Drawing and publishing the competition draw
Building groups and the bracket in the app, then publishing so players and referees can get into matches — plus what the progress bar means while matches are created.
Updated 9/27/2026
Getting to the draw screen
Tournament management → the branching-draw icon. You need the Draws, groups and brackets permission; without it the screen says you don't have access.
Unlike the public draw tab, this screen also opens categories that are not yet published — which is exactly where you work.
Pick a category to enter the builder. At the top a chip tells you which source you are looking at: LIVE BUILD (a simulation on your device), SAVED DRAW, or REAL RESULTS (matches have actually been played).
The usual sequence
Set the "Format"
Choose the number of groups, or use the system's suggestion. The app warns you if any group has fewer than 4 teams — each team would get fewer than 3 group matches.
Declare "Keep-apart conditions" if needed
Each set is a group of teams that MUST end up in different groups, for example teams from the same club. Applying it redraws under the new constraint.
Tap "Redraw" until you're happy
Look through both the Groups and Bracket tabs. Tap a team to replace it, or force a team into a specific slot.
Tap "Save"
The button at the right of the header. Once saved, the source chip becomes SAVED DRAW with the time it was saved.
Tap "Publish draw"
This is the step that makes it visible to players and referees. Until it's published, the tournament's Draw tab doesn't show this category.
Only the most senior administrators can publish
Draw permission lets you build and save a draw, but the publish button only appears for the most senior administrators. That is deliberate: publishing is an outward-facing action that every player sees immediately. If you've finished building and don't see the button, ask the organisers to publish it for you.
The progress bar while publishing
Publishing isn't instant. The system has to create every match of the category — a large category can run into several hundred. You'll see these stages one after another:
- Saving the draw
- Enabling publication
- Preparing the match list
- Creating matches, with a counter
- Normalising match formats
The bar states plainly that you can leave the screen and the system keeps going. When it's done it reports the publication with the total number of matches.
If the progress stops partway
The bar will report that the draw is published but not all matches were created, with a Run again button. Tap it. Don't skip this: if the draw appears but matches are missing, referees can open a slot and still not get into a match.
After publishing
- Teams fill into the next round's slots automatically each time a preceding match gets a result — normally you don't assign anything by hand.
- To fix a specific slot, use Assign team to slot (only shown when the bracket is projecting real results). Don't confuse it with Force team into this slot — that edits the build, not the real matches.
- Clear results returns the category to not-played. Think carefully.
- Share the draw exports the groups as text to send outside the app.
- Once the tournament finishes, the draw is locked as a record of results and can no longer be redrawn or overwritten.
Frequently asked questions
The app says "The version on the server has changed" when I save?
Somebody else saved this draw just before you. Tap reload to get the latest version and then redo your change — if you overwrite, their work is lost.
What does the amber strip "keep-apart constraints not satisfied" mean?
The draw couldn't place all the teams that must be kept apart. Tap the strip to see which set specifically, then redraw or relax the constraint.
I've published it — can I hide it again to make changes?
The publish button becomes hide draw. But if players have already seen it and matches have started, hiding causes more confusion than it solves — consider editing directly instead of hiding.
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