Create a director-managed tournament flow and finals rules

Use Director Managed when the event needs deliberate bout order, separate sessions, selected finals mats, dual-tournament brackets, or different rules for different parts of the tournament. Switch from the event’s Match Scheduling setting, or choose Switch to Director Managed on Match Publishing.

In Director Managed you create rules (a wizard makes a whole plan of them), then Run each plan or rule. Run builds any missing brackets, reviews bout numbers and queues, and loads the mats you choose. Guided plan and Auto-balance brackets save their rules and planned mats without building bouts, numbering, or queueing them. Choose Run… on the saved plan when you’re ready. Schedule dual brackets can build missing duals and prepares their queues when you save; you still use Run to load mats.

Choose the right scheduling tool

Director-Managed Scheduling has three guided tools and one open editor:

• Guided plan picks a session, which divisions share a queue, and their mats. It can run pool brackets by stage and pull Finals and other medal bouts onto their own mats.
• Auto-balance brackets distributes individual brackets across selected mats while keeping every bracket on one mat.
• Schedule dual brackets prepares multi-mat dual tournaments in round order, with one team-versus-team dual on each planned mat.
• Custom rule lets you choose the filters yourself: divisions, tournament rounds, brackets, pools, and placement bouts.

When you first switch to Director Managed, Snapdown leaves the rule list empty and asks how you want to schedule the tournament. Later, choose Add. It does not create an All matches rule for you. The guided choices appear only when they apply: dual scheduling requires a dual-tournament bracket.

For which tool fits which event, with step-by-step examples, see Plan your tournament schedule.

Auto-balance excludes dual-tournament containers. Use Schedule dual brackets when a dual bracket has more than one team matchup in a round.

Plan divisions, queues, and finals

Choose Guided plan when every active mat should draw from one shared queue, or when groups of divisions need separate queues:

1. Session: name the plan and choose its session number.
2. Queues: pick the divisions and mats for Queue 1. For one shared running order, put all the participating divisions and mats in that queue. Use Add another queue for divisions with their own mats. Mats are optional; you can choose them in Run.
3. Stages, when available: keep pool brackets running straight through, or choose Pools first, then the rest. To hold selected medal bouts apart, turn on Finals run separately, pick the placements, and optionally plan their mats. Unselected medal bouts stay in the main queues.
4. Numbering: choose One sequence for this plan, A range for each queue, or Another rule already numbers them. The last choice requires a numbering rule covering those divisions before the plan can run.
5. Review: check the queues, stages, and numbers. Expand Show the N rules this creates to review the exact rules, then choose Save plan.

See Plan your tournament schedule for the full walkthrough, including queue depth and session-number examples.

Auto-balance individual brackets across mats

Choose Auto-balance brackets from Add:

1. Divisions: name the plan, set its Session, and select the divisions. The wizard shows their bracket and bout counts.
2. Mats: select the mats. One mat works too. Under Advanced, set Queue depth: the default is Unlimited, or choose how many bouts should wait on each mat. If brackets aren’t ready, choose Save for later, then Balance brackets… on the saved setup once they exist.
3. Balance: choose Balanced to minimize the difference in total bouts per mat, or Sequential to keep division and weight-class order together as the mats fill. A bracket is atomic: all of its bouts stay on the same mat. Move a bracket to the previous or next mat when operational needs matter more than the displayed balance.
4. Review: check each mat’s bouts and number range, then choose Save plan.

The wizard creates one numbering-and-assignment rule per mat. Session 1 begins with mat-specific ranges such as 101 and 201; session 2 reads 2-101, 2-201. If one mat has more than 100 bouts, Snapdown automatically uses a larger numbering block. See Keep each bracket on one mat.

Saving adds one plan row containing the rules for its mats. Choose Run… on that row to run them together when the mats are ready. Missing brackets can be built inside Run. Each rule uses the queue depth you chose; Unlimited loads every ready bout, while a limited depth keeps mats refilling as bouts finish.

Auto-balance optimizes match counts, not predicted duration, team travel, or spectator convenience. The adjustment step is where you keep a special division together or move a large bracket to a preferred mat.

Schedule a dual tournament across several mats

Choose Schedule dual brackets when one tournament round contains multiple team-versus-team duals:

1. Select brackets that no rule covers yet. Finish any blocked bracket’s team setup on Brackets first.
2. Pick mats for each stage. The wizard recommends enough to wrestle a full round concurrently; fewer mats work, but some duals wait. Pool and placement stages can use different mats.
3. Review, then choose Save plan, or Build & save plan when duals need building.

Saving creates the rules and prepares queues in tournament-round order. Pool rules using the same mat set can combine; placement stages run later. Choose Run… on a rule to load its planned mats. If selected matches are already loaded, saving warns that they will leave their current mats and enter the new queues; review that confirmation before continuing. See Build a single dual or dual tournament.

Build a custom rule

Use Custom rule for filters the guided tools don’t offer, such as selected tournament rounds or only some brackets:

1. Enter Rule name.
2. Choose Number bouts, Assign bouts to mats, or both. For numbering, set Start at and Session. For assignment, set Queue depth and optionally Planned mats.
3. Select the divisions, tournament rounds, brackets, pools, or placement bouts this rule covers.
4. Choose Save rule, then use Run… to apply it.

An assignment-only rule uses numbers supplied by a separate numbering rule. Its queue doesn’t add a session prefix; set the session on the rule that supplies the numbers. See How session numbers affect bout numbers.

Schedule placement matches

Guided plan handles the normal case: on its Stages step, choose which medal bouts run separately and on which mats, and Snapdown creates the matching queue and placement rules together. See Run finals on featured mats. For an unusual staged or per-mat breakdown, create the rules yourself with Custom rule.

In Custom rule, the Placement bouts row sets what the rule covers:

• Include all includes everything allowed by the other filters.
• Exclude placement bouts leaves every Final and medal match out of the rule.
• Placement bouts only targets the placements you pick under Placements in this rule.

These scopes describe two independent facts. A Championship or Consolation bout describes the side of the bracket it comes from. A placement describes what the bout decides: Finals is place 1, Third place is place 3, Fifth place is place 5, and so on. The championship Final is therefore both a Championship bout and a place-1 bout; the third-place match is both a Consolation bout and a place-3 bout.

Use Exclude placement bouts on the broader assignment rule whenever separate placement rules will handle those bouts. The assignment groups then do not overlap or depend on rule order. You can combine a placement scope with bracket filters, so an event can send odd and even Finals or Third-place brackets to different planned mats after reducing the number of active mats.

For example, to run two rounds on eight mats, continue on six mats, and then split placement matches:

1. Create one numbering-only rule that covers every bout (Placement bouts: Include all). Choose Review bout numbers on it and apply once so every bout keeps one event-wide number.
2. Create an assignment-only rule for Tournament Rounds 1 and 2. Plan Mats 1–8.
3. Create another assignment-only rule for the later rounds. Choose Exclude placement bouts and plan Mats 1–6. Every placement match is held back automatically.
4. Create a Placement bouts only Finals rule, select the brackets in the first split, and plan its mat. Create another Finals rule for the remaining brackets and its mat.
5. Repeat step 4 for Third-place or any other held-back placement.
6. Run each assignment rule when that phase and its mats are ready.

For a split across two days, see Schedule a two-day tournament.

Keep the tournament-round filters in steps 2 and 3 separate. Also keep the bracket selections in each pair of placement rules separate. The explicit placement exclusion in step 3 is what stops Finals and medal bouts from entering the six-mat queue early.

Queue rules may overlap when you want a ready alternative. Building one doesn’t remove a bout from another rule’s queue or change a live mat. Use explicit placement exclusions in this Finals workflow because these rules are meant to be mutually exclusive; overlap on purpose when you’re preparing a combined or fallback rule, then run it with Replace what’s waiting when you want the planned mats to pull from it instead.

Run a rule or plan

Each rule row on Match Publishing shows where it stands: brackets built, bouts numbered, bouts queued, and which mats it’s on. It shows Out of date when a bracket in it changed.

• Run… opens the whole Run screen for that rule. It reads Update & run… when a bracket changed.
• Review bout numbers opens Run at the numbering step only, for numbering-only rules or to number before the mats are ready.
• Select several rules and choose Run selected… to run them together. A plan made by a wizard has one Run… on its row that runs all of its rules.

Run checks four steps in order and only changes what is out of date. Numbers, queues, and mat loads save when you press the button at the bottom, which says what it will do, such as Load 48 bouts or Save queue. Bracket builds and updates are a separate save, described below.

1. Brackets. Builds brackets that were never built (Build N brackets) or updates ones that changed (Update N brackets). Unbuilt brackets show as a step to take, not an error. These builds save right away, even if you cancel Run.
2. Bout numbers. New bouts get numbers. Existing numbers stay put unless a bracket structurally changed: Run renumbers that bracket’s unwrestled bouts in round order while the other brackets keep their numbers. A bout that has to fit between two numbered bouts takes a free number or a letter, like 214.A. Turn on Renumber everything to give every unstarted bout a clean sequence. Preview by round shows the order.
3. Queue. Adds new bouts ahead of the bout they should run before and removes bouts that no longer belong. Turn on Put back in running order to undo manual moves.
4. Mats. Choose one:
   • Not yet saves the numbers and queue without touching the mats.
   • Keep what’s waiting; add new bouts leaves every waiting bout in place and slots new bouts in.
   • Replace what’s waiting sends waiting bouts back to the queue and reloads the mats. Bouts that have started or finished stay put.

Run never renumbers, moves, or unpublishes a bout that has started or finished. There is no undo: if the result isn’t what you wanted, change the settings and run again. Running a plan or rule that is already up to date changes nothing.

Run also lists bouts no rule queues. Brackets in the divisions you’re running show under Not in any rule, with a button to add them when the rule lists its brackets. Other divisions, such as a later session, show quietly under Not scheduled yet, and Run leaves them alone.

If Run can’t continue, the blocked step says why. New bracket types are normally added to the tournament rounds for you (see When bracket types change). If Snapdown couldn’t fit one in, Run offers Update rounds, or Open round order if you edited the rounds by hand.

A queued bout is visible to fans with its mat still to be decided. It claims a mat spot only when a mat is loaded. If you queued the wrong bouts, see Repair matches and rule queues.

Change a published director-managed schedule

Open Brackets, turn on Edit, and fix the wrestlers or bracket format. Return to Match Publishing: a saved plan shows N need attention, and its affected rules show Out of date. Choose Run… on the plan, or Update & run… on the affected rule. Run updates the brackets, reviews their numbering and queues, and loads the planned mats when you confirm. A separate Build updates on Brackets is optional.

Leave Renumber everything and Put back in running order off, and use Keep what’s waiting; add new bouts for the running mats. A wrestler-only update keeps its bout numbers. A structural change, including adding or removing bouts or rounds, renumbers only the affected bracket around the other brackets’ fixed numbers. Free numbers and suffixes such as 101.A keep the repaired bracket in round order. Unchanged brackets keep their numbers and queue spots. See How do I change brackets after publishing matches? for what happens to bout numbers.