Content calendars are one of the most popular use cases for marketing teams using Wrike. The setups teams use can range from basic to quite sophisticated.
Some teams use the calendar view for content publishing dates and production timelines. They want to see at a glance whether the production schedule is on track to meet the publishing date. Something in production with a due date two days away and a status still showing “First Draft” is visible immediately.
Other teams use the calendar more broadly for tracking out-of-office requests, milestones across large portfolio projects, and dates that multiple teams need to see.
Some teams use it every single day as it gives them a single view of what is due, what is coming, and where the pressure points are across the programme.
Others use it primarily to communicate dates across a programme. The calendar view is quite flexible.
How to structure tasks for a content calendar
The structure that works best for content production is one task per piece of content, with subtasks for each stage of the production process. Something like: Brief, Draft, Edit, Approval, Scheduling, Publish.
The parent task appears on the calendar with its due date, usually the publish date. The subtasks give the team the working detail they need to move the piece through production. This keeps the calendar clean and the production workflow organised in the same place.
This works only with accurate due dates on the subtasks as well as the parent task. A draft subtask with no due date means nobody knows when it needs to be done. The calendar only shows what the system knows.
Workflow statuses for content
Generic statuses like In Progress and Done do not tell you much. You need statuses that reflect where a piece of content is in the production process.
Something like: In Production, In Editing, Pending Approval, Scheduled, Published.
Build your content workflow with specific statuses and apply it to the folder or space where your content lives. Opening the calendar should tell someone what is happening with each piece without having to click into it.
Custom fields for filtering
Producing content across multiple channels, campaigns, or formats means custom fields will make the calendar filterable. A field for content type, a field for channel, a field for campaign name. Once those are in place, you can filter the calendar to show only blog posts, only social content, or only what belongs to a specific campaign, without having to sort through everything.
This is especially useful for teams that produce high volumes of content or manage multiple clients in the same Wrike account.
Request forms for incoming briefs
Content requests that come from stakeholders outside the immediate content team are worth putting through a request form. The person requesting content fills out the form with the brief, the channel, the deadline, and any other relevant details. The completed form creates a task in the content production folder with all of that information already attached.