Assignary and DragonFly (NFHS Center for Officials Services)

DragonFly

DragonFly is athletic management software designed for high school sports administration, with tools for state athletic associations, schools, athletic directors and officials [4]. It powers the NFHS Center for Officials Services, the COS, which handles officials’ registration, assignments, testing and payments in one platform [5] [6]. In a release dated January 21, 2025, the NFHS named DragonFly its “Official and Exclusive Game Officials Registration, Assignment and Payment Partner” in a multi-year deal [6]. Beside assigning and pay, the COS page lists paperless registration, background checks, eligibility tracking, NFHS exam integration, digital game passes and dues collection [5].

Assignary

On Assignary, a club assigns its officials and pays their game fees. Each spot it fills is a seat: one official’s place on a game’s crew, so a referee crew on a match and a judging panel on a division run the same way. Assignary opens to new clubs in January 2027, and until then the way in is its waitlist.

DragonFly

North Carolina’s NCHSAA registers its officials in DragonFly and says “Registration for the 2026-2027 academic year opened on May 18, 2026” [1]. It also says “All Officials must register and complete ALL pre-season eligibility requirements to work NCHSAA game assignments and obtain an Official’s Pass” [1].

Maryland’s MPSSAA “has moved its testing platform onto the NFHS Centers for Officials Services powered by DragonFly Athletics”, and an official without a DragonFly account sets one up to take the NFHS exam [2].

In Georgia, the Georgia Lacrosse Officials Association says “GHSA is using the Dragonfly application for registration this year” [3]. The association uses DragonFly for GHSA registration and the NFHS test, and assigns its games in another system [3].

Assignary

Assignary doesn’t replace a system an association requires. It reads nothing from a federation’s or a state body’s records. The club records each clearance itself, and Assignary never contacts whoever issued it.

DragonFly

Assigners and booking agents assign from the game schedule, game by game, one crew across several games at once, or from the COS app [7] [8]. The Auto Assigner works within one sport [9], and its Official Criteria set filters that control which officials it assigns [10]. It rules out officials whose blocks directly conflict with a game, for reasons such as ineligibility or a schedule block [10]. Then it “orders assignments by first seeing who is available” [10]. After that it goes by who has the fewest game assignments, then alphabetically [10]. What it assigns stays unpublished, and nobody is notified, until the assigner publishes it [9]. State associations and local officiating groups give officials positions and ranks, and the rank window defaults to “a ranking scale between 1 and 10 for each position” [11]. Officiating limits warn an assigner when an official would work the same team again too soon or too often in a season, and the assigner can override the warning [12].

Assignary

For each seat, you see everyone who can work it. They’re free, close enough, certified and cleared for the day of the game, with no conflict and no other game in the way. You also see why everyone else is out. In Assignary, the Propose a crew button names one official for each open seat it can fill. It shows each one’s drive time where it’s known. You send every first offer.

DragonFly

Officials set blocks, which their assigners see as soon as they’re made [13]. An availability block is one-time or recurring, for a range of dates and times, and can be set by officiating group, sport and level [13]. A distance block sets a radius in miles from their address, or from another address they add [13]. A conflict block names an official or a school, and a school block is marked a conflict of interest or personal; a state may limit how many personal blocks an official holds [13]. A school can block an official by sport and level [14]. Under an ineligibility turnback, an official who hasn’t met their state or local association’s eligibility requirements a set number of days before a contest is removed from it [15]. An official who has accepted an assignment that conflicts with a new one can’t accept both [16]. When an assigner gives one crew several games at once, DragonFly shows an error for any scheduling conflict in the games selected [7].

Assignary

A seat goes only to somebody who passes every check. They’re free at that time and inside their own travel radius. They’re at the level the game asks for, and hold every clearance its sport requires when the game starts. They have no declared conflict, no other game in the way, and room under their own cap for the day. Each clearance carries what it is, who issued it, who entered it, who checked it and when it runs out. If an official says they’re out, their seats on games that haven’t started are offered to the next person who can take them. An official can mark an absence as medical, with nothing more written about it. The club sees the dates and never the reason.

DragonFly

Publishing an assignment notifies the official by email and push notification, with the option to accept or reject it [8]. An official who rejects one is asked for a reason, which is reported to their assigner [16]. A turnback policy sets how many calendar days an official has, from the day an assignment is published, to accept it before they’re turned back [17]. When a game changes, the assigner can ask its officials, by email and push notification, to accept the change [18]. Officials message their crew, their assigner and others on a game, delivered by email and push notification [19]. DragonFly’s COS page lists a “Free Mobile App” [5], and the COS app is on the App Store and Google Play [20] [21].

Assignary

An offer arrives by email. There’s no app to install. The offer’s link opens in the phone’s browser. Its email shows the seat, the game, its sport and level, when it starts and ends, the venue and its address, and the pay. The official answers Accept or Turn down. Every offer has a time limit. If nobody answers before then, the offer runs out. If someone turns an offer down, or lets it run out, it goes to the next person who can take it. Assignary asks the nearest first, and the better record of turning up breaks a tie. The game’s history shows that Assignary moved it. You can turn off a game’s automatic re-offers. Then a seat that opens up on that game waits for you. An official can say yes ahead of time, before anyone asks. Then a seat that matches is theirs the moment it’s offered. They choose what counts as a match: the levels they work, a radius, a cap for the week, weekdays they keep free, the lowest fee they’ll take and a pair of dates. A private link puts their games in the calendar they already use.

DragonFly

A game’s history log shows when changes were made and by whom, and can be printed [22]. When a school or association pays for a game, the payer can de-select anyone to remove them from the payment [23]. A box records that the person attended, and checking it isn’t required to send payment [23]. An assigner downloads the game schedule with its assigned officials as a CSV [24]. In the COS app, officials fill out ejection and incident reports and keep a record of their past games [20].

Assignary

An assigner marks who didn’t show and who was excused. Every accepted seat on a game that has started is paid. The seats left out are the ones marked a no-show or excused, and any whose official disputes the record. A disputed seat is held out of the payment until an assigner answers. Each seat keeps a history of who offered it, who took it and who marked it. An official can download a signed record of their own work in a club. It shows their offers and accepts, whether the work happened, and the clearances they hold. Whoever they hand it to can check it against a published key, without asking Assignary.

DragonFly

A school or association sets up a DragonFly Cash Account, funds it by ACH or by check, and pays officials and game workers from the game schedule, one game at a time or on a pay sheet [23] [25] [26]. Each payment shows the fee policy and the travel fee policy set by the state association or local officials association [23]. The payer chooses a payment method, such as the funded cash account or a credit card, and the payment is processed immediately [26]. An official’s payments appear under My Money, and an ACH withdrawal to their bank requires “3 to 5 business days to complete” [27] [28].

Assignary

After the weekend, the club’s treasurer pays its total at Stripe’s checkout, by card, bank transfer or bank debit, and each referee and judge is sent the whole fee on their seat. Officials give their bank details to Stripe, never to Assignary. How soon each official’s fee is sent depends on how the club paid:

• A card whose bank confirmed the cardholder, Apple Pay or Google Pay: as the charge clears
• A US wire for the whole weekend: as it arrives
• Any other bank transfer: 6 business days after it arrives
• A bank debit: plan on 65 days after it clears
• A card whose bank didn’t confirm the cardholder: 120 days after it clears

The fee lands in the official’s Stripe balance. It reaches their bank on Stripe’s usual schedule at no cost, or right away for 1.75% of what is paid out, at least $1. One payment carries up to 50 seats. A club starts with a limit of $5,000 on payments that could still be taken back at any one time. The Pay page shows what the club paid each official in a calendar year. It counts each payment on the date the money moved.

DragonFly

DragonFly’s pages for officials, assigners and financial administrators print no fee for assigning or paying officials [5] [29] [30], and its COS page says the COS is “Provided at no cost to your association as an NFHS Member benefit!” [5]. The financial administrators page says “Fund your account for free with ACH or by check” [30], and links DragonFly’s Financial Terms and Conditions, “Version 4.27.23”, which count officials among the payees a DragonFly Cash Account pays [30] [31]. The terms mark their fee tables “accurate as of 4-27-2023” [31]. The tables give a “Total Cost Per Payment” for a payment made each of these ways [31]:

• from a pre-funded DragonFly Cash Account: “$2” [31]
• with an ACH transfer: “$2 + 2% of the payment amount”, where “Your minimum cost will be $4 and maximum cost will be $7 per payment” [31]
• with a credit card: “$2 + 3.5% of the payment amount + $0.30” [31]

The same section lists an “ACH or Check Return Fee” of “$35”, “$50 per Payout” for withdrawing funds by check, “$50” to stop payment on a check and a “Credit Card Dispute Fee” of “$15” [31]. The terms reserve DragonFly’s right to change these fees and say “Current terms can be found at www.dragonflymax.com/payments” [31]; that address opens the financial administrators page, which prints none of these fees [32]. DragonFly’s help center says officials “can withdraw funds up to 4 times per calendar month” and that “Any additional transfers beyond 4 per calendar month will result in a $5 fee per withdraw” [27]; its COS page lists “No Fees for Money Transfers/Withdrawals” [5]. In North Carolina and Georgia, officials pay their state association’s registration fees in DragonFly [1] [3].

Assignary

Assigning is free. Each seat your club pays through Assignary has a price. Each seat paid adds $3.50 plus 3.5% of its fee by card, or $3.50 plus 1.25% by bank. Its referee or judge is sent the whole fee. A bank debit through Stripe’s checkout adds Stripe’s $1.50 fee for linking the bank account, as a line of its own. A wire adds Stripe’s $15 to what the club owes. There’s no subscription, no setup fee and no contract. A referee or a judge pays nothing to take a seat or to be paid. A season plan prepays the $3.50 part of each seat’s price in a block, on one invoice paid by bank transfer, at no more than $3.25 a seat for 250 seats down to $2.95 a seat for 2,500. These prices hold from October 6, 2026.

DragonFly

An assigner downloads a DragonFly game schedule with its assigned officials as a CSV [24]. DragonFly’s financial administrators page lists “Downloadable Pay Sheets and invoices” and “Integration into your accounting software” [30], and each payment sent from a Cash Account has a PDF receipt and a printable invoice [23].

Assignary

Assignary imports a .csv or .xlsx workbook, and each row becomes a game. One file carries up to 200 games. It reads the columns by the headings the switching page lists. Before anything is saved, Assignary shows you every row, and says what’s wrong with a row it can’t read. If a sheet has no fee column, Assignary asks you for one fee before it’s saved. The crew comes over through the club’s join link, or one invitation at a time. You can put one weekend’s games into Assignary, offer their seats and fill them, while the rest stays where it is. Assignary charges nothing for a weekend your club doesn’t pay for through it.

DragonFly

DragonFly imports games from its own Excel template, one sport and level at a time, with the template’s school cells filled with the schools of the selected state [33] [34]. Its import validates each file and, where required data is missing, says where and what is missing [33].

Assignary

A club’s owner can download one zip of spreadsheets for a range of dates. It holds the games and every offer of a seat on them, and the roster and members as they are now. It also holds what the club was charged and what its officials were paid.

Each person downloads their own record from Assignary as one file, and an official’s signed record of their work goes with them to their next association.