How do Post Date and Expiry Date work?
How do Post Date and Expiry Date work?
Post Date and Expiry Date are two fields you'll find across most structured entry types in the DCMS — including Business Profiles, Events, Competitions, News/Blog posts, Offers, and Miscellaneous pages. They also tend to appear on any other entry types added to your site, even modules built specifically for your destination. Together, they give you control over exactly when a piece of content goes live and when it comes down, without you needing to be at your desk to make it happen.
Where to find them
Both fields are normally found towards the top right of the entry screen. Post Date uses a date picker (calendar icon) and time picker (clock icon) to let you set a future date and time. Expiry Date works the same way, using its own date and time pickers.
What Post Date does
Post Date lets you schedule an entry to go live automatically at a specific date and time in the future. You can build and finish your content whenever suits you, then set it to publish itself at exactly the right moment — without needing to remember to come back and hit publish manually.
What Expiry Date does
Expiry Date works the same way in reverse. It sets a specific date and time at which the entry will automatically stop being live on the site.
How this affects the status of your content
It's worth understanding exactly what happens at each stage:
If you set a Post Date in the future, the entry will appear as disabled in the DCMS right up until that date and time arrives — it won't be visible to visitors until then
The entry will then remain active and visible from the Post Date through to the Expiry Date
Once the Expiry Date passes, the entry automatically becomes disabled again. It isn't deleted — it stays in the DCMS, just no longer visible to visitors — so it remains available if you ever want to reuse, update, or reference it in future
When this is useful
A few practical examples of how destination marketers use these fields:
Planning content ahead of time. If you're writing a blog post about an upcoming seasonal event, you can write and finish it weeks in advance, then use Post Date to have it go live on exactly the right day — for example, the morning tickets go on sale
Automatically removing time-sensitive events. Once an event has taken place, there's often little value in keeping it live on the site. Setting an Expiry Date for the day after the event means it comes down automatically, keeping your Events section current without you needing to remember to disable it manually
Managing limited-time offers. If a business is running an offer that's only valid for a set period, an Expiry Date ensures it disappears from the site the moment it's no longer valid — avoiding any risk of visitors acting on an offer that's no longer available
A few things worth knowing
Using Post Date and Expiry Date well means less manual admin for you and a site that always reflects what's currently relevant. It's particularly useful for content you plan ahead of time as part of a content calendar, since you can prepare everything in one go and let the dates take care of the rest.
💡 Top tip: If you're managing a lot of time-sensitive content — seasonal offers, one-off events, or limited-run competitions — get into the habit of setting an Expiry Date as standard whenever you create the entry. It's a small extra step that saves you from having to remember to go back and remove things manually later.