The how-to guide for everything in the Ekta platform.
Publishing simply makes a team/competition visible on the rest of the platform. A team/competition can still update their profile after publishing.
Releasing indicates that a competition is ready to accept applications. This is a one-way operation and can only be undone by the circuit managers. Once a competition is released, most of the competition profile is locked from editing, except for the application timeline. If a circuit manager un-releases a competition, any changes have no effect on already-submitted applications.