Publishing and managing registrations

A tournament moves through a simple lifecycle: draft → published → completed. This article explains what each state means, how registration works while the tournament is published, and how to process the entries you receive.

Tournament states

• Draft — only you (and your organization's administrators) can see the tournament. Take your time to configure it.
• Published — the tournament is publicly visible and, if registration is enabled, players can sign up. Publish from the manage page with Publish Tournament.
• Completed — the event is over. It stays publicly visible with its final standings. Use Complete Tournament when the last round is done; Reopen Tournament brings it back to published if you need to fix something.
• Cancelled — use Cancel Tournament if the event won't take place. Cancelled tournaments are hidden from the public.

Two more actions are always available: Copy duplicates the tournament (settings included) as a new draft — handy for recurring events — and Delete Tournament permanently removes it along with all its rounds, results and registrations. Deleting cannot be undone.

Important: You can unpublish a tournament back to draft, but this hides it from public view — including from players who already registered. Prefer editing the published tournament directly.

When registration is open

Players can register when all of these are true: the tournament is published, registration via Chesstide is enabled, the event hasn't ended, and the current date falls within the Registration Start Date and Registration Deadline (if you set them).

If you disabled Enable Registration via Chesstide, the tournament is an announcement only — point players to your external registration in the description or website link.

Registration statuses

Each entry has a registration status:

• Pending — the player registered and awaits your confirmation.
• Confirmed — you accepted the entry.
• Checked In — the player is present on tournament day (see Players, check-in and the waiting list).
• Waitlisted — the tournament was full when they registered; they're queued automatically.
• Cancelled — the entry was withdrawn.

Payment is tracked separately from registration: each entry is unpaid, partially paid, paid, refunded or waived.

Processing entries

Open the cockpit's Players tab to work through the entries. Select several registrations and use the bulk actions — Confirm, Cancel or Check In under Registration; Mark Paid, Mark Unpaid or Waive under Payment — or handle them row by row.

From the same screen you can:

• Export CSV — the full player list with registration and payment details.
• Export Emails — contact addresses, ready to paste into your mail client.

When the tournament is full, new registrations land on the waiting list. Manage the queue from the Waiting list view: Promote moves a player into the tournament, and you can drag entries to reorder the queue.

Tip: Confirm entries promptly. Players see their status on their registration page, and a long Pending queue generates exactly the "did you receive my registration?" emails you're trying to avoid.