Tournament status and lifecycle

Every tournament has one status. The status decides what you and your players can do — and what the app will refuse to do.

Statuses

Status	What it means
Draft	Only you can see it. Nobody can enter.
Upcoming	Published. People can find the tournament and enter during the registration window.
In progress	Started. Competition is under way and results count toward advancement.
Completed	Finished. Results, standings, and placements are final.
Canceled	Called off. The tournament is no longer taking place.
Archived	Removed from active management. Its history is kept.

Publishing a tournament does not label it “Published”. Players see a published tournament as Upcoming.

A tournament moves forward through five statuses:

Draft → Upcoming → In progress → Completed → Archived

Draft is where you build it. Only you can see it.
Publish it to make it Upcoming. People can find it and enter while the registration window is open.
Start it to make it In progress. This becomes available once competitors are confirmed, rosters are locked, and player payments are resolved.
Complete it when play is finished. Every match needs a result and every stage needs resolving first.
Archive it to clear it from your active lists. Nothing is deleted.

You can cancel instead of completing, from Draft, Upcoming, or In progress. A canceled tournament can be archived just like a completed one.

Tournaments only move forward. You cannot return a Completed, Canceled, or Archived tournament to an earlier status, and you cannot delete it.

A tournament’s status does not tell you whether entries are open. An Upcoming tournament can also show any of these to players:

Players see	Meaning
Registration open	Entries are being accepted.
Registration opens soon	The registration window has not opened yet.
Registration paused	The organizer paused new entries.
Registration closed	The registration window has passed.
Tournament full	Every entry has been claimed.
Registration unavailable	This tournament is not accepting entries.

When a player asks why they cannot enter, check the registration state before the status.

Draft is fully editable and invisible. Nothing you do here is public.
Upcoming is when entries are collected. Competition setup stays editable only while there are no current entries and no matches.
In progress is for running play. Competition authoring closes when the tournament starts; use match correction or replacement when the draw needs to change.
Completed and Canceled are final. Archiving only clears them from active management.