FAQ

Use this to update your local league file to the most recent version the commissioner has published (same date / sim as the rest of the league).

1. Open File
2. Choose Online League
3. Select Download and Upload League File and follow the prompts to fetch the current file

Set up your league in three phases: create the game and human GMs, point FHM at your FHMNOW FTP Server Connection, then prepare and share the initial league file.

League file compression (step by step)

1. Make a copy of your league folder and keep it somewhere safe (for example Desktop).
2. Work only on that copy — not the original inside saved_games.
3. Open the copy of the league folder and delete:
   • the entire rs_one folder
   • the entire rs_two folder
   • the entire import_export folder
   • inside settings, delete accountsdata_commish.dat (required)
4. Right-click the folder copy (YourLeagueName.lg) → Compress to… → ZIP file.
5. Save the ZIP. It will be named like YourLeagueName.lg.zip.
6. Send that ZIP to your GMs (for example Google Drive or Dropbox).

Use these steps any time you want to push fresh CSV data from Franchise Hockey Manager to your FHMNOW league site.

1. Export CSV files in Franchise Hockey Manager at WORLD → EXPORT CSV.
2. Access your league’s League Admin page on FHMNOW.
3. Under CSV upload, select Choose Files and select the csv folder located at \saved_games\<league-name>\import_export\csv.
4. Once the csv folder is selected, click Upload CSVs to send your CSV files to FHMNOW.
5. After FHMNOW receives the updated CSV files, click Update League Site to update your league website.

Tip: Unsure how to find the /saved_games/ FHM folder? Go to the FHM start screen, click Settings, then Troubleshooting, and select Open customizable data folder to open the FHM folder path in File Explorer.

FHMNOW can post league snapshots to your Discord server after you connect the bot once and map each report type to a text channel. Publishing runs from your league’s League Admin page (commissioner account).

1. Open League Admin

Sign in on FHMNOW, go to your league site, and open Admin (or the League Admin URL your commissioner uses).

2. Connect your Discord server

In the Discord integration section, choose Connect Discord server. Complete the OAuth prompt and select the server where your league lives. When it succeeds, you’ll see the connected server name on the admin page.

If the button is missing or OAuth fails, the host may not have Discord credentials configured yet — check with your league’s FHMNOW operator.

3. Create channels and map names

In Discord, create text channels for the reports you want (for example #standings, #injuries, etc.). Back in League Admin, enter each channel name without the #, enable the matching toggle, and the page will save your Discord settings as you edit. Please ensure the FHMNOW bot has View Channel and Send Messages permissions on all configured channels.

Optional: team emojis

Reports can show each team's logo as a custom emoji from your own server. Upload team emojis to your Discord server, then in League Admin open Team Discord Assignments and choose Sync server emojis & auto-match. Emojis named after a team's abbreviation, nickname or city (for example :MTL:, :Canadiens: or :Montreal:) are assigned automatically; pick any other emoji from each team's dropdown. Teams without an emoji just show their name. Sync again after adding or renaming emojis in Discord. Your league logo (Customization) appears on every report.

4. Publish

Use the per-report Publish buttons to send one snapshot at a time, or use the batch actions (for example send all league reports or all statistical leaderboards) when you want everything pushed after a sim. Team reports use the date range fields above that form so the bot knows which sim window to summarize.

Overview of what each publisher does: Features → Discord integration.

FHMNOW can run your league's draft live on your league website: a pick clock, a live draft board, picks from the website or Discord, and pre-ranked Draft Lists that pick for a GM who can't be there. The commissioner runs it from two pages: League Admin (turn it on, choose the draft type) and Draft Admin (everything else).

Quick start checklist

1. Upload your latest CSVs and click Update League Site, so the draft uses your current draft class, players and teams (how to update your site).
2. Connect Discord and assign GMs (recommended). In League Admin, connect the FHMNOW bot, then open Team Discord Assignments and give each team its GM's Discord account (Discord setup). Without this, only the commissioner can make picks.
3. Turn it on. In League Admin → Live Draft Portal, switch on Enable Draft Mode and pick Entry Draft or Initial Draft.
4. Configure it. Open Draft Admin and set rounds, time per pick, dead hours, the Discord channel and any player exclusions, then click Save Draft Settings. Then open the Pick Order panel and check round one's order (for an Initial Draft, also set Snake Draft?).
5. Build the order. Click Initialize Draft Order to build every round from round one's order. Then check the Draft Order panel and fix any traded picks.
6. Let GMs prepare. Share the league's Draft page and the Manager Portal, so GMs can build Draft Lists and set pick modes.
7. Start the clock. Press the ▶ button on the Pick Timer in Draft Admin. The draft is live.

Order matters: the clock is paused when the draft order is first built. Nothing happens, and nobody is ever auto-picked, until you press ▶.

What you need first

• A multiplayer league on FHM 12 or newer. The Draft page and Live Draft Portal are hidden for single-player leagues and FHM 11 leagues. Historical leagues enter a Historical DraftId in League Admin → Live Draft Portal for an Entry Draft; an Initial Draft doesn't need one.
• Commissioner (League Admin) access to turn the draft on and run Draft Admin.
• Discord connected, with GMs assigned to teams, if GMs will make their own picks or use Draft Lists. Both the Manager Portal and the !draft command identify a GM by the Discord account assigned to their team, so a GM with no assignment can't pick for that team.
• A draft class for an Entry Draft: draft_class.csv must be in your last upload. An Initial Draft doesn't use it (see below).

Entry Draft vs. Initial Draft

Choose the type in League Admin, under the Enable Draft Mode switch. Everything else about the draft (clock, Discord, Draft Lists) works the same way for both.

An Initial Draft pool can hold tens of thousands of players. The board, autopick and the Draft List editor work from the top 1,000 by ability (then potential). The commissioner's Select by name search in Draft Admin, and !draft in Discord, can still pick anyone in the pool.

The Teams tab is an unofficial, in-draft view. Team rosters on the rest of your site don't change until you enter the picks in FHM and re-upload.

Every setting, explained

Unless noted, these are on Draft Admin → Timer + Discord Controls and take effect when you click Save Draft Settings.

Running the draft (Draft Admin)

• Pick Timer. ▶ starts or pauses the clock. You can type a new time remaining (hours, minutes, seconds), and ↻ resets the current pick to the full time.
• Draft Order panel. Drag picks that haven't been made yet to reorder them, then click Save order. Use Trade on a pick (or click its logo) to change which team owns it. Picks already made are locked.
• Making a pick for a team. Click Draft next to a player in Available Players, or use Select by name. The pick goes to the team on the clock, and the next team's clock starts with full time.
• Initialize Draft Order rebuilds the whole order from scratch. It deletes every pick already made, so only use it before the draft starts.
• Process List/Auto Selection fills the current pick right now from that team's Draft List, falling back to FHMNOW's best available player. Afterwards the clock is paused, so press ▶ to continue.
• Undo Last Pick puts the most recent selection back on the board and gives the pick back to that team.
• Publish Upcoming Picks posts the next 10 picks to the Draft Discord channel.
• Reset Draft deletes the draft order and every pick. It can't be undone.

How GMs make picks

When it's their turn, a GM has three options:

1. Manager Portal. Open Manager Portal from the Draft page and sign in with Discord (or with an FHMNOW account that has the same Discord account linked). When their team is up, a You're on the clock banner appears. They press DRAFT next to a player in their list or in Available Players.
2. Discord. In the Draft Discord channel, type !draft 12345 (a PlayerId) or !draft Firstname Lastname. Only the Discord user assigned to the team on the clock can pick; the bot rejects anyone else. If a name matches more than one player, use the PlayerId.
3. A Draft List that picks for them automatically (next section).

Anyone can follow along on the league's Draft page without signing in. It shows the team on the clock, the time left, recent picks, the available board, the full order and the FHMNOW Big Board.

Draft Lists and pick modes

A Draft List is a GM's own ranked list of players they want. GMs build theirs in the Manager Portal → Draft Lists tab: drag players from Available Players into Current List, drag rows to rank them, and click Save. The list is private to that team (and the commissioner). Drafted players drop off automatically.

A list only picks when the GM tells it to. Each of the team's upcoming picks has a pick mode, which GMs set under Draft Picks → Your Picks:

• The 📃 icon in the draft order shows which picks are set to a list mode.
• List picks only fire while the clock is running and outside dead hours.
• The commissioner can see and edit any team's list and pick modes in Draft Admin → Draft Lists, which helps when a GM is away.
• Draft Lists need Draft Mode turned on, plus a Discord-connected league with the GM assigned to their team (so the Manager Portal knows whose list it is).

Tip for GMs: going to bed or can't make it to the draft? Rank 10–15 players and set your next picks to List+Auto Pick. You'll never be the team that holds up the draft.

Discord during the draft

• Set the Draft Discord channel and switch on Enable Discord announcements to get pick, on-the-clock and dead-hour messages.
• For !draft picks to work, the FHMNOW bot needs View Channel, Send Messages and Read Message History in that channel.
• FHMNOW checks the channel for new !draft messages every few seconds while the league's Draft page, homepage or Draft Admin is open in someone's browser. During a live draft that's nearly always true. If nobody has the site open, the pick is recorded as soon as someone does.
• GM assignments are in League Admin → Discord integration → Team Discord Assignments. Search for the member and pick them; it saves as you go.

After the draft

FHMNOW runs and records the draft, but it doesn't change your FHM save file. When the draft ends, the commissioner enters the selections in FHM (the full order and results are on the Draft page and in Draft Admin). Then export and upload your CSVs as usual, and rosters across the site update. When you're done, switch off Enable Draft Mode so the Draft page goes back to showing the next class.

Troubleshooting

I don't see the Live Draft Portal or the Draft page.

The league must be multiplayer and on FHM 12 or newer. Check the play mode and game version in League Admin. A Historical league running an Entry Draft also needs a Historical DraftId in the Live Draft Portal before the Draft page appears.

The board is empty.

For an Entry Draft, your last upload didn't include an upcoming class in draft_class.csv. Re-export and upload, then click Update League Site. For an Initial Draft, no unsigned, non-retired players were found in player_master.csv.

The clock isn't moving.

It's paused (press ▶ in Draft Admin), you're inside dead hours, or the clock reached 0:00 on a pick that couldn't be auto-filled. Make the pick or reset the timer, then press ▶.

"Initialize Draft Order" failed or the order looks wrong.

An Entry Draft's Pick Order starts from the standings, so upload current standings first. Fix round one in the Pick Order panel before you initialize, and every round follows it. After initializing, fix single picks (such as trades) with drag-and-drop and Trade in the Draft Order panel, then Save order. Initializing again wipes any picks already made.

A GM can't sign in to the Manager Portal.

Their Discord account isn't assigned to a team. Assign it in League Admin → Team Discord Assignments, and make sure they sign in with that same Discord account.

!draft does nothing, or the bot replies that it can't pick.

Check that the message is in the Draft Discord channel, the sender is the GM assigned to the team on the clock, the bot has the channel permissions listed above, and someone has the Draft page open. If the bot says no player matched, use the PlayerId instead of the name.

A team's list didn't pick.

That pick is set to Manual Pick, every player on the list is gone (List Pick waits in that case), or the clock was paused when the pick came up.

We drafted the wrong player.

Use Undo Last Pick in Draft Admin. It reverses the most recent pick, so press it again to step further back.

Every Collections pack is 8 cards. The first five are Base or Foil (with a small chance of a Legend), and the last three are where the hits live — each of those three has its own, increasing chance of coming back rare or better. These are the published odds for a standard pack.

Chance per pack is the odds of at least one turning up somewhere in the eight cards. Per card is how often any single card comes back that type. Rates are independent per pack — a long dry run does not make the next pack any likelier.

Auction House

The three daily lots are drawn from the same tables but every lot can hit, so the rates run well ahead of a pack: roughly 1 in 7 cycles carries a Black Ice or an Outburst, 1 in 15 a Patch, 1 in 19 a 1/1 Autograph, Metal or Trophy, and 1 in 23 a Nations Auto.

Things that shift the odds

• Legends get more common from 2031. In leagues playing 2031 or later the Legend rate roughly doubles to about 1 in 3 packs, which slightly dilutes everything else in the rare tier (Black Ice and Outburst settle near 1 in 13, Nations Auto near 1 in 40).
• A league needs history for Legends. Legend and Legend Auto are drawn from retired players, so a brand-new league with no career history behind it will not produce them yet.
• Guest accounts cannot pull numbered prints. Autograph, Legend Auto, Metal, Trophy and Patch are manager-only; a guest rolling one gets a standard card instead.
• 1/1 means 1/1. Once a player's Autograph, Metal or Trophy has been minted for a season, nobody else can pull it that season. Patches are limited to three prints per player per season.

Nations Auto

The rarest card in the game, and the only one built around a country rather than a club. Each season every participating nation puts its best players on a shortlist — top 12 forwards, 6 defencemen and 2 goalies by OVR for Canada, the United States, Russia, Finland and Sweden; smaller shortlists for Switzerland, Czechia, Slovakia and Slovenia — and only those players can appear. Every one is a signed 1/1. Russia, Czechia, Slovakia and Slovenia join from the 1992 season onward.

Cards you cannot pull

Inferno is not in any pack. It is a Hard-mode Challenge reward, drawn from the cards you handed in. The Team Completion autograph is likewise earned, by clearing every Challenge mode for one club in a season. The Lab is the other way to get a specific card type without pulling it — burn cards you do not want for a guaranteed draw at one you do, at fixed rates that ignore the table above.

Rates are approximate and rounded, and we will keep this table updated as new card templates are added.