Participants take turns selecting vacation periods in a snake order — fair for everyone. Round 1 goes 1→N, Round 2 reverses N→1, Round 3 goes forward again, and so on until all slots are filled.

The person at the turnaround point (last pick of one round, first of the next) picks twice in a row — no extra email needed, the board stays active.

Each participant receives a personal email with a unique link when it's their turn. Click the link, see the draft board, and select your vacation period. Everyone else views the board in read-only mode between turns.

A 24-hour reminder is automatically sent if someone hasn't picked yet.

The administrator can define exclusion groups — sets of date periods where each person may only select a limited number. For example, grouping Christmas Week and New Year's Week with a max of 1 means a participant who picks Christmas cannot also pick New Year's.

Blocked periods appear greyed out automatically when it's your turn.

The draft board updates live every few seconds — anyone watching sees picks appear in real time without refreshing. The current drafter, who's on deck, and the full pick history are always visible.

If a participant has no valid picks remaining (all slots are full or blocked by their exclusion choices), the system skips them automatically and moves to the next person.

The draft ends when all slots are filled or no one can make any more valid selections.

When the draft ends, every participant receives a styled summary email showing their personal selections highlighted in the full group schedule — with colored avatars for each person's picks.

Once the draft is complete, the administrator can download the full results as an Excel spreadsheet with three sheets: the full group schedule, individual selections per person, and a complete pick-by-pick history.

The administrator receives a private cancellation code when the draft launches. This code can be used to cancel the draft at any time — all participants are notified automatically. The admin can also resend any participant's pick link if their email went missing.