A calendar is a draft until you publish it. From then on, it moves through its phases on its own, day by day: shown in the app, live, ended and archived. This article explains publishing, what each phase means, and what you can still change in each.
Before you publish
Step 7 of the setup guide, Publish, collects what's left to do and shows what will happen when.
What happens when lists your calendar's dates:
| When | What happens |
|---|---|
| Once published, or on the day it's shown in the app | People can see the calendar, with every door locked. You can still change everything or unpublish it. |
| The first door | The first door opens. From then on, the start date, the number of doors, the time zone, the show date, points and the default language can't change. |
| The last door | The last door opens. |
| Two days after the last door | Doors stop opening. People only see the doors they opened, and you can export the results. |
| The day after it's shown until | The calendar is gone for everyone. You can still export it. |
| The season's end | Everything is deleted: the calendar and all its data. Export what you want to keep before then. |
Below the timeline:
- A yellow box for each language that isn't fully translated, with links to what's missing. These don't block publishing: people with that language see the default language where a text is missing.
- A red box, Fix before publishing, with one line per problem and a Fix link.
- Ready to publish. once nothing blocks.
Checks and suggestions
The calendar checks itself all the time and sorts what it finds into two kinds:
- Problems (red) block publishing. Examples: a door without a title in the default language, an image without a description, a raffle without an entry deadline, a quiz question without a correct answer, a start date in the past.
- Suggestions (amber) are worth a look but never block. Examples: an unfinished translation, a header image that's cut off a lot on phones or loads slowly, a door with an image in one language but not another.
Tabs with a problem are marked red (Needs a fix), tabs with suggestions amber (Has suggestions). The Doors tab and each door editor list them per door, see What's missing.
After publishing, the Overview keeps a Checks section: No problems found, or what a later change broke. Fix those soon, because people see the calendar.
Publishing
- Click Publish at the top, or Publish now in step 7 of the setup guide.
- The dialog says when people will see the calendar.
- Click Publish.
The window Your calendar is published! then shows the calendar's link, with a copy button, and when the calendar opens for your colleagues. Set the link as the URL of the calendar's tile in Flip, so people find it there. Download icon gives you an icon for that tile, if you'd like one. You can copy the link and download the icon again later from the Calendar link card on the Overview tab.
If guide steps are still open, the dialog warns you (The setup isn't finished yet.) and names them, but you can still publish. Publish stays greyed out while there are unsaved changes or problems; hover over it to see why.
Phases
The phase is shown next to the calendar's name, and in the list of calendars.
| Phase | When | Your colleagues | You can |
|---|---|---|---|
| Draft | Until you publish | See nothing. | Change everything, publish, delete the draft. |
| Upcoming | Published, before the first door | From the show date: the calendar with every door locked and a countdown. Before that: nothing. | Change everything, unpublish. |
| Live | From the first door until two days after the last door | Open a door every day. Points, quizzes, polls and raffles count. | Change content, texts and design. Schedule, time zone, show date, points and default language are fixed. |
| Ended | After that, until the last day it's shown | See the doors they opened, read-only. Nothing is counted, not even analytics. | Change the last day it's shown, archive it, download the export. |
| Archived | After the last day it's shown, or when you archive it | See nothing. | Download the export until the season's end. |
The phases change by themselves at midnight in the calendar's time zone. You don't have to do anything.
While the calendar is live, every tab reminds you: This calendar is live. People see every change right away.
Unpublishing
Until the first door opens, Unpublish at the top turns the calendar back into a draft: your colleagues no longer see it, and you can publish it again later. The Overview says until when, for example Can be unpublished until the first door opens on 1 December 2026.
Once the first door has opened, a calendar can't be unpublished. Fix mistakes by editing the doors instead.
Archiving
Once a calendar has ended, Archive in the â‹® menu hides it from your colleagues right away, instead of waiting for the last day it's shown. Only the export is left afterwards. This can't be undone.
Several calendars at once
Several calendars can be published at the same time, for example one per country or site. Each has its own link, which you set as the URL of its tile in the Flip App: copy it from the Calendar link card on the calendar's Overview tab. Each calendar has its own doors, figures and export.
Flip can switch this off for your organisation (see Settings set by Flip). Then only one calendar can be published at a time, as before, but each calendar still has its own link. While another calendar is still published, a new draft's checks say so, with the date you can publish it:
"Advent calendar 2025" is published until 9 January 2026. Only one calendar can be published at a time, so you can publish this one from the day after.
If you want to publish sooner, archive the other calendar once it has ended. A calendar that's still live can't be ended early.
Deleting a draft
Delete draft in the â‹® menu deletes a draft with all its doors, texts, settings and images no other calendar uses. This can't be undone. Published calendars can't be deleted; they're archived and then deleted with everything else at the season's end.
