Rounds
Phases, themes, and every way a round can be changed
The phases of a round
Every round moves through the same states in the same order. Which one a round is in decides what the app lets you do.
- Not started
- Queued up. The theme may be hidden.
- Submission open
- Pick your song. Nobody can see anybody else's.
- Listening
- Scheduled leagues only. Songs are locked in and the playlists are live, but voting has not opened.
- Voting open
- Spend your votes and make your guesses.
- Completed
- Scored. The leaderboard has moved and the full results are visible.
Themes and prompts
The theme is the prompt for the round. Most are text, with a name and a longer description explaining what counts.
Themes are set when the league is created and can be edited, reordered or replaced by an admin or commissioner at any point before their round opens. Once a round has started, its theme is fixed.
Photo prompts
A theme can be a picture instead of a sentence. Tap the image anywhere it appears to open it full size.
Photo prompts are only available in private leagues and crew leagues. They are the reason a league carrying photos cannot be flipped to public.
Adding and reordering rounds
Admins and commissioners can add a round at any time, and can drag upcoming rounds into a different order.
In a scheduled league the dates belong to the slot rather than to the theme. Reordering moves themes between fixed dates, so the round that was going to run next week still runs next week, with a different theme on it.
A round that disappears from where you expected it has usually been reordered rather than deleted. Look further down the list before assuming it is gone.
Bucket leagues do not offer Add Round, because their themes are drawn from the crew's bucket automatically.
Deleting a round
Admins and commissioners can delete a round that has not started. Rounds that have already run cannot be removed, because their results are part of the standings.
Deleting closes the gap. The rounds after it move up to fill the space, and the theme list is rewritten to match, all in one go so the numbering cannot be left half finished.
Extending a round
Extend Round buys everyone more time on whatever phase is running. It is on the home screen for admins and commissioners.
In a scheduled league an extension pushes the later boundaries of that round along too, and every round after it slides by the same amount. Nothing overlaps and nothing gets squeezed.
Fast forward
Fast Forward is the opposite of Extend, for scheduled leagues that are waiting on nothing. It ends the current phase now.
You are always asked what should happen to the rest of the season, and nothing is chosen for you. You can keep every later round exactly where it is, pull the whole schedule forward by a whole number of days, or claim back all the time you saved.
A summary card shows the shape the season will have before you commit.
If people still have not submitted, the app names them and warns you before you go ahead. Anyone who has not finished is locked out, and a part finished submission is deleted rather than counted.
Fast forwarding also suppresses the deadline reminders that would otherwise have gone out, so nobody gets told they have an hour left seconds before being told the phase is closed.
Editing one round's dates
An admin or commissioner can open a single upcoming round and move its dates directly.
If there are later rounds queued behind it you are asked what they should do. Shifting them to match is the default. Leaving them where they are is offered too, but it is blocked when it would make two rounds overlap, and the app tells you which ones would collide.
There is also a reset, which puts the round back on the schedule the league was built with.
Rebuilding the whole schedule
The admin can change the cadence of the entire rest of the league from Edit League, under Round Schedule. Give it four new durations and every upcoming round is rebuilt around them.
Rounds that have already run are left alone, and the next round keeps the moment it was due to open, so the change never yanks a live round out from under anybody.
The new cadence is saved to the league, so rounds added later inherit it.
Changing the start date
Before a scheduled league begins, the admin can move the start. The whole season slides with it by the same amount, so any per round adjustments already made are kept.
Rounds nobody submitted to
If a submission window closes and nobody completed a submission, there is nothing to vote on. The round skips voting entirely and completes on the spot, and the league moves to the next one.