Creating and Assigning Staff Roles

Last updated October 2026  ·  6 min read

You can’t run a tournament alone, and you shouldn’t hand your director login to a volunteer either. Each helper gets their own Taikai App account, a role in your tournament, and only the permissions their job needs.

One account for every role

A person uses one Taikai App account for everything. The same account can be a competitor, a parent, a coach, a judge and staff, in your tournament or in others. Their roles show on their account page under My roles, and they get one badge with one QR code that covers every role they hold in your tournament.

Built-in roles

• Coach: registers and manages competitors from their dojo. See Coach and team registration access.
• Judge: officiates. Judges can be seated on a tatami and vote from the judge device.
• Staff: volunteers. At sign-up they choose a job: Scoreboard Operator, Check-in, Awards or General Volunteer. The job sets their default permissions.
• Parent: guardians linked to competitors.

How judges and staff sign up

Your public tournament page has Officials and Staff tabs. While registration is open, each tab is a short sign-up form instead of a list of names. To hide these tabs, turn off Officials / Judges or Staff under Settings → Tournament Info, in Public Page – What’s Visible.

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  Sign in A visitor who is not signed in sees Sign in or create an account. Creating an account takes a minute, and they come back to the form.
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  Fill in the details Everyone gives a WhatsApp number and picks their availability for each tournament day. Judges choose their rank. Staff choose how they want to help and an adult unisex shirt size (XS to XXL).
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  Click Submit They see Registration sent! and the application waits for your approval.

Approving applications

Applications land in Role Approvals. Open it from the Approvals button on the tournament’s card in your director dashboard. Filter by All, Pending, Approved or Declined, then click Approve or Decline for each person. Only the director approves applications.

Adding people yourself

• Invite by email. Click Staff on the tournament’s card in your director dashboard, then use Invite by Email and pick Coach, Judge or Staff. Someone who already has an account is added right away. Anyone else gets a sign-up link and is added when they create their account.
• Assign a user as judge. On the Judges page of the tournament manager, click Assign a user as judge and search people who already have a Taikai App account by name or email. They are added as an approved judge and notified. The director, or staff with the Assign judges permission, can do this.
• Add by hand. + Add Official on the Judges page and + Add Staff on the Staff page add people who have no account. For an official with an email, open the … menu and choose Send invitation to email them the judge sign-up link (it becomes Resend invitation afterwards). People added by hand have no permissions and no app access until they have an account.

Someone who signs up and is also on your list is shown once, not twice.

My roles: people manage their own roles

On their account page, each person sees My roles. From there they can:

• Remove one of their roles, for example stop being a coach but stay on as a judge. Their badge then shows only their other roles. If it was their last role, their participation in the event ends, but the account stays. You get a notice when someone removes a role.
• Use Add me as a coach, Add me as a judge or Add me as staff to apply for a role they don’t hold. Judges give their rank and phone, staff give their shirt size, and both pick their availability. The request waits for your approval.
• Update their availability and, for staff, their shirt size. See Availability, referee classes and shirt sizes.

Custom roles

Built-in roles say what someone is. Custom roles say what they can do. Under Settings → Staff Roles you’ll find the Staff Roles & Permissions panel:

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  Name the role For example "Head Judge", "Check-in Desk" or "Awards Table".
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  Pick its permissions Any combination of the eleven permissions. See Available permissions explained.
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  Create the role Click Create Role. The role can now be assigned to any approved member.

Assigning roles to members

The Member Role Assignments section lists every approved member with a dropdown to attach a custom role. From that moment their account carries the role’s permissions in your tournament, and only in your tournament. To give one person something different from their role, use the per-person toggles on the Staff page.

For seating judges on tatamis, see Running multiple tatamis.

What staff see on event day

Approved staff and judges open their staff page from their account. Each tournament card shows the buttons their permissions allow, such as Open Scoreboard, Check-in or Awards. Those buttons stay locked until the person is checked in at the venue (Functions unlock once the event director checks you in), so check your crew in first. See QR code check-in.