Feed Planner

Your feed as it will look once everything has gone out, beside the calendar it goes out on.

Where this lives: Manage > Feed Planner

What this is

The Feed Planner is a picture of your feed as it will look once everything you have planned has gone out.

It holds three things that answer to one list of posts. A grid of squares in the order they will be published. A calendar showing the days they land on. A place to write them.

Because the grid and the calendar read the same list, a change in one shows in the other.

What you see

The title reads Feed Planner. Above it sits the word Manage.

Under the title runs a row headed Planning as. It carries a pill reading Myself and one pill for each group you administer. The row ends with a count of how many places you can post to right now.

The Feed grid fills the main column. Squares run three across, newest first, the way a profile lays them out. A planned post takes its square before it exists. Below the planned squares sit the posts that are already out, with a line saying where that boundary falls, so the grid reads as one continuous picture.

Each square is drawn through the crop the platform will actually use. A tall photograph shows you the band that survives, not the whole picture shrunk to fit. Under the grid sits one line explaining that the times stay where they are and the posts move between them.

Reels and stories sit under the grid in their own upright frames. They are there rather than in the grid because neither takes a square on a profile, so putting them in the grid would show a feed that will never exist.

Compose sits under the grid. A title, one body, a picture chosen from your own gallery, a link out to the canvas, and a list of every place the post can go. Each place carries its own character count and its own box for a different version of the words. A place with no working key is listed separately with the reason, and it cannot be chosen. Choosing a message thread adds a menu of the conversations Rivr can reach.

The Calendar sits in the right column with three buttons reading Month, Week and Day. Scheduled posts sit on their days as coloured dots, and dragging one to another day moves it.

Due next lists what goes out next, with anything late at the top. Each late or failed line says what to do about it, because a key that stopped working and a post a platform refused are fixed in two different places.

Where you can post lists every destination and what each one is. A destination reads Ready, or Needs a key, or Not linked, or No way in. A destination that needs a key says what to paste, whether getting it means registering your own application first, and that nothing will be sent there meanwhile. A key with a known expiry says the day it stops working.

Drafts lists posts that have no time yet.

What you can do here

• See your feed as it will look before any of it is out. See Plan a post.
• Schedule a post for a day and a time in your own zone. See Give a post its time.
• Rearrange the grid, which rearranges the schedule. See Change the order.
• Move a post to another day on the calendar. See Move a post to another day.
• Take a post back before it goes anywhere. See Withdraw a post.
• Write one body and a different version of it per destination.
• Plan as yourself or as a group you administer.
• See planned reels and stories beside the grid rather than inside it.
• Connect a destination by pasting a key you fetched yourself. See Connect a destination.

How to

Plan a post

1. Open Feed Planner under Manage.
2. Choose Myself or the group you are planning for in the Planning as row.
3. Write a title and a body in Compose.
4. Choose a picture from your gallery, or open the canvas and make one.
5. Tick each place you want it to go.
6. Press Save draft.

A draft has no time and will never go out on its own.

Give a post its time

1. Open Feed Planner under Manage.
2. Write the post, or open one you saved.
3. Tick at least one place for it to go.
4. Set the date and time in the field reading Goes out.
5. Press Schedule.

The time is read in your own zone. Nothing is sent until that time passes.

Change the order

1. Open Feed Planner under Manage.
2. Drag a square onto the square whose place you want it to take.
3. Read the line under the grid, which says how many posts changed time.
4. Press Put back if you want the old order returned.

The times stay where they are and the posts move between them, so a plan of one a day at nine stays one a day at nine. A post that is already out cannot be moved, because its place in the grid is history.

If you are not using a mouse, focus a square and use the two arrow buttons on it instead.

Move a post to another day

1. Open Feed Planner under Manage.
2. Find the post in the Calendar.
3. Drag its dot onto the day you want.

The time of day you set is kept. A post set for nine in the morning is still nine in the morning on the new day.

Connect a destination

1. Open Feed Planner under Manage.
2. Read the panel headed Where you can post.
3. Find the destination and read what it needs.
4. Press the link to Settings and paste the key there.
5. Come back. The destination now reads Ready and names the account it posts as.

Rivr checks the key the moment you save it, so one that cannot post says so then rather than on the day.

Withdraw a post

1. Open Feed Planner under Manage.
2. Find the post under Due next or in the Calendar.
3. Withdraw it.

A withdrawn post is kept and nothing is sent.

What changes for you

Only the groups you administer appear in the Planning as row. A place is never offered, because a place is not something anyone posts as.

A destination needs a working key before you can choose it. You fetch the key from the platform yourself and paste it in. Rivr never signs you in to somebody else's service and never asks for your password there.

How much work that is differs a great deal, and the panel says which before you start. A Telegram bot token comes from a chat inside Telegram itself and takes a few minutes. A Discord webhook is made by a server admin in the channel's own settings. Instagram, Facebook and Slack each mean registering your own application at the platform first, which is a real errand.

Instagram also needs the account to be a Business or Creator one.

Two destinations offer no way in at all. Substack takes no post from another application, so a planned post there is a reminder and a copy to paste. Patreon can be read by another application but we have found no documented way for one to write a post.

Your own feed, your groups' member email, and any message thread already linked to Rivr work with no key at all.

A key that expires shows the day it stops working. Rivr refuses to schedule a post for after that day, and says so, rather than letting it fail quietly on the morning.

A post that fails is kept, along with the reason in words and what to do about it. A post the platform refused is tried again on the next run, up to three times. A post refused because the key does not work is not tried again at all, because asking a second time with the same key cannot help; it waits for a fresh one.

A post can also come back marked Needs checking. That means a run took it, never reported back, and we cannot tell whether the platform accepted it. It will not be tried again on its own. Look at the account, then either leave it or plan it again.

Nothing here has a send now button. The only way anything leaves is a time you chose.

Where this connects

• Broadcast holds the other ways to send something out, including press and the member email.
• Calendar holds your events and shifts, which is a different calendar from this one.
• Canvas is where a picture is made before it is planned.
• Connected services is where a key is pasted before a destination can be posted to.
• Messages holds the conversations a message thread destination sends into.