Operations guide
How CSE works
A walkthrough for the people who run the show, not the people who built it. Pick a persona below to see what they sign in as, where they go, and what they actually do on a typical day. Same show, same neighbors, same vibe — just phones in place of clipboards.
One sign-in, all roles
There is exactly one place to sign in. Every role — car owner, attendee, gate volunteer, judge, DJ, vendor, organizer — uses the same form with their issued email + password. The system reads the user's role membership and routes them to the right starting page automatically.
- Each persona below shows a
?next=/pathdeep-link so the user lands in the right place after auth. - The
livingston4thsubdomain isn't a separate login — it's how the platform identifies which tenant the user is signing in to. - Today this admin app is un-gated in dev — when auth lands here it will share the same
eventide_sessioncookie, not a separate login.
Pick a persona
Start here. Each persona shows their own login, their walkthrough, and quick links to where they live in the system.
Show-day roles
The seven people who actually use the system on July 4th.
Car owner / participant
Brings a car, gets it judged, hopefully wins a trophy.
Attendee
Walks the show, looks at cars, votes for People's Choice.
Gate volunteer / staff
Greets cars at the entrance. Sticker on, photo, paid, wave through.
Judge
Walks the show, scores cars on a phone with sliders.
DJ
Manages live song requests during the show.
Vendor / sponsor
Sells food / drinks / retail / services at the show.
Event organizer
Runs the whole thing. Sees everything. The "you" of CSE.
Admin & platform
Less frequent, but documented. Tenant admin sets up once a year; platform staff is CSE-internal.
Tenant admin
Owns the tenant. Above the organizer. Used if Livingston runs more than one event.
Platform admin
CSE platform staff. Cross-tenant. Visually distinct (amber accent) so it's obvious you're in god-mode.
Volunteer (non-car-show sub-events)
Check-in scanner for the beer garden, race, kids zone, etc.
Tenant admin
For July 4th alone, the organizer role is what gets used day to day. The tenant admin role exists for the township itself — branding, custom domain, sticker-batch ordering, billing, role assignments. If Livingston later runs a fall car show or a holiday parade, the tenant admin sets those up.
What this persona can do
- Everything the organizer can do, plus:
- Branding: edit theme tokens, body / display fonts, logo. Live-preview iframe of the public homepage.
- Domain: add a custom domain (livingston4th.cseplatform.app today, your-domain.com tomorrow).
- Sticker batches: order new batches, track range / used / remaining. Inline preview of what a printed sticker looks like.
- Roles & staff: invite staff, assign roles, set scope (gate lanes for GATE_STAFF, sub-event IDs for JUDGE/DJ).
- Billing: payment method, invoices, CSV export. Cash-only mode shows a chip ("Stripe billing inactive") so the empty list isn't confusing.
- Audit (tenant scope): every admin action in this tenant.
Walkthrough
5 stepsSetting up the tenant once a year
Confirm branding
Settings → Branding. Logo, fonts, palette. Live-preview iframe shows how the public homepage looks with the current tokens. Save only enables on a real diff.
Add a custom domain
Settings → Domain. "Add custom domain" opens a 3-step drawer (enter domain → verify DNS → activate). Each step shows clear copy-paste DNS records.
Order sticker batches
Settings → Sticker batches. "Order new batch" drawer: quantity, vendor, shipping. Inline code-preview widget shows what a printed sticker looks like at print size.
Assign staff
Settings → Roles & staff. Invite by email + pick role + set scope. Gate volunteers get scoped to a lane; judges to a sub-event; DJs to a performance slot.
Hand off to the organizer
Once the event is configured, the day-of organizer takes over. Tenant admin steps back to a once-a-year setup role.
Quick links
Where this persona lives in the admin app.