The lifecycle follows the tournament schedule

For normal tournaments, ClubForge calculates the effective lifecycle state from the organization's local time and the tournament schedule. Administrators do not need to manually advance the event through every routine state.

Automatic schedule transitions

Unless a later explicit lifecycle state has already been set, ClubForge normally opens registration 7 days before the tournament start. At the tournament start time, the event becomes In Progress. Six hours after the scheduled start, the effective state becomes Results Pending if the event has not already been concluded.

For Director-Assigned Positions, the registration close date is configurable on the tournament. For player-selected signup-sheet tournaments, the lifecycle uses the standard close point of 48 hours before the scheduled start.

Why a status may appear to advance without an edit

The status shown in ClubForge is the event's effective status. It combines the stored tournament state with time-driven lifecycle rules. This prevents an administrator from having to manually open registration, start the tournament, or move it into the normal post-play state at exactly the scheduled time.

Explicit states take precedence

Completed, Cancelled, Archived, and Results Pending are preserved as explicit workflow states rather than being moved backward by the calendar. ClubForge also protects later workflow work—for example finalized assignments or initialized scoring—from casual changes to earlier tournament setup.