How phases steer a season
A season runs to a schedule of phases. If you understand how phases, status and visibility work together, you plan a season without the most common mistakes.
Why a season follows a schedule
fepli has no switch that turns registration on or off. For each season, the team defines phases with a start and an end. During a phase, fepli allows the corresponding behaviour. After it ends, fepli blocks it again.
The reason is reliability. The team plans the schedule once and announces it in advance. On the key date, nobody has to switch anything.
Families and organizers therefore know from when they can act. For this reason, the website also tells families the start date of the next registration phase.
How a missing phase takes effect depends on its type. If the phase Publish offers is missing, published offers are visible at any time. This consequence is often overlooked: if you want to limit visibility in time, you must create the phase.
The editing phase and the phase Participant lists public, by contrast, open up something that stays closed without them. Without an editing phase, organizers neither create offers nor edit or delete them. Without Participant lists public, they see no participant lists. If one of the two phases is to apply for the whole season, the team turns on Always active for it.
Status and phase work together
Two things decide independently of each other whether families see an offer. The status belongs to the individual offer and shows whether the team has reviewed and approved it. The phase applies to the whole programme and determines from when the season is online.
Families see an offer only when it is published and the season is online. Its visibility must also be set to public.
This separation is intended. The team reviews and publishes offers one by one over weeks. All of them nevertheless appear on the same day, when the phase begins.
This gives rise to the most common misunderstanding: an offer is published but not visible. The cause is then usually the phase that is not running at the moment.
The same interplay applies to editing. Organizers edit an offer only while the editing phase is running and the offer has not yet been approved. When the phase ends, their forms are locked without anyone having to intervene.
The typical sequence
ends the allocation – the first-come-first-served phase starts
Most seasons follow this pattern. Organizers enter offers, and the team reviews and publishes them. Families register in the lottery, after which the team allocates the places. A first-come-first-served phase then gives out the remaining places.
Finally, the organizers see their participant lists, and the offers take place.
Some phases wait for each other. The allocation begins only when the lottery phases before it are over. A first-come-first-served phase in turn waits for the end of the allocation phases that begin before it. A preliminary first-come-first-served window before the lottery phase therefore opens at its scheduled time.
Committing the allocation ends a running allocation phase immediately. If, according to the plan, the first-come-first-served phase begins before the allocation ends, committing early therefore opens the distribution of the remaining places earlier. Without committing, the first-come-first-served phase waits until the planned end of the allocation.
Two registration phases must not overlap. Otherwise it would be unclear which rule applies to a registration: lottery or order of arrival. fepli therefore rejects overlapping registration phases when you save. A season can, however, have several registration phases in a row.
A season entirely without a lottery is also possible. Then there is only one first-come-first-served phase, and every registration receives a decision immediately.
Who acts when
- Organizers create offers during the editing phase and submit them. While Participant lists public is running, they see their participant lists. After the last date, they complete their offers.
- The team creates the season and its phases and invites organizers. It reviews and publishes offers, allocates the places after the lottery phase and commits them.
- Families see the offers as soon as the season is online. They register during a registration phase and receive their admission notice after the commit.
The dashboard shows the team the tasks that fit the current situation, e.g. “Approve offers: {season}” or “Allocate places: {season}”.