Scheduling tastings

The Sampling Schedule at a glance

Open OPERATIONS in the sidebar, then click Sampling Schedule. This is your operational workspace — it tracks every tasting from approval through completion. The top row gives you Refresh, + New tasting, and Import samplings…, followed by a status strip, a filter toolbar, and the table of tastings.

The status lifecycle runs in this order:

1. Pending Approval — just promoted or created; waiting for an approver.
2. Unclaimed — approved and open for ambassadors to claim.
3. Booked — an ambassador is assigned.
4. In Progress — the tasting is happening.
5. Awaiting Report / Pending Report — it ended but no report is in yet.
6. Completed — done and reported.

Denied and Cancelled are terminal. Closed - No Report means it happened but produced no usable report. Note that Awaiting Report is a computed state (a Booked/In Progress tasting more than an hour past its end time with no report), not a status you set.

### Filtering the list

1. Use the Status filter to narrow to one stage (default is All).
2. Use Search to match by Store, market, ambassador — it also searches address, city, state, status, authority, and products.
3. Set From and To to bound the date range.

The From date defaults to today, which silently hides past-dated tastings. To see history, clear the From field.

Create one tasting manually

1. In Sampling Schedule, click + New tasting to open New Sampling Event.
2. In Location, start typing to find the store, city, state, or address, then select it.
3. Set the Date (defaults to today), Start time (defaults to 13:00), and End time (auto-fills to 120 minutes after start).
4. Optionally choose a Sampling level, add an Ambassador (optional), and fill any of Public/customer note, Ambassador instructions, or Internal note.
5. Optionally check items under Event products.
6. Click Create event.

The event is created at Pending Approval — you can't pick the initial status; the control is hidden and forced. If you select an ambassador inline, the event is created and immediately flipped to Booked. On success you'll see "Manual sampling event created in the Master Schedule."

Assign an ambassador, or leave it open to claim

Every tasting is either assigned to a specific ambassador (it becomes Booked) or left open for ambassadors to claim (Unclaimed). To assign or change the rep:

1. Click a tasting row to open its detail panel.
2. In the Ambassador card, click Assign ambassador (or Reassign).
3. Pick a rep from the roster panel — reps are ranked by coverage, with in-radius ambassadors first.

On assignment you'll see "Ambassador assigned." and the event flips to Booked. To open it back up for claiming, click Remove assignment — the event returns to Unclaimed.

Only Unclaimed or Booked events can be assigned. The rep must be an active Brand Ambassador with no overlapping tasting, or the assign is rejected.

Edit, cancel, or duplicate a tasting

Click a row to open the detail panel, then use the action bar and cards:

• Edit date/time: change Date, Start, or End in the Date & time card — edits autosave on change.
• Approve: when status is Pending Approval, click Approve event to move it to Unclaimed.
• Cancel: click Cancel event, then choose a required Cancellation reason in the "Cancel this tasting?" dialog and confirm. The reason is internal only; the assigned ambassador is notified and this can't be undone.
• Restore: a Cancelled event shows Restore event, which returns it to Pending Approval.

A tasting that is In Progress or already completed can't be cancelled — the Cancel event button is hidden for those states.

Note: the Duplicate button is not yet functional. It shows "Duplicate event — wiring next." — don't rely on it.

Build a schedule across locations and dates

Use Schedule Builder to generate suggested slots in bulk, then promote the ones you want.

1. Open OPERATIONS, then click Schedule Builder.
2. In the Scope rail, choose a targeting mode: All active locations, Chain everywhere, Geography, Chain in geography, or Selected locations.
3. Fill the mode's controls — pick a Chain, choose a Geography type (State, City, Territory, Region) and check geographies, or search and check Selected locations.
4. Set the Date window with the start and end date inputs.
5. Under Days of week, click the day chips to include only the weekdays you want (summary reads "Every day" or "{N} day(s)/wk").
6. Set Tastings / store — visits per store before repeating within your window.
7. Click Generate schedule.

You'll see "Generated {N} suggested slots for {M} location(s)." These are local suggestions only — nothing is booked yet.

### Review and promote suggestions

1. Review the cards under Suggested tastings. Each shows the store, date, time, chain, and a status badge (Ready / Suggestion / Selected / Conflict).
2. Check the tastings you want, or use Select all. Conflicting rows have a disabled checkbox and an inline reason.
3. Click Move selected to schedule in the bottom bar.

Promoted tastings are created in the Sampling Schedule as Pending Approval, and approval requests are auto-created. You'll get a confirmation like "Moved {moved} of {selected} selected tasting(s) to the Master Sampling Schedule as Pending Approval." and the app switches you to the Sampling Schedule. Duplicates already on the schedule are skipped; slots that fell outside a store's booking window are reverted and named in the toast.

### Tune the builder's rules

Click Rules in the Scope rail (or the builder rules link) to open Schedule Builder Settings. Here you set defaults for Timing (start/end times, duration, slot pattern, max suggestions), Distribution (repeat limits per store/market/time, strategy), and Schedule Export (activity, products, default pay rate, gig and expense details).

Bulk-import a schedule (Smart Import)

To load many tastings from a spreadsheet, click Import samplings… on the Sampling Schedule (this is BRAND SETTINGS › Imports, the Smart Import wizard). It runs four steps: Source, Map & preview, Review, Commit.

1. Source: drag in a .csv or .xlsx file (up to 1,000 rows), or choose Build from scratch. Use Download template to get the correct column headers.
2. Map & preview: confirm the auto-matched fields on the left. Required fields are Location / Store, City, State, Date, Start Time, End Time, and Products; Sampling Level, Assigned Ambassador, Public Notes, and BA Instructions are optional. For any reference field you can map a file column or Pick from Longboard to apply one value to the whole batch, and use Edit on a row to override it.
3. Review: a server dry-run reports Rows in file, Will import, and Have errors. If some rows error, choose Import valid rows only or Fix errors first.
4. Commit: click Import {N} sampling(s). When done you'll see "Import complete" with Created, Claimed, and Skipped (errors) counts.

Status is derived, not chosen: a row with a matched ambassador imports as Booked; a blank one imports as Unclaimed. Every location must already exist in Longboard — import locations first.

Who can do this

• Admin / Owner — full access: build, promote, create, assign, edit, cancel, change status, and run Smart Import. See and act on every tasting.
• Regional / Territory Managers — full scheduling write, but scoped. With an active coverage filter, they can only manage, assign, and cancel tastings inside their assigned scope; outside it they'll hit "You do not have schedule access for one or more selected events." They cannot run Smart Import.
• Viewer — read-only. Can open both workspaces and see everything, but every action (generate-and-promote, create, assign, status change, edits) is server-rejected with a permission error. The write buttons are not hidden, so clicking one just fails.