User guide

What is StandbyCue?

StandbyCue is a run-of-show (rundown) tool for live events: a shared, minute-by-minute plan that your whole crew sees in real time — and that a Show Caller can run live, cue by cue.

• Workspace — your personal space, or a team you share with colleagues. Everything you create lives in one.
• Event — a container for everything belonging to one production (e.g. a conference): rundowns and folders.
• Folders — group rundowns inside an event, or group events and standalone rundowns on the dashboard. Dashboard folders can be nested.
• Rundown — the actual run of show: rows (cues) with times, titles and your own columns. Can live inside an event or standalone on the dashboard.

Getting started & signing in

There are three ways into StandbyCue:

• Email + password — the standard sign-in. You can change your password under Profile.
• Magic link — type your email, click the link we send you. No password needed.
• PIN — for crew who just need to see a rundown: open the /pin page, type the 6-digit code, done. Read-only, no account. See “Sharing & access”.

Under Profile you can change your name, password and theme (dark/light — it follows your account across devices). Each rundown can show times in 24-hour or 12-hour (AM/PM) format — set per rundown in its settings.

The dashboard

The dashboard is home: upcoming events, your folders, standalone rundowns and anything shared with you.

• List / grid — toggle with the two icons in the toolbar. Grid shows tiles you drill into; your choice is remembered.
• Search — the search box finds events, rundowns and folders by name, wherever they are.
• Sort — by event start date, created date, alphabetical or team.
• Folders — create one via + New event ▾ → New folder. Drag events or rundowns onto a folder to file them; drag to the top area to take them out. Folders can hold subfolders, get a logo, and belong to you or a team.
• Move… — every card's ⋯ menu has a Move option if you prefer a picker over drag & drop.
• Archive — tucks an event or folder away under Archived without deleting anything.
• Trash — deleted events, rundowns and folders go to Trash and can be restored for 7 days; after that they're gone for good.
• Past events — events whose date has passed move there automatically.

Events

Create an event with + New event. An event has a name, date (or date range), location, label and logo — all editable later via the gear icon on the event page.

• Inside an event you create rundowns and folders, and drag rundowns between them.
• Duplicate an event from its ⋯ menu — copies the event with its rundowns.
• Share an event to give people access to everything inside it (see “Sharing & access”).
• A rundown can be moved out of an event (Move… → Dashboard) and becomes standalone — or from the dashboard into an event.
• If an event was shared with you, you can Leave it from the event page.

Event timeline

On an event page, switch the view with List · Grid · Timeline (top right). Timelinelays every rundown in the event on one time axis — one lane per rundown, grouped by day.

• See at a glance what runs in parallel, where the gaps are, and the whole day in one view.
• A red NOW line marks the current time when the day is today.
• Click a lane to jump straight into that rundown.
• Rundowns without a date or start time can't be placed — they're listed under Without a time; set a date/start to put them on the axis.

Tasks

Each event has a Tasks card — a prep checklist so the crew knows who does what, by when. Click the card to open the full list.

• Add a task with a title, then set a status (to-do → in progress → done by clicking the circle), an assignee (anyone in the event) and a due date. Overdue, unfinished tasks show in red.
• Only mine filters the list to your tasks; the card shows how many are done and how many are overdue.
• An assignee can tick their own task even with view-only access; editors manage everything.
• Email — assign a task to someone and they get a “you've been assigned a task” email; a reminder goes out when a task is due and still open.

Documents & call sheets

A Document is a free-form grid inside an event — the same columns, colours, sharing and PDF/CSV export as a rundown, but with no timeline or live mode. Perfect for artist lists, contacts, technical needs — or a call sheet.

• Create one under the event's Documents section (or + New ▾ → New document). Add your own columns, rows, headers and sections just like a rundown.
• Add crew member — at the bottom (next to Add row) or by right-clicking a row: pick a team member and the Name / Email / Phone columns fill in from their profile (those columns are created if they don't exist). External crew you type in by hand.

Files & attachmentsPRO

Each event has a Files section for riders, run sheets, images and other attachments (a paid feature — Pro or Event Pass; viewers can still download).

• Upload from the event toolbar or drag files into the Files section; organise them into file folders.
• Preview — click a file to open it: images, video, audio, PDF and text show inline, and Office files (PowerPoint, Word, Excel) preview too. The download button saves the original.
• A usage bar shows the per-event storage cap. Deleting a file is permanent.

Templates

A template saves a rundown's columns (not its rows) as a reusable blueprint, so every new rundown can start with the same layout.

• Save as template — open a rundown, then ⋯ → Save as template… and give it a name. It captures the columns only.
• New template — or build one from scratch with + New template on the Templates page.
• Use it — when you create a rundown, pick it under Start from template; the new rundown copies the columns but keeps its own name, date, time and empty rows.
• Manage — templates live under Templates in the sidebar. Open one to edit (changes save automatically — a Template badge shows you're in a template), or use its ⋯ menu to rename or delete. Templates don't count toward your Free rundown limit.

The editor: rows, headers & sections

Rows (cues)

• Add a row with + Add row at the bottom, from the right-click menu (Add row above/below), or just press Enter on the last row.
• Click the row number to select a row. Shift-click selects a range, Cmd/Ctrl-click toggles rows in and out of the selection. Actions (duplicate, delete, colour, move) then apply to the whole selection.
• Drag the row number to reorder — a multi-selection moves as one block. Numbers always renumber automatically (1, 2, 3 …).
• Deleting rows shows an Undo toast for a few seconds — click it to bring them back, values included.
• Copy / Paste from the right-click menu works across rundowns: copy rows in one rundown, open another, paste. Custom-column values follow along when column names match.

Headers & sections

• A header is a label-only row (no time, never called live) — for stage directions like “DOORS”, “PART 2”.
• A section is a collapsible bar that groups the rows below it. Click the chevron to fold a section away; rename it inline; deleting it keeps the rows.

Edit history

Hover a Title or custom cell and click the small clock icon: every change is listed with who made it and when — and you can restore any earlier version.

Columns

Built-in columns — Start, Duration, Title (with a subtitle line stacked underneath) — are always there. Everything else is yours:

• Add column at the right end of the header row; name it right away (e.g. Camera, Audio, Graphics).
• Resize by dragging the edge between two headers; double-click the edge to auto-fit the widest content.
• Reorder by dragging a header — a live preview shows where it lands.
• Rename with a double-click on the header, or right-click → Rename.
• Right-click a header for the column menu: colour, rename, duplicate column (with values), new column, delete. Deleting always asks first — it erases the column's values for everyone.
• Private Notes — every user automatically has a personal column only they can see. Hide it with the eye icon; bring it back from the header row. It can't be deleted.
• Hide for me — hover any column header and click the eye (or use the column menu) to hide that column just for you — handy when you only care about your own columns. It doesn't remove the column or change what anyone else sees, and it never touches exports; bring it back from the Show … button next to Add column.
• A small padlock on a header means your seat only has edit access to specific columns — the locked ones are read-only for you (see “Seats & roles”).

Text, images & formatting

The toolbar above the table formats whatever text cell you're typing in (Title, subtitle and custom columns — Start/Duration are plain time fields).

• Style: bold Cmd/Ctrl B, italic Cmd/Ctrl I, underline Cmd/Ctrl U, strikethrough.
• Size: − / + buttons or Cmd/Ctrl ↑ / Cmd/Ctrl ↓ while editing.
• Align: horizontal (left/centre/right) and, for custom cells, vertical (top/middle/bottom).
• Colour & highlight swatches for the selected text.
• Bullet lists and links (select text → link button → type the URL).
• Images: drag an image file straight into a custom cell, or use the image button. Click an image and drag its corner handle to resize; drag the image itself to another cell to move it.
• The toolbar can be hidden (chevron at the right end) and enlarged by dragging its bottom edge — handy on a control-room screen.

Text variables & find / replace

Store reusable values once and reference them anywhere. Open ⋯ → Variables and add pairs like host = Jonas or doors = 18:00. Then in any text cell type {{host}} — or use the {{ }} button in the toolbar. Change a value once in Variables and every cell that uses it updates — in the editor, exports, the prompter and shared links.

• In the editor a variable shows a faint dotted underline so you know it's dynamic. On the prompter, exports and shared links it's just the plain value.
• Names use letters, numbers, _ and -, and are not case-sensitive — {{Host}} and {{host}} both work. A name with no matching variable shows in red.
• Click into a cell to edit the raw {{token}}; click away to see the resolved value again. Punctuation right after works too, e.g. {{host}}.

Find & replace

Open ⋯ → Find & replace to search across every cue title, subtitle and text column, with a live match count, an optional Match case, and Replace all. Replacements happen inside the text only, so bold, links and images are left untouched.

Row, cell & column colours

• Row colour: right-click a row → pick a swatch. Tints the row and adds an accent on the left edge.
• Cell colour: right-click a single cell.
• Column colour: right-click a column header.
• Each picker has two rows: the globe row colours for everyone; the person row is your private marker (e.g. highlight your own cues) — nobody else sees it.

Timing: starts, durations & targets

• Fixed — the row starts at its own clock time. The first row is always Fixed: it anchors the schedule.
• Follow — the row starts when the row above ends (its start + duration). Times cascade automatically, so trimming one cue shifts everything after it.
• Target time — give a row an end time instead of a duration: the duration is then calculated from start → target (shown with a small target icon).
• Off the clock — the eye icon in the number rail excludes a row from the schedule (struck through, doesn't push later rows). Great for optional or parallel items.
• An amber warning triangle appears when a Fixed start lands before the previous row is set to end — the schedule overlaps, fix one of them.

Planned vs projected

In the header you set the Planned schedule (Start / End — click to edit). Next to it, Over / Under shows the live countdown of the current cue, ± Plan (projected finish vs planned end — green is early, red is late) and Proj. end, calculated from all cue durations and, while live, the recorded drift.

Going live

• Go Live starts the show from the selected row (or the first). Everyone in the rundown sees the red live row, the countdown and the On Air badge — in real time.
• Next (or Space / →) advances; ← goes back. Skipped and off-the-clock rows are passed over.
• Pause freezes the cue countdown (“Hold”); resume shifts the clock so the remaining time is honest.
• Tracking auto-scrolls so the live cue stays centred — perfect on a wall display.
• Standby / Go — silently cue the people on stage via the stage display's big STANDBY / GO signal (see “Stage display & cue light”).
• Time Stamps (callers only): when on, leaving a cue records how far over/under you ran. The stamps show under each Duration, survive reloads, are shared between caller clients, and feed the ± Plan projection. Reset them from the same menu.
• End show stops the live state. A live rundown left untouched for 2 hours ends itself.
• The countdown clock is stored centrally — reload the page or open the rundown on another machine and it keeps counting correctly.

Stage display & cue light

Open the stage display from the editor's ⋯ menu (or ⌘K → “Open stage display”): a full-screen, read-only screen for a confidence monitor or projector. It mirrors the live state in real time — time of day, the current cue (title + subtitle), elapsed and remaining/over, and the next cue.

Standby → GO

While live, the footer has a Standby and Go cue light (Show Callers). Press Standby and the stage screen shows a big amber STANDBY with the upcoming cue; press Go for a green GO. It's a silent cue light for the people on stage — no walkie needed. Press the same button again to clear it; moving to the next cue clears it automatically.

Rundown control API

Drive a rundown live from outside the app — a Stream Deck, Bitfocus Companion, or your own script. Open the editor's ⋯ menu → Rundown API, switch it on, and copy the token.

Sending commands

Each command is a plain HTTP GET:

Actions: start pause next previous stop state. pause toggles (call it again to resume), and state only reads — it changes nothing, so it's the safe one to test with first. The id is in the rundown's URL (/show/<id>).

What comes back

Every call returns JSON with the resulting live state, the current and next cue, and your remaining rate budget. For example, advancing one cue from a terminal:

Live readouts

For a ticking clock or a current-cue display, poll /state, or subscribe to the rundown over realtime — the same live stream that already powers the stage display and prompter. (There's no command into the rundown over realtime; commands go through the GET endpoints above.)

Limits

Up to 60 requests per minute per rundown. Responses carry RateLimit-Remaining; going over returns HTTP 429 with a Retry-After header so your client can pace itself.

Companion / Stream Deck

Use Companion's Generic HTTP action (or a Stream Deck HTTP button): method GET, URL …/rundown/<id>/next?token=…. One button press = next cue.

Seats, roles & ready checks

Column mapping

The Show Caller opens Seat menu → Column mapping… and links each role (Sound, Light, AV … add your own) to a column. Several roles can share a column.

Taking a seat

• Crew pick their role under Take your Seat in the footer. A seat shows as occupied to everyone else; you hold one seat globally — taking a seat in another rundown releases the old one.
• If a seat-holder disconnects, the seat frees itself after a grace period (longer while the show is live, so a network blip never costs an operator their seat).

Ready check

The caller clicks Ask everyone if ready: every seated member gets a prompt — I'm ready or Hold (which keeps a persistent reminder up). The seat list shows green/amber dots and a ready count.

Cell change alerts

When someone edits a cell in your seat's column, the cell gets a red ring and an OK button, plus a red counter in the footer that jumps to the change. Clicking OK clears it and tells the caller you confirmed.

Chat

• Open Chat in the rundown header. Everyone with edit access can chat; viewers can't see it.
• @mention a person by name or a @role (e.g. @Light) — mentions light up red for the people they hit, and the unread badge pulses.
• DM: pick a person under “To” for a private message; they get a Reply shortcut.
• Messages clear automatically after 24 hours. Callers can also Reset the chat for everyone.

Sharing & access

Inviting people

• Share a rundown, folder or event from its Share panel — type an email, pick a role. Sharing a folder or event covers everything inside it.
• Viewer reads; Editor edits cue content; Show Caller can also run the show live. Owners/team admins manage structure (rename, move, delete, share).
• An editor's access can be narrowed to specific columns (the padlock you may see on headers).
• Invites stay pending until accepted: the recipient gets a prompt (and a badge on Upcoming events) with Accept / Later — access is granted only when they accept.
• Ask for permission — on a shared event or rundown, the ⋯ menu lets the recipient request a higher role (Editor or Show Caller). The owner sees pending requests in the Share panel and a badge on Users, and approves or declines. That same ⋯ menu is also where you Leave shared content.

Public link

Toggle the public link to get a read-only web page — no sign-in. It refreshes itself and follows the show live. Perfect for screens around the venue or external partners.

Public edit link

The edit link grants edit access without an email invite: guests open it, type their name and are straight in — no account needed, and they don't use an editor seat. You choose which columns the link can edit (and whether it can add/delete rows or columns). Guests are content editors only — they can't run the live show (no Go Live, seats or tracking) and stay locked to that one rundown. There's no limit on the number of guests per link. Each guest shows up in the Members list with a guest badge and in edit history under their name. Regenerate kills the old link instantly.

PIN access

Generate a 6-digit PIN for a rundown, a folder or a whole event. Crew open /pin, type the code and get a read-only view (folder/event PINs show a list to pick from). PINs can be deactivated or given an expiry, and the page keeps itself up to date — including live tracking. Personal columns (Private Notes) are never included in public or PIN views.

Cell ElementsPRO

• Open Cell Elements in the toolbar and drag a chip into any custom cell — a consistent, coloured marker (Light Cue, VB/Video, or your own with name, colour and icon).
• Make an element a checkbox (toggle in its settings): dropped into a cell it gets a tick box — “Mic check”, “Graphics ready” — that anyone with edit access can tick off, synced live for everyone. Per-row readiness, right in the plan.
• Make an element global to share it with the whole team across rundowns.

Wireless Mics planner

Under Cell Elements → Wireless Mics: tell StandbyCue how many headsets (WL1–N) and handhelds you have and who the host is. AI reads the rundown and suggests who speaks in each row, where the breaks are and which rows are Q&A — you review everything. A deterministic planner then rigs headsets break-to-break, keeps the host on the same mic all day, gives Q&A the handhelds, and — when there aren't enough mics — plans the fewest possible swaps, clearly marked in amber with who hands over to whom. The plan is written as chips into a column of your choice (your own notes in that column are kept), plus a per-mic overview with warnings for mid-segment swaps and impossible rows.

Buffer rows

A buffer row (Row Elements → Buffer, or right-click → Add buffer below) is a stretch row: it has no duration of its own — it shrinks or grows so the next Fixed row still starts exactly on time. Put one before “Lunch 12:00” and it continuously shows how much slack is left as the morning drifts; it turns red the moment the schedule overruns the milestone (and the Fixed row gets its overlap warning).

Live, a buffer is a real cue: hit GO onto it and the countdown follows the wall clock down to the milestone — a built-in holding pattern (“we have 4:10 of stretch before doors”). If there's no Fixed row after the buffer, it tells you to set a start time on a later row.

Parallel SessionsPRO

• Open Row Elements → Parallel Sessions, choose how many sessions and (optionally) a shared start time, and Insert. Each session is a full rundown that inherits the main rundown's columns.
• The main rundown gets one anchor row. Expand it to see live session cards: current cue, countdown, live dot — mirrored in real time.
• Preview opens a session in an overlay so you can edit it without leaving the main rundown; the gear adds/removes sessions.
• Timing: a Follow row placed after the anchor starts when the last session is planned to end.
• Standalone rundown: sessions are hidden children, only reachable from the anchor. They're parts of the one rundown, so they don't appear in your dashboard list and don't count toward the Free 3-rundown limit — one rundown with three sessions still counts as one.
• Inside an event: sessions are created as real rundowns in their own folder (so you can open and share them individually) — so there each session does count as a rundown.
• Deleting the anchor asks whether to keep or delete the session rundowns. Each session can also be detached into a normal rundown (which then becomes its own rundown and counts toward the limit).

Plans, teams, users & billing

What a seat is

A seat is anyone who can edit or run a show — Editor, Show Caller, Admin or Owner. Viewers are always free and unlimited: share read-only access via PIN, public link or a view-invite and it never uses a seat.

The three plans

• Free — for getting started: just you editing, up to 3 active rundowns, unlimited viewers, live mode, ready checks, team chat and PDF export. You can't invite other editors on Free — for that you need an Event Pass or Pro.
• Pro — a per-seat subscription (you choose how many editor seats, with volume discounts and a monthly cap). Unlocks unlimited rundowns, multiple team workspaces & roles, inviting editors to teams and events, Cell & Row Elements, Parallel Sessions and the AI tools.
• Event Pass — a one-time purchase that gives a workspace 14 days of full Pro features for a single production, priced per editor. Great for a one-off show without a subscription. When it expires the workspace simply reverts to Free — nothing is deleted. (Teams still need Pro.)

The sharing ladder

• Free — viewers only (PIN, public link, view-invites). Plus the public edit link on standalone rundowns, where guests need no account.
• Event Pass — invite editors to the event it covers, up to the seats you bought.
• Pro — invite editors to whole teams and events, up to your subscription seats.

Teams & users

• Team — a shared workspace: create one and invite members. Team content is visible to the team; admins manage structure, the owner manages the team and its plan.
• Users — see everyone you collaborate with across your workspaces.
• Billing — plans are per team. Manage seats, start/stop a subscription and download invoices from the Billing page; payments and tax are handled by Lemon Squeezy (Merchant of Record), so card data never touches StandbyCue.

Help & feedback

Two links sit at the bottom of the sidebar:

• Docs — this guide.
• Feedback — opens a quick form: pick a topic (Help, Bug, Feature request, Billing, Other), write a message and send. You get a ticket number and a confirmation email, and we reply to your email — just reply back to keep the thread going.

You'll also find Privacy and Sub-processors links there (and on the sign-in page) explaining what data we store and who processes it. To request a copy or deletion of your data, email hello@standbycue.app.

Import & export: PDF, CSV

Open Share → Export… to build a print-ready PDF or a CSV with exactly what you need:

• Columns — pick which columns to include, including your own Private Notes (marked “private” in the printout).
• Layout — portrait or landscape, A4 or Letter, comfortable or compact density (compact fits roughly twice the rows per page).
• Include — toggle section bars, header rows, row colours, images, subtitles, the description and the logo.
• The header repeats on every page, rows never split across a page break, and a footer stamps the export date. Preview opens the page without the print dialog; your choices are remembered per rundown.

Export CSV (same dialog) downloads a spreadsheet-ready file with the same column selection: formatting and images are stripped, subtitles and sections get their own columns, and the computed start times are included. Pick Excel (;) or Standard (,) as delimiter.

Importing (CSV, Excel or paste)

Go the other way too: + New event ▾ → Import rundown… on the dashboard, or Import… on an event page. Drop a CSV or Excel (.xlsx) file — or just paste a copied table from Excel / Sheets straight into the dialog. Map each column to Start / Duration / Title / Subtitle / Section or a new custom column, with a live preview of the first rows so you can see what's what. Intro metadata (like Rundown Studio's "Name: / Export date:" block), header rows, delimiters and Excel time cells are detected automatically; multi-sheet workbooks get a sheet picker. Rows with a Start become Fixed; the rest follow the row above; title-only rows become header rows; consecutive identical Section values become sections.

Build a rundown from a draft (AI)

In the import dialog you can also drop a PDF, or paste an agenda / programme / email into the build from a draft box. AI reads it and turns it into rows — with times, titles and columns — which land in the same preview so you can fix anything before creating. It never invents content; unclear cells are left blank. (Scanned, image-only PDFs have no text to read — paste the agenda instead.)

The public link view has the same full Export panel — anyone you share it with can build a PDF or CSV with their own column and layout choices, no account needed.

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