What this policy does
Autocancellation watches open matches that are not filling up and, at times you choose, either releases the court or cancels the match.
An open match holds a court from the moment it is created. If it never finds four players, that court sits reserved for a game that will not happen, and nobody else can book it. This policy sets the point at which the club stops waiting.
Turn it on if courts are regularly tied up by half-empty matches, especially at peak hours. Leave it off, or set it loosely, if your open matches almost always fill and you would rather let players keep trying until the last minute.
Where to find it
In Admin, go to Settings, then Open Match Policies. The Autocancellation card sits below the general open match settings.
The card is configured one match type at a time. Pick Public, Invite or Super League at the top right, and everything below it belongs to that type alone. Switching types does not carry values across, so each one has to be set up in turn.
Inside the card:
Setting | What it controls |
Autocancellation toggle | Whether the policy applies to this match type at all |
Match time cutoff | The time of day that splits matches into two groups, each with its own conditions |
Action | Cancel match, or Unbook court only |
Conditions | Four per group, written as sentences about empty slots and hours before start |
Nothing takes effect until the card is saved.
Set it up
Work through one match type at a time, then save.
Select the match type. Start with Public, which is usually the one holding courts.
Turn the Autocancellation toggle on. The rest of the card becomes editable. While it is off, matches of this type are never touched, whatever the values below say.
Set the match time cutoff. This is a time of day, not a duration. Matches starting before it use the left-hand panel of conditions, matches starting at or after it use the right-hand one. The two panel headings show the ranges, so you can check the split is what you meant.
Choose the action. Cancel match ends the match and refunds paid players. Unbook court only releases the court and leaves the match open with its players.
Fill in the conditions. Each line reads as a sentence: if 24 hours before start of the match 3 slots are empty. Set the hours for all four lines in both panels. Set a line to N/A to switch that one off.
Save, then repeat for Invite and Super League.
Choosing your values
The principle: the emptier a match is, the earlier you should stop waiting for it. A match with nobody paid 48 hours out is unlikely to fill; a match one player short six hours out probably will.
So the hours run down as the empty slots run down. Give evening matches less time than daytime ones, since they fill faster and the court is worth more.
A starting point for a busy club with the cutoff at 15:00:
Condition | Before 15:00 | 15:00 or later |
4 slots empty | 48 hours | 24 hours |
3 slots empty | 24 hours | 12 hours |
2 slots empty | 12 hours | 6 hours |
1 slot empty | 6 hours | 3 hours |
Things to watch:
Long hours on the 2 and 3 slot lines cut off matches that still had time to fill. If players complain about matches disappearing, these are the lines to shorten.
Short hours everywhere means courts stay tied up until the evening before. Fine for a quiet club, expensive at peak.
Values also set a floor on how late players can create a match, since a new match cannot be created past a condition it has already failed. Long hours make that floor high.
Super League usually wants the loosest values, or the toggle off, since league fixtures are expected to be arranged rather than filled.
What happens when a condition is met
Whichever condition is reached first with its condition true is the one that acts. A slot counts as filled only once that player has paid, so players who were added but have not paid still leave their slot empty.
Cancel match
The match is cancelled and the court released.
Paid players are refunded under the club's Booking Refund Rule, which is the usual refund minus the platform fee, not a full one.
Paid players and the match creator get a push notification and an in-app message.
The match detail page and the audit log record the reason as "Auto-cancelled, unfilled slots".
Unbook court only
The court is released. The match stays open, with its players still in it.
Nobody is refunded and nobody is removed.
Paid players and the creator are told the court has been released and that they are still registered.
The match detail page and the audit log show "Court unbooked, unfilled slots".
Later conditions still run, since the match is still open, and apply the same action.