Draft and Publish: the plan crews see

Every project starts Live: crews see each save the moment it lands. When you are reworking a plan and don't want crews to follow every half-finished change, put the project into Draft. You keep editing and saving as normal, and crews keep seeing the plan from your last publish until you publish again.

Live and Draft#

• Live: crews see every save as it lands.
• Draft: crews see the plan you last published. Your saves keep saving either way.

The views crews use all follow this choice: planner views, crew links and itinerary links, the Day plan, Work, My tasks and the Calendar. Project files are always the latest; a Draft does not hold them back.

While a project is in Draft, crews also keep the published plan's name, status, company, start date and task count until you publish, and their Home activity lists the project's saves only up to the published plan. A rename on a Live project reaches them at once, like any other save.

Where to find it#

In the editor, Tools ▾ → What crews see… opens the Live or Draft choice for this one project. The master plan publishes several projects at once with its own Publish…, and so does People: its Publish… opens the same Publish to crews dialog with the Draft projects on the page.

While a project is a Draft, a second chip sits beside the save chip:

• ◷ Draft · published 1:21 PM while today's publish is still current (a date once the day has turned);
• ◷ Draft · unpublished changes once something new is waiting;
• ◷ Publishing while a publish is on its way, and ◷ Publish failed — click to retry if one didn't land.

Hover the chip to read exactly what crews see and what isn't in it yet. A Draft project also carries a Draft pill on the Projects page, on Home, on Crew planning, in People's project legend and on the Reports page's publication line.

What crews see…#

The dialog shows Live and Draft and, for a Draft, when it was last published, by whom, and how many saves have landed since. See what crews see opens the published plan as crews see it, read-only: a row's right-click offers only Collapse (or Expand) and Copy, and Tab moves on instead of indenting. The buttons change with what you pick:

Going Live shows crews the live day notes; a change to the notes alone still reads Go Live.

Publishing#

Publish to crews replaces the plan crews are seeing with the plan you have now. It is all or nothing: every project you are publishing goes together, or none do.

If someone else saved a project since you last loaded it, that row is refused with "These projects changed since you last loaded them". What changed… shows the difference, and Include it anyway publishes it regardless, so publishing without a look is still one click away but never silent.

Crew progress reports count as saves. A crew's own report (percent complete, work status, remaining, a checklist tick, an attachment) shows in the plan crews see at once, without waiting for a publish. A planner's changes to who is assigned, the checklist or the notes wait for the next publish.

That includes bookings made on People. The first booking into a Draft says so, for example Bridge 12 is a Draft — crews see it after you publish. A stay, which keeps a person on a project between tasks, is different: it reaches their Day plan and itinerary at once, without a publish.

Discarding unpublished changes#

In What crews see…, Discard unpublished changes (or Discard unpublished and go Live) throws away everything saved since the last publish and returns the project to the plan crews are already seeing. It asks first, and your current plan stays in History as an automatic save, under the name of whoever saved it last, so Restore… can bring it back. Like any automatic save it rolls off once 30 newer ones arrive; Keep this one… on it makes it a saved version that stays.

If a colleague saved after the publish, the discard refuses and names them. That check looks only at the last person to save, so it can miss one, and says so. Whatever anyone saved is still in History under their name.

What a crew link shows#

A crew's link carries a stamp so a foreman comparing it with a phone call knows which plan they have: Published Sep 21, 9:00 AM while the project is a Draft, or Live · updated … when it is Live. See Crew links and itineraries.

Day notes#

Tools ▾ → Day notes… (or the + on a day header in the master plan) keeps a dated list of notes for one project. Each note applies to The whole project (shown as Every day) or to one day. Show this to crews puts a note in what crews see; unticked notes stay internal. A project has one whole-project note and at most one note per day, each up to 2,000 characters.

• Unticking a note takes effect at once.
• On a Live project, a newly ticked note reaches crews at once.
• On a Draft, a newly ticked note reaches crews with the next publish, like any other change. It counts as an unpublished change of its own: the chip says so, and the next publish carries it even if nothing else changed.
• On a Draft, your own Today on site block shows the live ticked notes, what crews will see after the next publish; a crew's Work page shows the notes that were published.
• Switching a Live project to Draft keeps the notes crews were already seeing, and going Live never re-publishes notes, because crews read the live ones once the project is Live.

Crews see ticked notes on Work, on crew links and handouts, and in the Day plan.

Who can use it#

Publishing is decided by the Master planning capability, not by role. Company admins hold it by role; a company admin grants it to other members (not a Field-only account) on Company › Users & access → the Master planning card. Only people with it can publish, switch a project between Live and Draft, discard unpublished changes, or restore an earlier version of a Live project from History. Everyone else can open What crews see… to read the choice, and can keep editing, saving and restoring a Draft; crews see those changes when someone with master planning publishes.

Any Admin or Editor can write day notes. Field accounts can't do either. Draft and Publish needs a connected company; it is not in local mode or the demo. See Who can see and do what.

Good to know#

• Assignment and status notifications to Field accounts wait while a project is a Draft. A blocked-task notice and a published notice always go out.
• Publishing, setting Draft or Live, restoring the published plan and granting master planning all appear in the company's Recent activity.
• A lookahead or Project progress PDF printed from a Draft carries DRAFT — not published to crews in its header.
• Restoring an earlier version of a Live project from History opens with Switch to Draft first picked: Bridge 12 goes to Draft. Crews keep today's plan until someone publishes. Its button reads Switch to Draft and restore. Pick Restore now instead and crews see the restored plan at once. A project a course uses as its template or answer key can't be switched to Draft: its confirm says so and offers no choice, and crews see the restore at once. For anyone without master planning the confirm only shows what would change, with its restore button grayed out, the line "Only an admin or a master planner can restore a Live project." and who to ask.