Weekly plan and autopilot
Overview
Instead of starting every post from scratch, you set up a weekly plan per channel: how many posts per week and in which formats. Every Monday the AI puts ideas for the next week into the editorial calendar — one idea per slot with topic, hook, format and channel, in the tone of your brand profile. Create post turns an idea into the finished post.
An idea never goes out: it can be neither scheduled nor published. Only the post created from it waits “For approval” and is approved by someone with the right to publish.
If you want to hand over more, switch the autopilot up in three stages per channel:
- Ideas every Monday — the ideas for the next week appear in the calendar by themselves.
- Finished posts — each idea becomes the post; it waits “For approval”.
- Approve automatically — finished posts are approved and scheduled without review. This is off
by default.
Core tasks
1. Set up a weekly plan
Content → Calendar → Weekly plan. The setup works like a wizard:
- Choose a channel. You can pick the publishing targets of your brand. Next to the channel you
see whether it is connected. Ideas also come for a channel that is not connected yet — publishing starts once it is.
- Posts per week and publishing times — on which weekdays and at which times posts appear
(default: weekdays at 09:00, 12:30 and 17:30). The slots are spread evenly: first one per day (three posts: Monday, Wednesday, Friday), then the next time of day. Two posts of the same brand are always at least two hours apart — across all channels; if a time is taken, the idea takes the next free one.
- Formats — which content types the plan uses (post, carousel, short video, story, video …).
Only formats the channel accepts are offered; they are assigned to the slots in turn.
- Create ideas saves the plan and puts the ideas for the next week into the calendar right away.
If you later change the number or the formats, this applies to future ideas; existing ones stay. A second click on Create ideas only fills the week up — it never creates duplicates.
By default when connecting. When you connect a social network (Settings → Social connections), the channel comes with its weekly plan on its own: all formats of the channel, default times, ideas and finished posts switched on, approval by hand — every post waits in the approval list before it goes out. A channel that already has a plan keeps it unchanged; connecting again never creates duplicates.
2. Review an idea
Ideas show in the calendar with a light bulb. A click opens one. There you can:
- change the topic and the hook,
- move the date (also by dragging it in the calendar),
- Regenerate — the AI suggests a new topic for the same slot,
- Open in editor — write the post by hand (the way without AI),
- Discard — the idea is archived at once and disappears from the calendar; for five seconds Undo
brings it back with its date,
- Create post — opens the create studio with the idea. The post is created
there from topic, hook, channel and format — per network a text in its length and tone, the same way the autopilot does it; it then waits “For approval” and takes over date, channel and format. The idea is archived and disappears from the calendar — the post now stands there. The weekly plan’s publishing times are also the suggested time in the studio.
3. Set the autopilot
In the weekly plan under Autopilot you switch the three stages per channel. Each stage requires the previous one. If you turn off Ideas every Monday, the stages above switch off too; existing ideas and dates stay.
Approve automatically is only possible when
- Finished posts is on,
- the channel is connected and
- you may publish posts in this brand.
Approval happens in your name: the plan shows who turned it on and when, and every automatic approval is in the log (actor “automation”, on behalf of that person). If this person loses the right to publish, the stage switches itself off. Only posts the autopilot created itself are approved automatically, and only with a date in the future.
Fields in detail
The setup reads and writes via /v1/content/weekly-plans; the channels to choose from come from GET /v1/content/weekly-plan-channels. The calendar reads and changes ideas via /v1/content/ideas (discard: POST …/discard, restore: POST …/restore). The grey name after the label is the API field.
Weekly plan
| Field | Required | Values / format | What it does |
|---|---|---|---|
Channel channelUlid | yes, on creation | a publishing target of your brand | Which channel the plan is for. Each channel has at most one plan; a plan never changes its channel. The brand is the channel's. |
Posts per week postsPerWeek | no | 1 to 14, at most weekdays × times; default 3 | How many ideas are created per week. First one slot per day, spread evenly over the weekdays, then the next time of day. |
Weekdays weekdays | no | 1 (Monday) to 7 (Sunday), default Monday to Friday | On which days posts appear. |
Times times | no | up to 6 times HH:MM (German time), each at least two hours apart; default 09:00, 12:30, 17:30 | At which times posts appear. A slot keeps at least two hours to every other post of the brand — on other channels too; otherwise the next free time applies. |
Formats formats | no | up to 8 content types the channel accepts; default: all | Which formats the ideas have — assigned to the slots in turn. A format the channel does not accept is rejected. |
Ideas every Monday ideasEnabled | no | yes/no, default yes | Stage 1: from Monday on the autopilot creates the ideas for the next week — once per week. Off: the stages above switch off too, existing content stays. |
Finished posts postsEnabled | no | yes/no, default no | Stage 2: each future idea of the plan becomes the post “For approval”. Requires stage 1. |
Approve automatically autoApprove | no | yes/no, default no | Stage 3: posts created by the autopilot are approved and scheduled — in your name. Requires stage 2, a connected channel and the right to publish in the brand. |
Read-only: name, network and connection of the channel (channelName, network, networkLabel, connected, connectionReason), the channel's formats (availableFormats), who approves automatically and since when (autoApproveBy, autoApproveByName, autoApproveSince), why you cannot turn on automatic approval right now (autoApproveBlocker: postsOff, channelNotConnected, publishRight) and the autopilot's state (lastPlannedWeek, lastRunAt, lastRunNotice, nextRunAt).
Create ideas
| Field | Required | Values / format | What it does |
|---|---|---|---|
Week weekStart | no | a day of the week, YYYY-MM-DD; current week up to eight weeks ahead | Which week ideas are created for. Without it, the next week. Past slots are skipped. |
The result is in generation: how many ideas were created, their identifiers, the week and whether the AI was used. Without ideas, notice gives the reason: aiInactive (no AI configured), noAnswer, weekFull (the week is already full) or noFormats. This is information, not an error.
Idea
| Field | Required | Values / format | What it does |
|---|---|---|---|
Topic topic | yes | text, at most 200 characters | What it is about. Shown as the headline in the calendar and kept on the post when it is created. |
Hook note | no | text, at most 1000 characters | Angle, example or visual idea — the post grows from it. |
Date plannedPublishAt | no | date and time | When the post should appear. Rescheduling is a new date. |
Read-only: format and channel (typeKey, typeName, format, formatLabel, channelUlid, channelName, network), plan and brand (planUlid, brandId), language (locale), the state (status: idea, after Create post or Discard archived — the date stays readable) and the post created from it (postUlid). Regenerate (POST …/regenerate) and Create post (POST …/post) answer with aiUsed and, where applicable, a notice in notice (aiInactive, noAnswer).
Settings & permissions
- Everyone who sees posts in the brand (
content.item.view) may see weekly plans and ideas. - Setting up, creating ideas, editing them and turning them into posts requires **Write and
schedule posts (content.item.manage) in the channel's brand**.
- Turning on Approve automatically additionally requires Publish posts
(content.item.publish) in this brand. A right in another brand is not enough.
- Ideas and posts need a configured AI (
ai.gateway). The tasks are called **Ideas for the weekly
plan (content.ideas) and Post draft** (content.draft); like any other they can be routed to a model and count towards the brand's AI budget.
- The autopilot runs hourly in the schedule and catches up on a missed Monday at the next run.
FAQ & troubleshooting
There are no ideas in the calendar although the plan is set up. Ideas are created for the next week — move one week ahead in the calendar. If the weekly plan says “Last run … without a configured AI”, the AI is missing; the plan takes effect as soon as it is on.
“Approve automatically” cannot be turned on. The note below it gives the reason: turn on Finished posts first, connect the channel or ask someone with the right to publish.
Automatic approval switched itself off. The person who turned it on may no longer publish in this brand (or their account is locked). Someone with the right turns it on again — then in their name.
I increased the number per week, but the current week stays as it was. Intended: changes apply to future ideas. Create ideas fills the next week up right away.