Event

Partners

Partners is the sponsor book: every sponsor and partner, what each one is called, where each one stands, what you owe them and where their money lands. In the left menu, choose Partners. It is part of ActionOps and FestivalOps.

A partner is not a vendor and not a company of its own. A vendor is somebody you buy from; a partner pays you. A partner has no sign-in and no account here, so everything about it lives in your company's book, which is why the same sponsor can be in three events of a season without being entered three times.

Four tabs: This event (the readiness grid for the event open in the top bar), The whole book (every partner), Deliverables (everything you owe, through whichever lens you want) and Entitlements (what each partner is called on air and in print).

How do I add a partner?

1. In the left menu, choose Partners, then + Add partner.
2. Give it a Name, a Status (Prospect, Pitched, In review, Signed, Renewing, Lapsed or Declined) and a Tier (Title, Presenting, Official, Supporting, Media or Barter).
3. Set the Category (for example "Energy drink") and tick Category exclusive if the deal locks the category.
4. Write the Designation, which is what they are called in public: "Official Energy Drink".
5. Name the Account manager on your team, and the partner's own contact.
6. Add the deal value and notes if you can see those fields (see below), then choose Add partner.

To put a partner on an event, open it and choose Add to this event at the bottom. Each event keeps its own readiness, designation, PR dates and hospitality numbers, because the same partner reads differently at each stop.

What does the readiness colour mean?

On This event, every partner carries a Ready, Working or Not ready mark, and the list is ordered worst first so the morning meeting starts where it should. Change it from the row, or open On this event to set the designation, the PR draft and release dates, the hospitality numbers and the notes that apply at that event only.

Who can see a deal's value?

A deal's value is kept to Finance, Owners, Company Admins, and whoever runs the deal, which means the partner's account manager or the account manager named on any one of its events. Anyone else sees a dash with a note saying it is not theirs to see, and the book's total says how many values it was able to add up rather than quietly reading low. The fields are not on their form either, so nobody can set a value they cannot see. It is enforced on the server, not just hidden on the page.

Where does sponsorship money land?

The finance team chooses, because it depends on the company: the whole company budget, one event, or split across several. Above the book, Where sponsor money lands sets the default for new deals, and a deal can be set apart from it on the partner itself under Where this money lands. An event a deal lands on carries it as an income line on that event's budget, so sponsorship reaches the budget and the CFO view by itself. See the Budget and CFO help for what happens to it there.

What goes on the Deliverables tab?

Every contracted obligation, one row each, whatever its shape: broadcast spots, social posts, billboards, scorebugs, jumbotron and PA reads, signage, gifting, merch, athlete appearances, PR releases, hospitality, activations. It is one ledger rather than a sheet per kind, so the same filters and the same approval cycle work on all of them.

Each row carries what is owed, how many, how often, which event or day, who on your team owns it, who actually makes the asset, when it is due, when it runs, the proof, where it went live and the contract reference. Anything that matters to one kind only, like the handles and hashtags on a social post or the V/O copy on a PA read, goes in Extras, one "name: value" to a line.

How do I add something we owe a partner?

1. Choose Deliverables, then + Add an obligation.
2. Pick the Partner and the Kind, and say What is owed.
3. Put the contract's words in Detail, and the reference in Contract reference, for example "MEC agreement, Exhibit A".
4. Choose the event, and a Day if it is one day's.
5. Set How many and How often if the deal says a number, for example four boards per event.
6. Give it a Due date, and a Runs on date if it is scheduled.
7. Name who it is Ours to deliver by, and Who makes it if that is an outside supplier.
8. Choose Add it.

How do the lenses work?

The menu at the top left of Deliverables is the lens: Everything, or Broadcast, Social, Billboards, Scorebugs, Jumbotron and PA, Signage, Gifting and merch, Athlete marketing, PR, Hospitality, Activations. Each is a view of the same ledger, so nothing is entered twice and a total is a total. Alongside it you can narrow to this event or every event, to one partner, to an asset state, to an approval state, or to Mine. The list is grouped by partner, with how many obligations are open and how many are late on each.

What is the difference between the asset state and the approval?

They are two questions and the ledger keeps them apart.

Asset state is where the thing itself has got to: Not started, In production, Submitted, Delivered, Live or Waived. Change it from the row's menu, or in the obligation.

Approval is whether it has been signed off: No approval needed, Waiting, Approved or Sent back. An asset can be delivered and still waiting, or approved weeks before it goes live.

Marking something Delivered or Live fills in the quantity it promised, so you do not have to say "four of four" as well. A row short of its number shows how far it has got.

How do I approve something, or send it back?

A row waiting on a decision carries Approve and Send back.

• Approve asks for an optional note and records who approved it and when.
• Send back asks what has to change, and will not accept an empty answer, because whoever redoes the asset needs to know what was wrong.

Once something has been sent back and fixed, Approve the fix appears in its place, so a round trip does not mean resetting the state by hand first.

Where is the history of an asset?

Open the obligation and read What happened: every move from added through production, submission and each approval round, with what was said at the time, who did it and when. That is the rounds the old spreadsheets kept as prose in a notes column, kept as a record instead. It is written by the app and cannot be edited.

What is the Entitlements tab for?

Entitlements are what a partner is called: "Slopestyle presented by Mountain Energy". The tab lists partner by entitlement with exactly that wording under How it is said, its approval state and its due date, because the one thing that matters about an entitlement is that the words are right and signed off before anybody says them on air.

Write the wording in Extras as `naming convention: Slopestyle presented by Mountain Energy`. An entitlement is an ordinary obligation underneath, so it takes the same approval cycle and keeps the same history.

Why can't I see Partners, or add anything?

Partners is part of ActionOps and FestivalOps; on a touring, venue, promoter or research account the module is not there. Within a company, Owners, Company Admins, Tour Managers, Ops and Coordinators add and change partners and obligations. Finance and Legal read the book, because a sponsor's value is finance's business and its paper is legal's, and View only reads it. A Company Admin can give one person Partners in Users & access.