Requesting documents and info from crew
A run of show isn't the only thing a planner needs from crew. There's also the paperwork and the questions: a Public Liability certificate, a meal preference, a confirmation that they've read the brief, a phone number for their offsider. The Requests feature in 1pm lets you ask each crew member for documents, text, or a choice from a list, and collect everything in one place attached to the event.
This article covers the three kinds of requests, how to set them up, what crew see on their live link, and how the response shows back to you.
Where to add a request
Open the event in the planner and expand the Crew accordion. Inside each crew member's row, find the Requests section. At the bottom of the section there's a small form for adding a new request.
Each crew member has their own list of requests on each event. The same crew member working two different events can have different requests on each one. A photographer might be asked for an insurance certificate on a corporate event and for a song list on a wedding.
The three kinds of request
Pick the request type from the Type dropdown when you add a new request.
Upload. Ask the crew member to send you one or more files. PDF, PNG, JPEG, or WebP, up to 10 MB per file. You set a Min and Max number of files: Min 0 means optional, Min 1 or more means required, Max controls how many they can attach. Useful for licenses, certificates, riders, insurance documents, signed contracts, headshots, or supplier logos.
Text. Ask the crew member for a written answer. Toggle Multi-line on if you want them to have a paragraph-sized text area; leave it off for a single-line input. Useful for meal preferences, dietary requirements, an arrival ETA, a phone number, a song request, the URL of a portfolio, or a free-form question like "anything we need to know about your setup?".
Choice. Ask the crew member to pick from a list of options. Type the options into the Options box, one per line. Toggle Multi on to let them tick more than one option; leave it off to make it a single-pick. Useful for meal selections, role preferences, t-shirt sizes, time-slot preferences, or yes/no confirmations.
You can mix all three kinds on the same crew member. A typical setup for a wedding photographer might be: an Upload request for their PLI certificate, a Text request for their backup contact number, and a Choice request for meal preference.
Setting up a request
After picking the Type, fill in the rest of the form:
Label. Required. Short description of what you're asking for. The crew member sees this as the title of the request on their live link. Keep it specific: "Public Liability Insurance Certificate" reads better than "Document".
Min and Max (Upload only). How many files they can or must submit. The defaults are Min 0 and Max 1, which means optional with at most one file. Set Min to 1 for a single required file. Set Max higher than 1 to collect multiple files (a contact sheet, several reference images, a multi-page rider).
Required (Text and Choice only). When ticked, the crew member sees a "Required" badge on the request. They can still submit other things first, but the request is visibly flagged as one you actually need an answer to. File uploads use Min for the same purpose.
Multi-line (Text only). Switches the crew member's input from a single-line box to a paragraph-sized textarea.
Multi (Choice only). Switches the crew member's view from radio buttons (pick one) to checkboxes (pick any number).
Expiry (Upload only). When ticked, the crew member has to enter an expiry date alongside each file they upload. The date shows next to the filename in your view, color-coded so docs expiring within 30 days warn and docs that have already expired show as errors. Useful for compliance documents that have to be current on the day of the event.
Click Add. The request appears in the list above the form, and the crew member sees it on their live link straight away.
Reusing previous requests as templates
If you've asked one crew member for a Public Liability certificate before, you don't need to type the whole thing out again for the next one. As you start typing the Label of a new request, 1pm shows your previous requests as autocomplete suggestions.
Pick one and the form fills in the label, the type, the description, the Min and Max counts, and the variant flags (Multi-line, Multi, Required, Expiry) from the original request. You can adjust anything before clicking Add. This makes it fast to ask twenty different crew members for the same standard document, or to set up a recurring set of questions for every wedding.
There's nothing to manage for templates: every request you've ever added becomes a template automatically. Picking one is faster than typing; ignoring the suggestions and typing from scratch works exactly as before.
Editing a request after it's added
Most fields on an added request are editable inline. Click into the label to rename it. Click into the description (the smaller line below the label) to add or change a longer instruction for the crew member. Adjust the Min, Max, or variant toggles directly on the row. Each change saves automatically.
You can also drag a request up or down using the handle on the left to reorder how the crew member sees the list.
Delete a request with the small X on the right. If the crew member has already uploaded files or submitted answers against it, those go too. Deleting is confirmed before it happens.
What the crew member sees
On their live link, requests appear in a card titled "Requests" above the timeline. Each request shows the label, an icon indicating its type (cloud for upload, pencil for text, list for choice), and a Required or Optional badge.
For uploads, they tap to pick a file, optionally enter an expiry date if you've required one, and tap Upload. Submitted files show below the request as a list, with filename, size, and a delete button so they can fix a wrong file.
For text, they type into the input (or textarea for multi-line) and tap Submit. The submitted text shows below the request.
For choice, they tick the relevant option(s) and tap Submit. The selection shows below the request.
If you've set a Max higher than 1 for an upload, a progress badge appears: "1 of 2 files" or similar. Once they hit the Max, the form stops accepting new files until they delete one.
How responses come back to you
Every file or answer the crew member submits shows up in their request row on the planner side, with a delete button if you need to remove it. There's nothing to refresh: as soon as the crew member submits, the response appears in your planner view via the live update channel.
You can download submitted files directly from the planner view. The files are stored in 1pm; the crew member doesn't need to host them on Google Drive or Dropbox themselves.
Limits
Each crew member can have up to 50 requests per event. That's more than enough for any normal event; the cap exists so a misconfigured form or a copy-paste accident can't create thousands of requests.
Each file upload is capped at 10 MB. For larger documents (high-res video, raw photo files), attach them as a link instead via the Attachments feature.
When you don't need this
Requests are designed for collecting structured information from crew. For ad-hoc messages or two-way conversation, they aren't the right tool yet (chat is on the roadmap). For documents the planner is providing to the crew, the Attachments feature is the right home. For things the whole crew needs to know, the briefing or per-crew notes are better.
Use Requests when you specifically need an answer or a document from a specific crew member, and you want all those answers collected in one place attached to the event, and possibly also expiry tracking on credentials.
