AWAL operates on a 4 week lead time between date of initial upload and release day to allow for the following processes:
1. The AWAL Quality Assurance process: Each release uploaded to AWAL is reviewed by our Operations team to ensure it meets the Digital Music Services’ requirements and specifications.
Note: AWAL adheres to the iTunes Style Guidelines. Be sure to review these guidelines prior to uploading your release to ensure your product meets requirements.
If your release does not meet the specifications, it'll be queried and returned to your AWAL Portal with an accompanying email explaining the changes that need to be made before the product can be approved. Please see 'Top Reasons Your Releases Aren't Approved First Time' for things to look out for during the upload process.
2. Delivery to the Stores: After the QA process, your release will be queued for delivery to the digital music services which you can monitor in the Catalogue tab on your Portal. Each digital music service has their own ingestion time, varying between 2-7 working days.You should upload your release at least 4 weeks in advance of your desired release day to ensure AWAL can guarantee (barring major issue) the release will be delivered and ingested by each Service we deliver to before your release date. If the release is delivered to the digital music services after your scheduled release date, it’ll go live across different services on different days, and we’re unable to provide any information as to when exactly the release will be live.
Be sure to check out our Guide to Timelines for an overview of all our processes and lead time requirements.