# Publish

Control whether an event is visible on your status dashboards.

Source: https://statusdashboard.com/docs/events/publish

The Publish toggle controls whether an event is visible on your status dashboards and whether outbound notifications may run. New events start unpublished so your team can draft and review in the admin console before going live.

***

## Visibility
The **Publish** tab controls whether an event is visible on your status dashboards. Events are **not published** by default.

Toggle **Publish** to make an event publicly visible. You can publish or unpublish an event at any time — the change takes effect when you save the event.

| State             | Behavior                                                                                                                                                         |
| ----------------- | ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- |
| **Published**     | The event appears on all status dashboards where its affected components (or the notice itself, for informational events) are in scope.                          |
| **Not published** | The event is private. It is visible only in the admin console and is not shown on any status dashboard. Subscriber notifications are not sent while unpublished. |

Only events with `publish: true` appear on your public-facing dashboards.

## Publish vs. notifications
**Publish** controls status dashboard visibility and whether outbound notifications may run. **Notifications** controls whether fan-out is allowed once the event is published. Both must be on for subscribers to be notified:

| Publish | Notifications | Status dashboard | Subscriber notifications                                                            |
| ------- | ------------- | ---------------- | ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------- |
| **On**  | **On**        | Event is visible | Matching subscribers are notified on qualifying changes                             |
| **Off** | **On**        | Event is hidden  | No outbound notifications — safe draft authoring                                    |
| **On**  | **Off**       | Event is visible | No outbound notifications — visitors see the event only if they visit the dashboard |
| **Off** | **Off**       | Event is hidden  | No outbound notifications                                                           |

**Publish off, notifications on** — the default for new events. You can author the event privately; no subscribers are notified and the status dashboard is unchanged. Turn **Publish** on when you are ready to show the event publicly and (with notifications still on) notify matching subscribers. Turning publish on can itself trigger a notification.

**Publish on, notifications off** — the event is visible on status dashboards but matching subscribers are not sent email, SMS, or other channels. They can still see the event if they visit the dashboard.

Unpublishing removes the event from status dashboards immediately. It does **not** send a notification and does not delete the event, its timeline, notes, or post-mortem data. While unpublished, further saves also do not notify subscribers.

Maintenance **automatic start and stop** only send notifications when **both** publish and notifications are on.