Sessions
Publishing a session
The moment a session goes from draft to live for participants — with a pre-publish checklist, independent toggles for prep and agenda, and a best-effort calendar update.
Publishing is the moment a session crosses from "draft you're tinkering with" to "live for your participants." Gleo's publish flow is designed to make that transition deliberate — there's a checklist that surfaces gaps, two independent visibility toggles for prep and agenda, and a best-effort sync to your participants' calendars.
This page walks the flow end to end. Most sessions will publish in a single click; a few will surface checklist warnings worth resolving first.
What "published" means
Two things change when a session is published:
Participants get access
Prep tasks become visible on the public prep page. Participants get an invitation email; if Calendar is connected, the event in their calendar gets the prep link added to it.
The session goes live in views
The session appears with a Published indicator across the workspace — in the playbook, in the Sessions calendar, in any tag-filtered view. It's no longer a draft you're keeping to yourself.
The two visibility toggles
The publish gear popover (next to the Publish button on the planner header) carries two independent toggles:
| Toggle | Default | What it controls |
|---|---|---|
| Publish prep | On | Whether prep tasks are visible to participants on the public prep page. |
| Publish agenda | On | Whether the in-session agenda is visible to participants live, vs facilitator-only. |
Independent means either, both, or neither is valid:
- Both on — the standard. Prep and agenda are both visible.
- Prep on, agenda off — common when the agenda is intentionally a facilitator-only run sheet (some workshop formats prefer surprise).
- Prep off, agenda on — rare; usually a session that doesn't have prep but does have an agenda you want participants to see.
- Both off — uncommon, but possible if you're publishing the existence of the session for visibility without exposing its contents yet.
Pick the combination before clicking Publish.
The pre-publish checklist
Click Publish and Gleo runs a checklist that surfaces things worth knowing before the session goes live:
- Agenda drift — agenda duration doesn't match the session window (see Agenda tab).
- Empty prep — prep is set to publish but has no tasks.
- Empty agenda — agenda is set to publish but is empty.
- No participants — the participant list is empty.
- Calendar permission needed — Calendar is connected but Gleo needs a one-time permission to update events (see below).
The checklist items are warnings, not blockers — you can publish over any of them. They exist to make sure none of them are by accident.
The Calendar update — best-effort by design
If the Calendar integration is connected, publishing also tries to update the calendar event for the session — adding the prep link, the description, and so on, so participants find it in their calendar without you having to email separately.
The Calendar update is best-effort. If Gleo doesn't yet have permission to write to your calendar (a one-time grant per workspace), the publish flow shows a permission prompt with two options: Grant (recommended — opens the Calendar permission flow in a new tab and resumes publish when complete) or Skip calendar sync (publishes the session without updating the calendar event).
Skipping is safe — the session still publishes, participants are still notified, the prep link still works. The only thing that doesn't happen is the link being added to the calendar event itself. Participants will get the link by email instead.
If you Grant, Gleo holds the publish action open while you complete the permission flow, then resumes publish automatically when you return — so you don't lose your place.
Walkthrough
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1
Open the publish gear
From the Session Planner header, click the gear next to Publish session. Confirm the prep and agenda toggles are set the way you want.
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2
Click Publish
The pre-publish checklist appears. Read each warning. Decide whether to address now or publish over.
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3
Handle the Calendar permission prompt (if it appears)
If you see the prompt, choose Grant for the smoothest experience. The Calendar permission flow opens in a new tab; complete it and Gleo resumes publishing automatically. Skip if you don't need the calendar event updated this time.
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4
Confirm published state
The header shows a Published indicator with the time of publication. Participants should now have access; if Calendar was updated, the event in their calendar carries the prep link.
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5
Verify with a Preview or incognito open
Open Preview from the header (or open the prep URL in an incognito window) to confirm the participant view looks right.
What happens to participants
When you publish:
- Existing members of your workspace get an in-product notification and the session shows up in their list of upcoming sessions.
- Invited non-members get an email with the prep link. They land on the guest auth screen and can complete prep without an account.
- All participants (if Calendar updated) see the prep link added to the calendar event in their own calendar.
You don't need to send a separate email — but you can. A short note from you alongside the system notification often improves prep completion rates.
Tips & pitfalls
Treat the checklist as advisory, not gate-keeping. Most warnings are worth fixing; a few are cases where you know better than Gleo (an over-budget agenda you'll deliberately cut from, an empty agenda for a free-form discussion). Don't let the checklist talk you out of publishing when you're ready.
Grant calendar permission once, benefit on every publish. The permission grant is per-workspace, not per-session. Once you've done it, every subsequent publish updates the calendar event automatically — no prompt.
Re-publish to push edits live. If you edit prep or agenda after publishing, the changes don't reach participants automatically. Hit Publish again to push the latest version. The published indicator updates to reflect the new publish time.