Workflows · 4 of 10
A content calendar that tells the truth
Spreadsheet calendars fail quietly. A piece slips, a channel goes dark for a week, and nobody notices until the publish date has passed.
In plain terms
Each piece of content becomes one row with two dates: when the draft is due and when it goes live. A calendar view shows the week at a glance, and a quick check against your usual cadence shows where a channel is falling short.
The unit is the piece, not the campaign
A content calendar plans individual pieces — an email, a post, an article — so it needs its own Content record type (Planning’s word for a table), where each record is one piece. Campaigns still exist; each piece connects to the campaign it serves.
Give every piece two date fields. That is not a style choice: Planning’s calendar and timeline views both need at least two date fields on the record type before they work at all. Draft due and Publish date are the natural pair.
Press Play, or select any piece in the calendar, to walk through what the week shows.
The Content record type
Content field checklist
0 of 9 added ·Setting it up
- Create the Content record type with the fields above, connected to Channels, Campaigns, and Audiences.
- Add a calendar view keyed to Publish date. Use the timeline view as well if writers want to see the draft-to-publish span.
- Add a request form for content submissions, so ideas arrive as Idea-status records instead of messages.
- Write down the cadence baseline — for example, email 3 a week, social 8, blog 1. A gap only exists against a stated baseline.
Missing dates make pieces disappear. The calendar and timeline views silently skip any record with a missing date or a start after its end. A piece with no draft-due date is not late on the calendar — it is invisible. Filter the table view for empty dates every week.
The weekly check
- Pull Content for the next 14 to 30 days.
- Compare coverage by channel against the baseline, and look for both gaps and clustering.
- Flag pieces past their draft-due date that are still Idea or Drafting.
- Confirm every Scheduled piece has an asset and an approval behind it.
Hand the team the Content calendar view.
# The next 14 days 8 pieces scheduled: email 3, social 4, blog 1 Against the baseline (email 3/wk, social 8/wk, blog 1/wk) Social is at half cadence — 4 of 8 for next week Wednesday and Thursday have no email At risk: 2 pieces past draft-due and still Drafting
With AI in the loop
An assistant can read the next four weeks against the stated baseline and propose records for the gaps, written as Idea-status drafts. A person promotes them or deletes them; nothing is scheduled without a human decision.
Don’t do this
Content as campaign fields
If the piece is the unit you plan, it needs its own record type. Squeezing pieces into campaign fields makes a calendar impossible.
One date field
With a single date, neither the calendar view nor the timeline view will work. Two date fields, always.
Performance data per piece
Clicks and opens by day belong in the analytics tool. Bring back a summary if you need one; see workflow 6.
Drafts in Planning
Planning holds the plan for the piece. Drafts, versions, and approvals live with the Workfront project or the content system.
Limits worth knowing here
| What | Limit | Why it matters for content |
|---|---|---|
| Date fields for calendar and timeline | 2 minimum | Without two date fields on the record type, neither view is available. |
| Records per record type | 25,000 | A busy social team can reach it in a few years. Archive by period rather than letting it fill. |
| Single-line text | 1,000 characters | Enough for a URL, which is where Adobe recommends you keep one. |
| Views per record type per user | 100 | One calendar, one table, one review queue is usually all a team needs. |
Sources
- Adobe Workfront Planning documentation — terminology, request forms, automations, object limitations: Experience League article index
- Planning API reference, versions 1 and 2: developer.adobe.com/wf-planning
- Package contents and entitlements: Adobe Workfront product description