What is the timeline step?
It's essentially an overview of when your release will be published, and when your email distributions will be sent out. It's also the place to set the publish date of your release and add email distributions to your campaign.
Why a timeline step?
Think of a timeline as a one stop overview of when everything will happen in your campaign. It's your place to adjust dates and times, make sure that distribution is sent out under embargo, add that follow up for a week after the release is published etc.
It's all about making it easier to get an overview of what's happening, when it’s happening. The Timeline step in your campaign editor allows you to select a day and time for launching your campaign. Also, when you're building your campaign it can be hard to keep a track of all distribution details - you might wonder, "What time is the follow up going out?", "How long before the release is published does the early access email go out?"
To ensure workflow is as clear and efficient as possible, with this feature you are also able to send emails on any desired point in time so the timeline step helps to keep things clear for you and your team members working in the campaign.
How does it work?
The first time you see it you’ll be coming from the 'Settings' screen. First you have to pick your publish date:
Once you’ve done that you’ll get shown an empty timeline:
Adding emails to timeline
You can add email distributions with the '+ New Email' button. Once you've added them to the timeline they’ll be put in the correct place according to their send date. You can read more about creating distributions here.
Timeline drafts
If you decide you want to keep working on the distribution, that it's not ready to be added to the timeline, you can always save it as a draft. Draft distributions appear below the timeline. They won't be sent out.
Confirming your campaign
Once you’re happy with the timeline you can confirm your campaign, which will set the timeline into action. This means the release will be published at the set time while the distributions in your timeline will be sent out to recipients at the time specified. If you have any distributions that are scheduled to be sent out at a time that has already passed then they will be sent out immediately when the campaign has been confirmed.
After confirmation
Once the campaign has been confirmed your timeline will show the real-time status of the campaign with your distributions, and the real time results of these distributions (there’s no need to even refresh the page ;)). Events on the timeline that have happened are shown in green, and things still to happen are shown in orange.
Questions? Send us an 📩 at hello@pr.co