July 2026

Editor's Note:

NEW & IMPROVED

This is what's NEW:

• There is now a progress bar for how far users have made it through the registration process. This only appears during registration. If the participant finishes registration, this bar will disappear even if they haven't finished uploading forms or filling out unrequired information.

New Configs:

• Date of Birth: Hide | Ask | Require – This config appears in each user's registration setup configs. This just provides a field where the selected user can input their date of birth.
• Uploaded Files Manager – This manages any files (images, documents, links) that have been uploaded into your event from over the years. You can delete files from here if you no longer need them. This also now shows in the Home Page editor, so that you can drag and drop them onto your page. Just keep in mind that when resizing these files, they may not appear as orderly on a different screen size (like a mobile device or Chromebook).
• Archive Before Date – If you have overlapping registrations, you can enter in the date that you want the archive to erase information from. See more in the tips section on how this works.

UPDATES:

• When looking at paperwork, there is a checkbox that can be checked to indicate that pre-approval is required by the SRC. This is now searchable by using the filter to sort by "Pre-approval: Required".
• When teachers are adding a new school during registration, the school registration form shows up for them so they can enter all school information needed, other than just the name of the school.
• NHD – Judge's phone numbers now show in the judge groups page when viewing round assignments.

NEW LAST MONTH:

• Teachers can see Judging Feedback
• New stats in auto assign judging
• Limits to sessions for Volunteers/Judges
• Transfer assignments to Judges easier

TEAM NOTES

Thank you to all who filled out the survey last month!

We use this information to gauge where we are at, and where we need to be. It is vital for us to know what bothers you, what is running great, and what you hope for from your software.

If you missed the survey and would like to still provide us with feedback, we have attached a live link to the survey at the end of this email. All responses are anonymous, and we would love to hear from you!

July 1st is the date that we take a snapshot of your event reports, which means you can clear all your last season's information and go through the refresh process. Here are some things you will want to know to have a successful refresh:

• Before refreshing, enter a "before" date to clear out old records (such as last season's participants). If you have early registrants, choose a date prior to the very first new registration so their data isn't accidentally wiped out. If you are unsure about that date, enter the date last season's event closed, or when awards were distributed. Anything created before your chosen date will be deleted; anything after it will be saved.
• Put in the Fair Director's and Billing Person's information – We updated the Refresh branch to include some additional configurations. We included the Fair Director information and Billing person info to assist zFairs in communicating with you. We only use this information for our personal use and do not sell this info to 3rd parties.
• URLs and Links for entry information are not accessible after archiving. – All entry information is saved as a URL file. These become inactive after archiving. So if you need particular entry information, like for sample projects, download it into your personal files before archiving. Reach out to us if you experience any issues with trying to retrieve entry information.
• TAKE YOUR TIME! – Some deleted information can be recovered if reported ASAP, but it is always best to double check to make sure you know what information is being deleted, just in case it gets deleted for good.

More News!

We try to keep the newsletter short and sweet, but we also wanted to update you on some clarification changes to the configs. The following are some unified terms to avoid confusion across different events. We are also new at using these terms, so please be patient with us as we all learn how to communicate more efficiently.

Term Being Used	Common Terms	Why the change?	Other notes
Participant	Student, competitor	Not all of our clients have students or schools in their events. We wanted to make it clear for all events, that we work with participants of all ages and types.	The update to the configs will change the term "Participant(s)" to whatever term you enter in Custom System Text, but we consider "participants" as the main registrant into most events.
Judging	Online Judging	If you are using judging on zFairs, then there is no need to say that it is online. That's kind of a given.	This is still in transition and you may see the function called both entry/project.
Event	Fair, contest	A good number of our clients don't refer to their event as a "Fair", but all our clients are holding events.
Entry	Project	Mainly the issue here was determining what certain functions do. For example, awards are assigned per entry, ID's are assigned per entry, etc.
Branches			This has always been named the same, but we wanted to let you know if you see us using the term "branches", this means the little "i" in the corner of the screen.