Rundown status flow: Draft to Completed
Draft, Ready, Live and Completed, and why Ready arms the show instead of just changing a label.
Every rundown goes through a defined status flow. The one to understand is Ready, because it does far more than change a label.
The statuses
| Status | Meaning |
|---|---|
| Draft | The rundown is being built. You can freely add, move, edit and remove anything. |
| Ready | Signed off and armed. The content freezes, the engine loads the whole rundown, and the screens start downloading the media. |
| Live | On air. The engine is executing. |
| Completed | Finished normally with the End button. |
| Cancelled | Stopped before reaching the end. |
| Archived | Put away from the rundown list. Still readable. |
Ready arms the show
Mark ready is not a label. It hands the whole rundown to the engine and tells every connected screen to start downloading the clips and images the show will use, in the order they go on air.
That standby window is the point. A heavy clip that starts downloading at the moment it is due arrives late, which is why the screens are given time first.
The sequence is: Mark ready → watch the screens download in the pre-flight → Go Live.
- A scheduled rundown arms itself about 5 minutes before air.
- A Live Now rundown arms when you press Mark ready, and waits for you as long as you need.
- An armed rundown nobody starts disarms itself after 4 hours.
Transitions
- Draft → Ready: Mark ready. The rundown freezes and arms.
- Ready → Live: Go Live starts the run.
- Live → Completed: End.
- Live → Cancelled: stopping the broadcast before the end.
- Completed → Draft: Reset. This is the way back.
Reset is the way back
Reset puts everything back to the top: segments, stories and elements are marked as not aired, and the rundown returns to Draft. From there, Mark ready arms it again.
Reset also disarms an armed rundown. If you marked a show ready and then decided not to run it, Reset is how you release it. Ending it is not enough, because a rundown in standby never started a run.
The full cycle: Go Live → Completed → Reset → Draft → Mark ready → armed.
What you can do in each status
- Draft: everything. Add, move, delete, reorder.
- Ready: the content is frozen. To change anything, put it back to Draft.
- Live: locked so nobody moves what is about to air. You can unlock it with the padlock in the control bar. See Editing a rundown that is Ready or on air.
- Completed / Cancelled: read-only. Review the logs, duplicate it, or Reset it to run again.
Ready and Live rundowns cannot be archived or deleted, only duplicated. This protects a broadcast that is about to happen, or happening, from being removed by accident.