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How do I ask my Event Staff for their availability?

Teddy can do this ✓operatordirectorLast verified Oct 10, 2026

Rather than assigning people blind, you can text your Event Staff roster and ask who's available. Teddy, Tourney Direct's text assistant, handles the back-and-forth automatically, one day at a time, and records everyone's answers for you. Or ask Teddy: "Send availability requests to my event staff" and confirm.

Where:

Event Staff → Schedule → Communicate → Availability Blast.

Sending the availability request

From Event Staff → Schedule, open the Communicate menu and choose Availability Blast.

  • Roster (group): optionally scope the text to just one staff group (managed in your Staff Directory) instead of everyone on your Event Staff roster. Everyone in that group is included, even if they're in other groups too, and nobody gets the text twice.
  • Note (optional): anything you type here is appended to Teddy's message.

Only people who haven't already been asked for this event receive a text (people who gave their days on the event's sign-up link count as answered; see ES-14), so it's always safe to run the blast again later to pick up anyone newly added to your roster, without double-texting anyone.

What your staff receive

Teddy texts each person one event day at a time. For the first day:

Hi Jane! Teddy here from Tourney Direct.

We're building the staff schedule for 2026 Summer Slam (Jun 12 – Jun 13) and need your availability. I'll ask about each day, just takes a minute!

Friday, Jun 12, can you work? FULL · full day AM · morning only PM · afternoon only EVE · evening only NO · not available

Each valid reply (FULL, AM, PM, EVE, or NO) is acknowledged and Teddy moves to the next day. If the event spans more than one complex, Teddy asks one more question after the last day: which location they'd prefer. Once everything's answered, they get a summary confirming what was recorded, and can reply EDIT at any point if something looks wrong (a person follows up manually rather than Teddy trying to sort it out).

Checking responses

Back on the Schedule tab, expand Event Staff Pool to see who's been asked for this event and their status, "No response yet" or "Availability on file," along with their stated complex preference if applicable. The Pool only shows people actually asked about this event, not your whole org roster.

Following up

  • Resend (from the Communicate menu): choose Staff who haven't responded yet or Everyone already asked, add an optional note, and Teddy re-sends the same day-by-day sequence, starting over from day one.
  • Running the regular Availability Blast again also automatically picks up anyone new to your roster who hasn't been asked yet; no separate step needed.

Sending the worker manual

If you have a PDF or link with event-day instructions, use Communicate → Send Worker Manual, paste the URL, and optionally customize the message. It's sent as an MMS with the manual attached.

Good to know

  • Availability requests can't be sent on or after the event's start date.
  • Officials have their own, separate availability blast; see O-03.
Related:How do I set up Event Staff roles and shifts?How do I build the Event Staff schedule for an event?How do I publish the Event Staff schedule and get staff confirmations?How do I get availability from my officials?How do I share a sign-up link for people to work one event?