Publish Guardrails: Age Windows, Pricing, and the Review-Before-Publish Panel

Publish Is a Revenue and Safety Event

Clicking publish creates session rows and often enables registration. Mistakes are public: free tuition, dogs too old for puppy foundations, capacity set to thirty in a twelve-dog room.

Guardrails exist so the first cohort is not also the first apology email blast.

What Triggers Review Before Publish

Typical warnings include price unset or zero and missing min/max age window on puppy-named programs. The panel is amber, not a hard block — operators running a free intro night can still publish anyway.

Non-puppy programs with price set may publish straight through. The system is nudging, not parenting.

Age Windows in Weeks

Min and max age at start — not at registration — keeps cohorts developmentally aligned. A sixteen-week ceiling on Puppy Foundations is a product decision; software encodes it at registration validation so desk staff do not re-litigate on the phone.

Document the policy on your website; let registration enforce it consistently.

Pricing Clarity

Zero-dollar publish warns explicitly. Many facilities use paid trials; some run free community intros. Both are valid if intentional.

Accidental free cohorts fill in hours and create refund chaos when you meant $250.

Operational Ritual

Before every publish: confirm session count matches marketing copy, venue displays correctly, age window matches vet letter policy, price matches POS sheet. The guardrail catches omissions; the ritual catches wrong numbers.

Scenario

Desk creates "Puppy Playgroup July" without price. Publish surfaces review panel. Manager sets $175, sets 8–14 weeks, publishes clean. Registration opens with eligibility rules already aligned to intake script.

Where It Lives

Dog training class software should make publish warnings visible in setup, not as production errors after owners enroll. Dog training facility software frames the wider program mix when puppy class sits beside board-and-train.