Creating a Release
A step-by-step walkthrough of the release wizard — from blank draft to PENDING and ready to charge.
Creating a release is a multi-step wizard. The wizard is designed so you can go back to any step without losing data, and saving as a draft preserves everything for later.
Drafts are unlimited and free to create. Build the entire release as a draft, walk a teammate through it, then promote to PENDING when you're ready to charge cards.
Open the wizard
From Releases, click Add Release. The wizard opens with a clean draft.
Create Release
Build a wine club release. Save as a draft any time.
The five steps
Details
Name, internal description, and the release date. Name is what members see in their portal and emails. Description is internal only — use it to explain the theme or any caveats for your team.
Products
Pick the wines and quantities every member receives. Each row is a product variant (e.g., "2022 Cabernet — 750ml") with a quantity. The wizard supports search and pagination because larger catalogs need it.
You can also build bundles at this step — multiple variants grouped into a single line item that members see as one wine selection.
Audience
Pick the clubs, statuses, and tags that scope the release. The preview panel updates live with the count of active, inactive, and excluded contacts so you know exactly who you'll be charging.
Manually exclude individual contacts here if needed — useful for VIPs you're handling personally outside the system.
Shipping
Pick the default shipping provider (FedEx, UPS, etc.) and any fulfillment-platform integration to mirror orders into. This is also where you set whether members can switch to local pickup from the portal.
Review
A summary screen shows everything: counts, total revenue projection, products, fulfillment plan. Save as draft, or promote directly to PENDING.
Audience scoping in detail
The Audience step is where most teams spend the bulk of their time. The filter combinations are:
| Filter | Behavior |
|---|---|
| Clubs | OR — pick one or more clubs. Members in any selected club are included. |
| Status | OR — typically just ACTIVE, but you can include ON_HOLD if you want to override the hold for a special release. |
| Tags (include) | AND — selecting two tags shows only contacts with both. |
| Tags (exclude) | NOT — exclude any contact with any of these tags. |
| Manual exclude list | Hand-pick contacts to remove from this specific release. |
Promoting from DRAFT to PENDING
Once you click Save as PENDING (either at Review or from the release detail page later), three things happen:
Active contacts are frozen
The list of who's getting this release is locked. New members joining a club afterward are not auto-added.
Payment records are generated
One PENDING payment per active contact, sized to their share of the release plus any per-contact modifications.
Fulfillment records are generated
One fulfillment per active contact, ready for the Packing List once payments succeed.
Once a release is PENDING you can no longer change products or scoping. You can still apply per-contact modifications, exclude individuals, and retry failed payments. To make a structural change, cancel and rebuild.
Drafts and templates
There's no formal "template" object today, but a useful pattern is to keep one draft per club ("Reds Q1 template") with the standard products and scoping. When you're ready to launch a real release, Duplicate the template, update the date and any swapped wines, and promote.