Scheduling Posts and the Approval Calendar

Overview

The Calendar tab turns your drafts into a real publishing plan. It shows a seven-day schedule chart, lists everything that's already scheduled, and surfaces posts that still need a time so nothing slips through the cracks. Scheduling sets a post's publish time and moves it toward the queue — but, under governed publishing, live delivery still happens through the central publishing controls.

Schedule a post

You can schedule from two places:

From the composer:
1. Open a draft in the Compose tab.
2. Set the Schedule field to a date and time.
3. Click Save post. The post moves toward the scheduled state automatically.

From the calendar:
1. Open the Calendar tab.
2. Find the post under Needs schedule.
3. Click Schedule and enter a date/time when prompted (it pre-fills tomorrow at the same time as a starting point).
4. The post moves into Scheduled posts and the seven-day chart updates.

Read the seven-day view

The chart at the top plots how many posts are scheduled on each of the next seven days (labelled Mon, Tue, Wed, and so on). Use it to spot empty days or days that are overloaded, then rebalance by rescheduling.

Below the chart are two lists:

• Scheduled posts — everything with a publish time, each showing its status chip, body preview, scheduled time, and target networks. This list offers a Reschedule action.
• Needs schedule — approved or draft posts without a time yet, ready for you to slot in with a Schedule action.

Reschedule a post

1. In the Scheduled posts list, find the post.
2. Click Reschedule.
3. Enter the new date/time. The post keeps its content, campaign, and networks and simply moves to the new slot; the seven-day chart updates.

Concrete example

It's Friday and next week is empty:

1. Open Calendar — the seven-day chart shows all zeros and three approved posts sit under Needs schedule.
2. Click Schedule on the first, set it to Monday 10:00, and confirm.
3. Repeat for Wednesday 14:00 and Friday 09:00.
4. The chart now shows bars on Mon, Wed, and Fri, and all three posts appear under Scheduled posts.

Tips

• Times use your local timezone. Before scheduling for a global audience, double-check the hour — a 10:00 slot is 10 a.m. where you are, not necessarily where your audience is.
• Schedule after approval so you're only dating content that's been signed off.
• Spread posts across days using the seven-day chart rather than stacking them on one day.
• Need optimal-time suggestions? StretchBAS and StretchSEM can schedule posts into StretchSocial at recommended times — see Cross-app scheduling and integrations.

Note: Scheduling sets a publish time and moves the post into the queue. Actual delivery to the networks is governed centrally, so a scheduled post still passes through approval and the queue before going live — see Understanding governed publishing.

Troubleshooting

• A post won't leave "Needs schedule." It has no date yet — click Schedule and enter a valid date/time.
• The chart looks empty even though I scheduled posts. The chart only covers the next seven days; a post dated further out won't show a bar. Check Scheduled posts for the full list.
• A scheduled post isn't in the Queue. Confirm it's approved and has at least one target network; each network becomes its own queue job.