> ## Documentation Index
> Fetch the complete documentation index at: https://docs.riservahq.com/llms.txt
> Use this file to discover all available pages before exploring further.

# Publish an experience

Publish an experience by setting its status to **Active** in the experience
editor. Every experience has one of three statuses, and only Active is
bookable.

| Status | Bookable? | Where it appears |
| - | - | - |
| **Draft** | No | Only in your admin |
| **Active** | Yes | Storefront, staff search, Host |
| **Archived** | No | Hidden from the experiences list unless you filter for it |

## Before you start

Run through this checklist before you set something Active:

* [ ] It has at least one **schedule** — a weekly schedule or an event date
* [ ] It's linked to at least one **venue**, and each schedule names one
* [ ] **Capacity** and **party size** limits are what you actually run

Then check what guests will be told and shown:

* [ ] The **price** is right, and **When is it charged?** on the Pricing card
  matches what you tell guests
* [ ] The **cancellation policy** in its Booking rules card is the one you
  want — your shop policy, or custom rules
* [ ] The **description and photo** read well in the preview
* [ ] The booking widget is on the relevant page —
  [Add the booking widget](/getting-started/add-the-booking-widget)

## Set an experience to Active

1. Open the experience from **Experiences**.
2. Find the **Status** card in the right-hand rail of the experience editor.
3. Choose **Active**.

The change applies immediately. There's no save step for status.

## What happens next: what publishing actually does

Setting an experience to **Active** does up to three things:

1. It becomes bookable — on your website, in staff availability search, and on
   Host. The Status card reads "Live — guests and staff can book it."
2. **Riserva creates its Shopify product**, if it doesn't already have one.
3. For an experience whose card is saved at checkout and charged later, it
   also sets up the purchase option Shopify uses to save the card.

The product is created with your experience's name, description, photo and
price. It's made available on your Online Store and Point of Sale. An
**Unlisted** experience's product is on Point of Sale only.

From then on, Riserva keeps the product in sync. Saving the experience pushes
the title, description, photo and price to Shopify. The product's status
mirrors the experience's (Draft → draft, Active → active, Archived →
archived).

## Check the link to Shopify

The **Online store** card in the rail tells you where you stand:

* Linked → "Linked to a Shopify product. Its title, description, and photo update
  when you save." plus a **View product** link into Shopify admin.
* Not linked → "Guests buy through a Shopify product. Create one to sell this
  online." plus **Create Shopify product**.

If an experience is Active but has no product, guests see the booking window.
But they hit an error when they try to reserve. That's the single most common
publishing mistake.

## Good to know

* Existing reservations are untouched by any status change.
* The sync is one-way, Riserva → Shopify. Editing the product in Shopify won't
  change your experience, and your next save will overwrite it.
* Reservation products are **services**: no shipping and no inventory
  tracking.

<AccordionGroup>
  <Accordion title={"If the Shopify product doesn't sync"}>
    Riserva will tell you, and it will **not** roll back the status change:

    > The status changed, but the Shopify product didn't sync: …

    or, from the create flow:

    > Published, but the Shopify product didn't sync: …

    This is deliberate. You saw the experience go live, so it went live. Fix the
    sync separately.

    The same goes for a charged-later experience whose purchase option didn't
    sync. The message names it ("the saved-card checkout option didn't sync: …"),
    and saving the experience again retries it.

    **To retry:** the rail's **Online store** card shows **Create Shopify product**
    while the experience isn't linked to one. Once it's linked, saving the
    experience pushes content again.
  </Accordion>

  <Accordion title={"Why reservation products are services"}>
    Riserva marks every variant of a reservation product as not requiring shipping
    and not tracking inventory. That matters twice over:

    * Shopify won't ask a guest for a shipping address to book a wine tasting.
    * Shopify's inventory count can never become a second, conflicting answer to
      "is this slot full?" Riserva's availability engine is the only source of
      truth for capacity.
  </Accordion>
</AccordionGroup>

## Return an experience to Draft

A new experience is born Draft. Guests can't see it, staff can't book it, and
no Shopify product exists yet. A new experience's Draft reads "Draft — not yet
published" until it has been Active once.

Draft is also where you go back to. Un-publishing an Active experience returns
it to Draft. Riserva doesn't have a separate "paused" state, because a paused
experience and a draft one behave identically.

## Archive an experience you've retired

**Archived** is for something you've retired but can't erase — last year's
harvest dinner, a tasting you no longer run. It's not bookable, and it drops
out of the experiences list unless you filter for it. Reservations and
reporting are untouched.

The rail spells it out:

> Retired and hidden from the experiences list. Existing reservations and
> reporting are untouched.

**What things mean on this screen:** [What things mean: Experiences](/reference/experiences)

## Related

* [Create your first experience](/getting-started/create-your-first-experience)
* [Add the booking widget to your theme](/getting-started/add-the-booking-widget)
* [Experiences and one-off events](/core-concepts/experiences-and-events)


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