Status, Schedule, and Activation
What This Page Is About
Two fields control whether a Bundle offer is actually live for customers: Status and Schedule. They work together. An offer is only visible on the storefront when Status is Active and the current time falls inside the schedule window.
This page covers both fields and how they interact.
Status (Active / Draft)
Worth knowing: today, the Status toggle is visible inside the form only for Bundle Builder. For the other 4 offer types (Volume Discount, Frequently Bought Together, Mix & Match, Product Fixed Bundle), Status is managed from the Offer list page after saving the offer. The behavior is the same; the placement is different.
The Status toggle has two states:
| Status | Effect |
|---|---|
| Active | The offer is enabled. Subject to schedule, customers can see and redeem it. |
| Draft | The offer is disabled. The widget won't render and the discount won't apply, regardless of schedule. |
Use Draft while you're still configuring an offer or staging it for a future launch. Flip to Active when you're ready.
You can switch between states at any time, including while an offer is live. Switching to Draft instantly removes the widget from the storefront.
Schedule
The Schedule card sets the time window during which the offer runs.
| Field | What it does |
|---|---|
| Start date | When the offer becomes live (date + time) |
| End date | Optional. When the offer stops being live (date + time) |
| Set end date (tick) | Toggles the End date field on or off. Untick for an open-ended offer that runs until you flip Status to Draft. |
The schedule is interpreted in your store's timezone (set in Shopify admin under Settings → General).
Example Schedules
| Goal | Start | End |
|---|---|---|
| Black Friday weekend promo | Nov 28, 00:00 | Dec 1, 23:59 |
| Always-on bundle | Today | (Set end date untoggled) |
| Pre-launch tease (configured but invisible) | Future date | Future date |
For a pre-launch offer, leave Status as Active and set a future Start date. The widget will only appear once the start date is reached.
How Status and Schedule Interact
Visibility on the storefront requires both:
| Status | Schedule | Storefront result |
|---|---|---|
| Active | Within window | Widget visible, discount applies |
| Active | Before start date | Widget not visible |
| Active | After end date | Widget not visible |
| Draft | Within window | Widget not visible |
| Draft | Before/after window | Widget not visible |
Note: the Offer list page shows a derived Scheduled label for offers whose Status is Active but whose Start date is in the future. The list also surfaces Expired for Active offers past their End date. The Status field itself only stores Active or Draft; Scheduled and Expired are computed from the schedule for at-a-glance filtering.
Editing During a Live Offer
You can edit a live offer (one with Status: Active and within its schedule window). Changes save in place and apply immediately to subsequent storefront views. There's no draft-then-publish step.
This means:
- Changing the discount value while customers are mid-cart can change the displayed savings on their next page load.
- Changing the trigger product can remove the widget from the page they're currently on.
- Changing the schedule end date can extend or cut a promotion mid-flight.
For non-trivial edits to a live offer, the safer pattern is to flip Status to Draft, edit, then flip back to Active.
Common Issues
| Symptom | Likely cause | Fix |
|---|---|---|
| Widget doesn't appear and theme/embed is correct | Status is Draft, or schedule hasn't started | Flip to Active and check Start date |
| Widget disappeared overnight | End date passed | Extend the End date or untick Set end date |
| Offer applied at checkout but widget missing | Caching or schedule edge | Re-save the offer; check store timezone matches schedule |
Which Offer Types Have Status and Schedule
All 6 native offer types (Volume Discount, FBT, Bundle Builder, Mix & Match, Product Fixed Bundle, Product Recommendation) have both Status and Schedule. The placement differs:
| Offer type | Where Status lives |
|---|---|
| Bundle Builder | Right-side summary panel on the offer form (Active / Draft dropdown) |
| Volume Discount | Offer list page; flip status after saving the offer |
| Frequently Bought Together | Offer list page; flip status after saving the offer |
| Mix & Match | Offer list page; flip status after saving the offer |
| Product Fixed Bundle | Offer list page; flip status after saving the offer |
| Product Recommendation | Offer list page; flip status after saving the offer |
Schedule (Start date / End date) is in the form for all 6 offer types.
Tips
- Set an End date on every promotional offer. Always-on offers should be the exception, not the default.
- Use Draft to stage. Build the offer in advance, leave it in Draft, flip to Active on launch day.
- Confirm timezone before scheduling Black Friday. A few hours' offset can shift a US-targeted promo into a different day for some shoppers. It's the kind of thing that's easy to miss until it's too late.
- Flip to Draft for non-trivial edits to live offers. It avoids serving inconsistent state to customers in mid-session.
Next Steps
- Discounts: codes, combinations, limits, and eligibility: the shared discount controls
- Markets: geographic scoping
- Sync theme color: match widget colors to your theme
- App Embed and Theme Integration: when a live offer's widget still isn't rendering