The Auto-Decline System helps officiating organizations get timely responses on game assignments. It is OFF by default. Organization administrators can turn it on in System Settings when they want pending assignments to clear automatically if an official does not accept or decline in time.
Enabling and Configuring the Auto-Decline System
Users with Administrator permissions can enable or change Auto-Decline from System Settings:
Open System Settings from the main navigation menu.
Choose the Features & Settings tab.
Find Feature #17, labeled Require Accept/Decline Response within:. Choose one of these options:
OFF
1 day
2 days
3 days
5 days
7 days
14 days
21 days
30 days
60 days
Configuring the Response Time
OFF: Turns the Auto-Decline System off.
Any day option (1 to 60 days): Officials must respond to pending game assignments within that number of full calendar days. Time of day is not part of the deadline.
How the Respond By date works
When Auto-Decline is on, assignment emails include a Respond By date. The same date appears next to each pending game on the official’s schedule.
That date is the last full calendar day the official has to accept or decline. Horizon counts whole days from the day the official is assigned (or from the day the game is published, if that is later). The clock time of the assignment does not matter.
Example with Feature #17 set to 2 days: you assign someone on October 26 (at any time that day).
Their Respond By date is October 28.
They have all of October 28 to accept or decline.
If they still have not responded, Auto-Decline runs overnight after October 28 (early morning Eastern on the 29th) and clears the assignment then.
So a pending assignment can still show as open through the evening of the Respond By date. Clearing around early morning the next day is expected.
Officials must either:
Accept the assignment
Decline the assignment (if the organization allows officials to decline, configurable via Feature #15 in System Settings)
Universal Application
The Auto-Decline setting applies to all games in the officiating organization. It cannot be set differently for individual games.
Handling Auto-Declines
Automatic Declines
If an official does not respond by the end of the Respond By date, Horizon performs an Auto-Decline overnight after that date.
When Auto-Decline runs:
The game is returned to the scheduler for reassignment.
The decline reason is recorded as "Auto-Decline for no response."
The game is removed from the official’s schedule.
Both the official and the scheduler receive an email that the assignment was auto-declined for no response.
Scheduler Actions
After a game is auto-declined, schedulers should:
Delete the declined assignment when clearing the declined slot so the list stays clear.
Reassign the game so it is covered. If the original official should have the game again after an auto-decline, delete the declined assignment and assign them again.
Overriding Ineligibility
An auto-decline counts as a decline, so that official is marked ineligible for the same game. To put them back on that game, the scheduler uses the normal override path and schedules them from the Ineligible Officials list.
Summary
Auto-Decline gives officials a full calendar-day window to respond, shows that last day as Respond By, and clears unaccepted assignments overnight after that date. Organization administrators control the number of days in System Settings Feature #17.
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