awards are broken out into two main types, Category Awards and Special Awards, and while similar each is handled a little different.

Category Awards

Category Awards are available for each Category and only need created once. Another way to phrase that is if you create a First Place Category Award, each Category on your fair will have that award available to it. You can Create, Edit or Remove Category awards on the Staff -> Fair Setup -> Category Awards page

• You can only award a single category award to each project (Attempts to assign additional Category Awards will overwrite the previously assigned award and not add to it)
• Category Awards are used in connection with Promoting Students from your fair to the next / another fair.

Special Awards

Special Awards are the wild cards of awards. They can be for anything and any number of them can be assigned to any one project. This is where things like Professional Society Awards, Sponsored Awards, Best in Show Awards, etc become part of your fair. You can Create, Edit or Remove Special awards on the Staff -> Fair Setup -> Special Awards page.

• The Special Award Info report in the report viewer provides a single source to get all of the Special Award information currently in your fair.

Branding Styling

You can adjust the styling for your Contest / Fair on the Staff -> Fair Setup -> Custom Styling page

Registration

Registration for your fair is configured in several places: (Start on the Staff -> Fair Setup page)

Schedule

• Here you set when Registration starts and ends, if there is a Late Registration period and if you want there to be a Student Information Freeze period.

Settings -> User & Registration Type Settings

• Here you can enable or disable registration for each user type and what information you want to collect for each one

Settings -> Fair Features & Settings

• There are a few settings here for registration including if you want to make registration private and whether you want to hide the Register Next button at the end of a registration flow

Registration Date Details

Student Registration Starts

This date sets when you want to start accepting / allowing students to register. Importing Students via the Import Data page is not impacted by this date

Student Registration Ends

This sets the first cut off date for student registration but may not prevent students from registering if you have a Student Registration Late End Date configured to be a later date and time

Student Registration Late End Date

This sets the final cut off date for student registration and, if there is a late registration fee configured, requires the student to pay the late registration fee

• NOTE: Student Registration Late End Date is only impactful / useful if you have a late fee configured (Staff -> Fair Setup -> Settings -> Fair Features & Settings -> Registration Fees -> Late Fee:). If there is no fee configured then the Student Registration Late End Date is effectively the same as and overrides the Student Registration Ends date.
• Set the Student Registration Late End Date to be the same value as the Student Registration Ends date if you are not planning on charging a late fee in order to avoid confusion.

Student Information Freeze

Non Staff / Admin users will no longer be able to edit any student or project information after this date

• This includes all of the information that a student has access to when they go to their Profile, Paperwork and Project Dashboard pages.