Published schedule
A published schedule is the version of the week that has been released to the people working it. Before publishing it is a draft a manager is still moving around; after it, it is the answer to when do I work.
Why it matters in a small workplace
Without a moment of publishing there is no current version, only whichever copy somebody happens to be holding. Much of what goes wrong with a rota is two people reading two different versions of it.
How Weeksort handles it
Publishing puts the week in front of your staff, and the workplace chooses how much of it each person sees: their own shifts only, the whole team, or the whole team for anybody holding a qualification you name. Change a published week and you choose whether to tell only the people whose shifts moved, or everybody.