Using Timeline for Content Strategy
I'm trying to setup projects for my homepage editor and social media coordinator to manage their content scheduling. The timeline view is great to see at a glance what's happening but I'm struggling a little getting it just right. I setup tasks with categories (for web: Slider 1, Slider 2, News; for social: Facebook, Twitter) which works well for the first month but once you move into the second month and so on, the name of the category isn't visible. I really don't want a new task for each month, I'd like it to be based on a year.
Does anyone have any advice on how you manage a content calendar/strategy in Wrike?
Hi Caitlin, thank you for posting this great question here! I'd love to help you get this just right, and I wanted to make sure I understood your current setup correctly. When referring to categories and their names, are you referring to Folder Tags, or Subfolders for each category? It sounds like the lack of visibility could be due to the current Folder Structure, and I'd love to learn more about how you currently manage this workflow and share some recommendations based on that :)
I also wanted to share some resources published by our own Content Team, with tips on using Wrike for content planning and as an editorial calendar:
Looking forward to learning more about your use case!
Thanks Anastasia
By categories I meant Tasks. So each Task in the project is setup as a content area, then we're using subtasks to schedule the content. Within the subtask we are getting the work done (approvals, writing, etc.) and marking the status as planned/live.
I looked through the articles you gave but they aren't using the timeline/calendar feature the way I'd like to. We're looking for a visual snapshot of the content now, historically and planned. The setup I have here (see screenshot) works but unless you already know, the Task (content areas) and status (just color coding) are unclear.
Caitlin, thank you for sharing those additional details, the screenshot is really helpful! I can see now how the name of the category isn't visible in this setup. I wanted to recommend trying out Subprojects instead of the category tasks, and tasks instead of subtasks. Here's an idea of what this would look like in the Folder Tree:
Project names are carried along throughout the Timeline, so there's no need to recreate the task each month. You can continue adding tasks throughout the year, and if you ever feel like there are too many, you can archive the existing ones by moving them to another Folder. Here's a quick GIF showing how the Timeline scrolls with sticky Subprojects:
If you use a Custom Workflow for content planning, you can customize the statuses and choose a color coding scheme your team agrees on. When viewing the Timeline, adjust the filtering criteria to see tasks with a certain status. For example, you can filter out "Live" tasks, and look at those which are "In Progress" or "Pending Approval". Let me know if you have any other questions, or if I misunderstood something. Looking forward to hearing your thoughts on this!