Federation getting a license model in place
For the federation, this step is not about buying one personal license. It’s about defining how licenses will work for everyone else — your dancers, schools, and officials.
What this step is for
You’ll:
- Decide whether licenses are required at all for your federation
- Define what license items and categories you offer (if needed)
- Decide, per item, who applies: the dancer, the club, or you
- Set up payment (if required) via Stripe
- Map licenses to competition classes
- Test the complete workflow before going live with competitors
Who does this step
Different parts need different staff roles:
| Task | Role |
|---|---|
| Connect Stripe | Administrator or Owner |
| Add licence items and map them to classes | Administrator or Owner |
| Approve clubs, and allow them to issue licences | Manager and up |
| Issue, approve, suspend or revoke a licence | Manager and up |
Important: Do you actually need licenses?
Before starting this step, decide:
| Question | Answer | Path |
|---|---|---|
| Do your dancers need formal approval/vetting before competing? | Yes → License model | No → Skip this |
| Do you need to collect payment or fees centrally? | Yes → License model | No → Skip |
| Do you need to track who’s eligible for each competition? | Yes → License model | No → Skip |
If you answered NO to all:
- You don’t need formal licenses
- Dancers can register without approval
- Skip to next federation setup steps
If you answered YES to any:
- Continue with licensing setup below
There is no federation-wide “model”
It is tempting to think of self-service versus organization-managed as a choice you make once. Vote4Dance does not work that way: each licence item carries its own settings, so one federation can offer a dancer licence dancers buy themselves, a coach licence only the club can apply for, and a judge licence only you issue — at the same time.
The settings that decide the route, per item:
| Setting | Effect |
|---|---|
| Organization mode | Not allowed — no club on the licence. Optional — either route. Required — the item needs a club, and that club must be an approved issuer. |
| Self-application | Whether a member, or a non-member, may apply for the item themselves. An item that forbids it tells the applicant “This license can’t be applied for directly. Apply through your organization.” |
| Competition scope | Full season, or Single competition (the applicant then supplies a competition). |
| Kind | standard, or external for licences verified against another federation’s system — the applicant enters their MIN / WSCID / lidnummer, and external licences are lifetime, with your federation owning validity. |
| Maximum uses per season | Caps how many times the item can be applied for. Once reached, applicants see “This license item is no longer available — it has reached its maximum number of applications.” |
Every licence records which route it came through as Applied via: Self, Club or Federation admin, so you can always see how it arrived.
Setting it up
Step 1: Connect Stripe
Payments go to the federation’s own Stripe account, and nothing priced can be paid until it is connected. Connect it under Federation → Settings → Federation with Connect Stripe, which needs the Administrator or Owner role. Vote4Dance keeps a 5% application fee. See Federation settings.
Until it is connected, applicants are told “This federation hasn’t set up online payments yet. Contact the federation to complete your license.”
Step 2: Define the licence items
Admin → Federation → Licenses → License items, which is where you “define the license products the federation offers”. Adding or editing items requires the Administrator role.
Each item has:
| Field | What it decides |
|---|---|
| Name | What applicants see. |
| Code | Your short identifier. |
| Category | Dancer, Judge, Coach, Organizer, Scrutineer, Supervisor, Music or Other. |
| Kind | standard, or external for licences verified against another federation’s system. External items are lifetime: neither scope nor season applies, and the federation owns validity. |
| Division and Discipline | Which part of your structure the item belongs to. |
| Competition scope | Full season or Single competition. |
| Organization mode | Required, Optional or Not allowed — see above. |
| Price and Currency | Leave the price at zero for a free licence. |
| Maximum uses per season | Optional cap. |
| Status | Whether the item is available at all. |
| Note | Internal. |
Step 3: Decide which classes accept which items
Defining items is not enough on its own. Open the relevant Division → Discipline → Class → License rules and map the products a class accepts. This is what makes a licence count at registration, and it needs the Administrator role.
Step 4: Decide which clubs may issue
For items with organization mode Required, the club must be an approved issuer. Grant that on the club’s page under Federation → Members → Organizations with Allow license issuing, which needs the Manager role or higher. A club that is itself still pending federation approval blocks every licence it holds.
Step 5: Review the applications
Applications arrive in Needs your approval, with a banner counting them. Each one shows four checks, and you can only approve when they pass:
| Check | Fails when |
|---|---|
| Club has approved this license | The club has not approved it yet: “A manager or administrator there has to approve it.” |
| Club approved by the federation | The club itself is still pending — the application is Blocked. |
| Payment received | Payment is outstanding. |
| Within the license window | The window has not opened, or has closed. |
All four passing shows “All four checks pass · ready to approve”. The queue tags each row Ready, Waiting or Blocked, and blocked applications are shown rather than hidden.
You can approve in bulk — “Approve all (n)”, or a selection — and licences held by clubs the federation has not approved are skipped rather than forced through, with a count of what was left alone. Payment status can also be set in bulk.
Statuses a licence moves through: Draft, Pending, Active, Expired, Suspended, Cancelled, with payment status tracked separately. Issuing, approving, suspending and revoking need the Manager role.
Full detail, field by field: Federation admin.
Step 6: Test the whole thing before you announce it
Test with test accounts, in the routes you actually offer.
Self-application
- Sign in as a test dancer with a date of birth on the account
Account → Licenses, select the federation, and check the item you expect is listed — if it is not, the item’s organization mode or self-application settings are keeping it out- Apply, pay if priced, and check the licence appears with the status you expect
- Approve it from federation admin and confirm it turns Active
Club application
- Sign in as a test club admin whose club is connected to your federation and approved by it
Organization → Administration → Licenses, select a member, apply- Confirm it lands in the club’s Needs your action when club approval is required, and in your Needs your approval afterwards
- Check the four checks show what you expect, then approve
The blocked case, which is worth seeing once
Leave a test club unapproved and apply for one of its members. The application should appear in your queue tagged Blocked, with “Approve the club first” — and a bulk approve should skip it rather than issue it. Knowing what this looks like saves confusion in the first real season.
Step 7: Tell your community
Document for the people who have to use it:
- Which licences your federation requires, per category
- For each one, who applies: the dancer, the club, or you
- The price and currency
- Links to the applying pages: dancers, clubs
- That approval is a person reviewing an application, not an automatic timer, and what holds an application up — the four checks are worth stating plainly
Troubleshooting
“I added licence items but applicants do not see them”
Work down the item’s own settings: is its Status available, does its Organization mode allow the route the applicant is using, does it allow self-application, has it hit Maximum uses per season, and is the applicant looking at the right federation? The self-service page shows only what that person may apply for, and says “No licenses available for self-application” when that set is empty.
Also check step 3: an item nobody has mapped to a class under Division → Discipline → Class → License rules will not count where it matters.
“Payment will not go through”
Stripe must be connected to the federation (Owner role). Applicants are also blocked by an invalid price, an invalid currency or an invalid application fee on the item — each has its own message telling them to contact the federation, so if applicants report those, the item is misconfigured rather than the payment broken.
“An application is stuck Pending”
Open it and read the four checks. In practice it is almost always the club: either the club has not approved the request, or the club itself is not approved by the federation. Both are named on the application.
“I need to change an item after people have applied”
Existing licences keep the terms they were issued under. Take care with anything that changes eligibility mid-season, and remember that an active licence’s organization cannot be edited at all: cancel it and issue a new one, which is what the Change organization flow does — the new club represents the dancer from that day, valid through the same end date. See Club transfers.
When you’re ready
Your licensing model is ready to go live when:
- ✓ All license items are configured
- ✓ Payment (Stripe) is connected (if charging)
- ✓ End-to-end test completed successfully
- ✓ Dancers/schools know which license item to apply for
- ✓ You’ve communicated the process to your community
Next step
Continue to School/club application model.