Inviting Your Team

Once your draft is created, the next step is to invite participants. Draftastic offers multiple ways to invite people, from direct links to email invitations.

When to Invite: You can invite participants anytime after creating your draft, but they can only join before the entry deadline (if set) or until the draft starts.

Types of Participants

Draftastic supports two types of participants in your draft:

Real Users

Real users are people who create accounts and actively participate in your draft. They can:

Log in to view and interact with the draft
Update their own profiles and information
Be assigned roles (Owner, Editor, Captain)
Participate in captain’s pick drafts as team captains
Receive notifications and updates

Placeholder Participants

Placeholder participants represent people who don’t have Draftastic accounts or can’t join immediately. They’re useful for:

Reserving spots for people who will join later
Testing your draft setup with a complete participant list
Including people who prefer not to create accounts

Placeholders are included in team selection and balancing, but they don’t have login access and have limited functionality compared to real users.

On your draft page, click the “Share Draft” button.
Copy the shareable link from the dialog.
Send it to participants via email, messaging apps, or social media.
Participants can click the link to join directly without needing an account.

The Share Draft dialog also includes quick social sharing buttons for Facebook, Twitter, WhatsApp, Telegram, and more. Each platform gets a pre-formatted message with your draft details.

Inviting via Email

Send Email Invites

In the Share Draft dialog, click “Invite Users”.
Enter email addresses (separate multiple with commas or use the + button).
Optionally, add a custom message in the email composer.
Click “Share Draft” to send invitations.
Recipients will receive an email with a sign-in link to join the draft.

Email Limits: You can send up to 24 email invitations per draft. This helps prevent spam while allowing you to invite your entire team.

Creating Placeholder Participants

Add Placeholders

Go to the Participants tab in your draft.
Click “Create Participants”.
Enter names (comma-separated for multiple participants).
These placeholders will be included in team selection but won’t have user accounts.

Placeholder Limitations: Placeholder participants cannot: - Have roles (Owner, Editor, Captain) - Be assigned as team captains - Participate in captain’s pick drafts - Update their own information

When to Use Placeholders: Perfect for reserving spots for people who can’t join immediately, or for testing your draft setup with a full participant list.

Managing Participant Roles

Once participants join your draft, you can assign them different roles:

Owner: Full control over the draft (automatically assigned to the creator).
Editor: Can manage teams, participants, and most draft settings.
Participant: Can update their own profile and team name.
Captain: For captain’s pick drafts - assigned to team leaders who make draft picks.

Role Restrictions: Only real users (not placeholders) can be assigned roles. The Owner role can only be transferred, not removed.

Participants can also self-identify with labels if you’ve configured them (e.g., skill level, position, experience). This helps with team balancing and organization.

Participant Limits & Entry Control

You can set minimum and maximum participant limits in your draft settings to control how many people can join. Once the maximum is reached, new participants can’t join unless you increase the limit.

Entry Deadlines: If you set a “Last Entry Deadline” during draft creation, participants can’t join after that time. You can also manually lock entry in draft settings.

All invitations are tracked, and you can monitor who has joined, who is pending, and who hasn’t responded in the Participants tab. This helps you follow up with people who haven’t joined yet.

Getting Started Creating Teams