Editorial Workflow & Calendar

Summary#

Editorial Workflow & Calendar is a content pipeline you keep inside Metric Vault. Each piece gets a title, a target date, a status, an owner and notes, and the whole set renders either as a list you can edit inline or as a month calendar.

Purpose#

Most content plans live in a spreadsheet that nobody updates, or in a project tool that has no idea what the content actually is. Both leave the same gap: on any given morning, nobody can say what is due this week and what is stuck in review.

This screen closes that gap without adding another subscription. It sits next to the tools that produce the content, it stores items in your account rather than in a file, and it answers two questions on sight — what is due in the next seven days, and what is waiting on someone.

Overview#

The tool is a straightforward store, not an analysis. There is no AI, no data provider and no credit cost.

Press Add item to open the form, fill it in, and press Save. The item is written to your account and the view reloads. Every item carries five fields: a title, an optional target date, a status from a fixed list of five, an optional owner and optional notes.

Two view modes share the same data. List shows a table sorted so dated items come first in date order, with undated items after them, newest first. Month lays the dated items onto a calendar grid, three per day with a +N more marker beyond that.

Items are stored against the account that created them, and the list is loaded for your own account. The Owner field is a free-text label you use to say who is responsible; it does not assign the item to another Metric Vault user or grant them access.

Benefits#

• A shared shape for the whole pipeline: idea, draft, in review, scheduled, published.
• Two readings of the same data — a list for editing, a calendar for pacing.
• Four counters that answer the standing questions without any filtering.
• Stored in your account rather than a spreadsheet, so it survives a laptop.
• Free. No credits, no plan requirement, no provider call.

Use Cases#

• Weekly editorial stand-up. Open Month view and read the next two weeks off the grid instead of screen-sharing a spreadsheet.
• Review bottleneck check. The In review counter tells you in one glance how many pieces are waiting on an approver.
• Deadline triage. Due next 7 days gives you the number that decides whether this week's plan is realistic.
• Publishing log. Move items to Published as they ship so the calendar doubles as a record of what went out and when.
• Campaign pacing. Adding a month of items and switching to Month view shows immediately whether the plan clusters or spreads.

Requirements#

• A signed-in Metric Vault account. Signed out, the panel reads Please sign in to use the editorial calendar.
• A title on every item. Nothing else is mandatory.
• No plan requirement, no credits, no connected integration.

Permissions#

There is no plan gate and no team-role gate.

Items belong to the account that created them. Only that account can edit or delete an item; an edit attempted from another account returns a not-found error rather than changing the row.

Cost#

0 credits. Adding, editing, listing and deleting items are all free and are not counted against your monthly allowance. There is no cached-versus-fresh distinction here because no provider is called. See How credits work for how metered tools work.

Navigation Path#

Dashboard → Write & Optimize → Editorial Workflow & Calendar

The sidebar entry carries a NEW badge.

Inputs#

The form is hidden until you press Add item or Edit on an existing row.

Two controls sit above the form: the Add item button, and a List / Month switch.

Step-by-Step Guide#

1. Open Dashboard → Write & Optimize → Editorial Workflow & Calendar.
2. Click Add item. The form opens and the cursor lands in Title.
3. Type the title, pick a Target date, and choose a Status.
4. Optionally add an Owner and Notes.
5. Click Save. The form closes and the pipeline reloads with the new item. Click Cancel instead to close without saving.
6. Repeat for each planned piece.
7. Switch to Month to see the same items on a calendar. Use Prev and Next to move between months.
8. To change an item, click Edit on its row — or click its chip on the calendar — adjust the fields and press Save.
9. To remove an item, click Delete on its row. This is immediate and has no confirmation step.

Reading the Results#

The header. The panel is titled Editorial calendar. The meta line gives two numbers — total items and how many are due in 7 days — and the badge on the right reads Active when you have at least one item and Empty when you have none.

The four counters. These are the fastest read on the screen.

• Total items (in your pipeline) — everything you have added, in every status, dated or not. If this number keeps climbing while Published does not, you are planning faster than you are shipping.
• Due next 7 days (upcoming deadlines) — items whose target date falls between today and seven days from now, inclusive. This is the workload number. Compare it against how many pieces your team actually ships per week; if it is double, move dates now rather than missing them later.
• In review (awaiting approval) — items in the In review status. A number that does not move between stand-ups is a bottleneck at the approver, not at the writer.
• Published (shipped) — items in the Published status. The only counter that measures output.

List view. A section header reads Content pipeline with the item count, then a table with five columns:

Rows are ordered with dated items first, ascending by date, so the top of the table is what is next. Undated items follow, newest first.

Month view. The header shows the month name and how many items are scheduled in it, followed by Prev and Next buttons and a Sunday-to-Saturday grid. Today's cell is highlighted. Each day shows up to three item titles as chips; a fourth or later item collapses into +N more. Clicking a chip opens that item for editing.

Read the calendar for shape rather than detail. Three chips and a +2 more on one day next to four empty days is a pacing problem, and it is visible here in a way the list never shows. Days with no chips are capacity.

Empty state. With no items, the panel reads No content items yet. Click "Add item" to plan your first piece.

The export row at the top offers Export PDF, Export Excel, Export CSV, Export JSON and Share public link for the pipeline currently on screen.

Examples#

Screenshots#

Tips#

• Give every item a target date. Undated items never appear on the calendar and are easy to forget.
• Use the status list literally. The counters are only useful if In review really means waiting on an approver.
• Add ideas the moment they arrive, with status Idea and no date. The pipeline is more useful as a backlog than as a tidy list.
• Switch to Month view before committing to a week. Clustering shows up there and nowhere else.
• Put the reason for a delay in Notes so the next person to open the item does not have to ask.

Best Practices#

• Review the pipeline at a fixed time each week and move Due next 7 days back to a number your team can actually ship.
• Move items to Published on the day they ship. That keeps the Published counter honest and turns the calendar into an archive.
• Keep owner labels consistent — one spelling per person — so the column reads cleanly.
• Track pieces you publish by hand here as well; publishing from Metric Vault is not yet available, see Publish Integrations.
• Export to CSV before any large re-plan, so you have the previous state.

Common Mistakes#

• Saving without a title. Nothing happens and the cursor returns to the Title field. It is the only required value.
• Expecting Owner to assign work. It is a text label. It does not notify anyone or give another account access to the item.
• Expecting a teammate to see your items. Items are listed for the account that created them.
• Pressing Delete to close the form. Use Cancel. Delete removes the item immediately and there is no confirmation or undo.
• Leaving items undated. They stay invisible on the calendar and never reach the Due next 7 days counter.
• Using a custom status word. Only the five listed statuses are stored; anything else becomes Idea.

Limitations#

• Five fixed statuses. There is no custom workflow, no per-stage approver and no status history.
• No sub-tasks, attachments, comments, reminders or notifications.
• The owner field is free text, not a user assignment.
• Items are per-account; the screen does not switch to a shared team workspace.
• No filtering, search or sorting controls; ordering is fixed.
• Month view shows three chips per day before collapsing to +N more, and there is no day or week view.
• Deleting is immediate and cannot be undone.
• Title is capped at 300 characters, owner at 120 and notes at 2,000.
• The calendar does not link to the content itself, and moving an item to Published does not publish anything.

Troubleshooting#

FAQs#

Does this cost credits? No. Every action on this screen is free and is not counted against your monthly allowance.

Can my team see my calendar? Items are stored against the account that created them and the list loads for your own account, so each person sees their own pipeline. The Owner field is a label for who is responsible, not a way to share an item.

Can I add my own statuses? No. The five statuses — Idea, Draft, In review, Scheduled and Published — are fixed, and any other value is stored as Idea.

Does moving an item to Scheduled or Published publish anything? No. The status is a label you set. Social posts are scheduled from Social Dashboard, and CMS publishing is not enabled yet.

Can I undo a delete? No. Deletion is immediate and there is no confirmation. Export to CSV first if you are clearing a large set.

How many items can I add? There is no documented ceiling on item count. The practical limits are per field: 300 characters for a title, 120 for an owner and 2,000 for notes.

Why do some items sit at the bottom of the list? They have no target date. Dated items sort first, in date order; undated items follow, newest first.