Create Your First Schedule

This tutorial creates the first games for a league. It uses the beginner path: finish setup, choose Match Games or one competition phase, create draft games, review them, then publish later.

Prerequisites

• A league exists.
• At least two teams have been added.
• At least one organization venue has been added.
• Organization management is available for scheduling.
• The official league timezone has been confirmed.

Step 1: Open the schedule workspace

From the league dashboard, open the league schedule area. This is the main workspace for phases, schedule health, game lists, publishing, and schedule tools.

If the setup guide appears, finish the missing setup before you create games.

• Use Open teams if fewer than two teams are ready.
• Use Open venues if the organization has no venue yet.
• Use Manage phases if the games should belong to an official competition structure that does not exist yet.

Do not create games until the guide shows the required items are ready. The scheduler needs teams for matchups and a venue for location. Every league already includes Match Games for friendly or undecided games.

Step 2: Pick the working phase

In Working phase, choose the phase where the first games belong. The working phase controls the default phase used by the scheduling hub, bulk create rows, generators, and phase-level publish actions.

For a first schedule, choose the scope that matches the game:

• Use Match Games for friendly, immediate, or undecided games that should stay outside official standings.
• Use a regular season, league stage, or round-robin phase for ordinary first games.
• Use a group-stage phase only if teams are already assigned to groups.
• Leave playoff, finals, series, bracket, and classification phases for later, after earlier results exist.

If the phase is still draft, you can still create draft games in it. Published visibility is only available when the selected phase is active.

Step 3: Open the scheduling hub

Select Schedule a game. The scheduling hub opens with the current Working phase and the methods available for that phase.

For this beginner workflow, choose Single game. Use Bulk create only when several manual matchups are already planned. If every team should play a structured set of matchups, stop here and use the schedule generators guide instead.

Step 4: Create the first draft game

Fill in the single-game form. In the scheduling hub, the selected working phase is already applied, so the form focuses on the matchup and schedule details.

Choose:

• Home team.
• Away team.
• Venue.
• Start time.
• Duration in minutes.
• Visibility.

Keep visibility as Draft until the schedule has been reviewed. If Published is disabled, the selected phase is not active yet.

Use Advanced details only when you need a specific Game number or Series key. For most first schedules, leave advanced details empty.

Step 5: Add more draft games

After the first game, choose the repeat action that matches your situation:

• Use Schedule game when you only need one game.
• Use Save & create another when the next game is different but you want to keep scheduling.
• Use Save & duplicate when the next game is similar and should reuse most of the current setup.
• Use Bulk create when you have a planned list of games and want to submit all rows together.

Bulk create rows inherit the current working phase and defaults. Each row still needs its own teams, venue, start time, duration, and visibility. Keep rows as Draft unless you are sure the phase is active and the games should be visible now.

For generated schedules, use the focused guides for round robin, group stage, or playoff and placement games. Do not manually guess playoff pairings before the source results exist.

Step 6: Assign a Match Game when the competition phase becomes known

If a game started in Match Games, return to the schedule, select the game, and use Assign to phase when it becomes part of the competition.

Review the target phase, eligibility, remaining projected demand, and standings impact before assigning. A completed game needs explicit confirmation because its result will begin counting in that phase's standings and statistics.

Skip this step when the game should remain a friendly or non-competition result.

Step 7: Review before publishing

Return to the schedule workspace and check schedule health before publishing.

Review these areas:

• Published, Draft, Completed, and Canceled counts.
• Conflicts, such as overlapping venue times or a team booked into overlapping games. Venue checks include other leagues in the same organization that use the same venue.
• Warnings, such as a team appearing more than once in a day or having a very short rest window.
• Missing duration, because duration helps the app detect overlaps.
• The Drafts tab, because this is where first-schedule games usually start.
• Filters and search, especially when checking one team, one venue, one phase, or games with issues.

Fix conflicts before publishing. Warnings may be acceptable for tournament days, but review them before the schedule goes live.

Step 8: Publish later

When the games are ready for players and supporters, publish the phase or selected games.

Use the safest publish option:

• Use Publish phase games when every draft game in the active working phase is ready.
• Use Publish selected when only some scheduled games are ready.
• Use Move phase games to draft or Unpublish selected if published games need to be hidden again.

Completed games cannot be treated like ordinary draft planning items. Finish schedule corrections before game day whenever possible.

Expected result: the league has first schedule games in the correct Match Games or competition scope, created as drafts, checked for issues, and published only when ready.

If something blocks the workflow

• If setup is incomplete, add the missing teams or venue. Create a competition phase only when the league format needs one.
• If scheduling is paused, ask an Owner or Admin to review and confirm the official league timezone.
• If Published is disabled, activate the selected phase or keep the game as Draft.
• If schedule health reports a conflict, correct the team, venue, date, or time before publishing.
• If the planned format needs generated matchups, use the matching generator instead of entering them manually.

Common first-schedule scenarios

Related guides

• Manage schedule phases
• Use schedule generators
• Generate a round-robin schedule
• Generate a group-stage schedule
• Generate playoff, bracket and placement games
• Review and publish a schedule
• Communicate schedule changes