Open the Access Gateway operator workspace

The AccessGateway is the Gateway module as your production team sees it. It is a tabbed workspace embedded in the Studio that gives you one place to watch the room, shape the seating, run a tombola and drive live polls. This page walks you through opening it and getting your bearings in under two minutes.

Prerequisites

• A Timers Studio room already created (you have a controller_id in the controllers table)
• The Studio open on timers.studio/id/<your-room>
• At least one spectator will help to see the counters move, but it is not required to open the workspace

Steps

1. Open the Studio on your room

Go to timers.studio/id/<your-room>. The Studio loads and resolves your room against the controllers table. If the slug is wrong, you land on a 404 before the Gateway even tries to mount.

2. Open the Gateway workspace

In the Studio left rail, click Gateway (labelled Access in some rooms). AccessGateway mounts on the right. The LIVE tab is selected by default, so you see LiveMonitor first.

The Gateway opens inside the Studio; it does not take you to a different URL. Spectators will not see this view — they only see timers.studio/ask/<your-room>.

3. Read the live counters

The workspace header shows two counters pulled from Supabase:

• Online spectators — rows in the spectators table filtered on your controller_id, with an online flag set by the spectator page.
• Pending questions — rows in spatial_questions where status = 'pending', same filter.

Both counters are subscribed to realtime channels. They change on their own as the audience grows, without any refresh.

4. Switch tabs

The four tabs map to four Gateway-adjacent tools:

• LIVE → LiveMonitor. A live map of connected seats plus the incoming question stream. Start here to get a feel for the room.
• STAGE → StageConfigurator. The director-side map used to define zones and calibrate seats. Open this before the show, not during.
• RAFFLE → RaffleControl, re-used from the Moderator module. Pick a zone, trigger a draw, read the winner out loud.
• POLLS → PollManager, re-used from the Moderator module. Create, open and close polls that appear to the audience via SpectatorPollVote.

Tabs are cheap to switch — they stay subscribed in the background so counters and data do not reset.

5. Run a tombola or a poll

From RAFFLE, pick a scope (whole room or a zone) and click Draw. The winner is selected from the current spectators rows and shown on screen.

From POLLS, click New poll, add options, then Open. SpectatorPollVote slides in on every phone currently on timers.studio/ask/<room>. Votes land in poll_votes as they come in, and the result is yours to show on the Player through PollWidget when you close the poll.

Expected result

You have AccessGateway open inside the Studio with the LIVE tab selected. The header shows real counters. Switching to RAFFLE or POLLS gives you the Moderator controls without leaving the Studio. Spectators on /ask/<room> keep their own view untouched.

Troubleshooting

Counters stay at zero even though people are on /ask/<room>. Check the Studio URL and the spectator URL share the exact same room ID. A typo in either slug breaks the join on controller_id and no row matches.

The RAFFLE or POLLS tab is empty. Those tabs reuse Moderator components. If your plan does not include the Moderator module, the tab will render a disabled state. Upgrade the room or operate from a plan that has the module enabled.

I opened a poll but nothing shows on my phone. The spectator phone must be on timers.studio/ask/<room> with the same room ID, not the Player URL. SpectatorPollVote only appears on the Gateway spectator surface.

Next reads

• Spectator app — the audience flow end-to-end.
• Vote on a live poll (spectator view) — what the audience sees when you open a poll here.
• Run a live poll — the authoring details behind the POLLS tab.