Content Calendar (Drip Feed)
The Content Calendar, powered by our Drip Feed system, allows you to automate the publishing of your generated articles to your connected CMS. Instead of publishing all content at once, you can schedule posts to go live at a steady, natural pace, which is beneficial for SEO and audience engagement.
How Drip Feed Works
When you enable Drip Feed for a project, iContentForge will automatically publish articles from the Ready status queue to your connected CMS. The system processes articles approximately every 5 minutes, checking for scheduled posts.
The publishing workflow is as follows:
- An article is generated and moves to the Ready status.
- If Drip Feed is active, the system assigns a publish time based on your schedule.
- The article status changes to Scheduled.
- When the publish time arrives, its status becomes Queued.
- The system publishes it to your CMS, and the status updates to Published.
The Drip Feed system is a lightweight, cron-based scheduler built into the application. It does not require an external Redis server or complex infrastructure to operate reliably.
Setting Up Your Publishing Schedule
You can configure your Drip Feed schedule from your Project Dashboard.
- Navigate to your desired project.
- Click on the "Content Calendar" tab.
Content Calendar tab in project dashboard
- Toggle the "Enable Drip Feed" switch to ON.
- Configure the following settings:
- Start Date & Time: Select the date and time for the first article to publish.
- Frequency: Choose how often to publish (e.g., 1 article per day, 2 articles per week).
- Time Zone: Select the time zone for your schedule. Publishing times are based on this setting.
For best SEO results, choose a consistent frequency that matches your site's authority and content production capacity. A steady drip (e.g., one post every other day) is often more sustainable and effective than bulk publishing.
Managing Your Scheduled Content
Viewing the Calendar
The Content Calendar provides a visual overview. You'll see:
- Calendar View: A monthly calendar showing days with scheduled posts.
- Queue List: A chronological list of all articles in the Scheduled, Queued, and Ready states, along with their assigned publish date and time.
Adjusting the Schedule
You can make individual adjustments to your queue:
- Reschedule an Article: Click on a scheduled article in the queue list and select a new date and time.
- Publish Immediately: Use the "Publish Now" action to bypass the queue and send an article directly to your CMS.
- Remove from Schedule: Move an article back to "Ready" status to hold it for later scheduling.
Pausing Drip Feed
To temporarily halt automatic publishing:
- Go to the Content Calendar tab.
- Toggle the "Enable Drip Feed" switch to OFF.
- All Scheduled articles will remain in the queue but will not be published until Drip Feed is re-enabled.
Drip Feed vs. Manual Publishing
Understanding the difference between these two modes helps you choose the right workflow.
| Feature | Drip Feed (Automatic) | Manual Publishing |
|---|---|---|
| Process | System automatically publishes from the queue based on your schedule. | You manually select and publish individual articles. |
| Control | Set-and-forget automation. Best for consistent, long-term content flow. | Full, immediate control over exactly when each piece goes live. |
| Best For | Maintaining a consistent content cadence, scaling content output, multi-client agencies. | Launch campaigns, time-sensitive news, or when precise editorial control is needed. |
| Article Status Flow | Ready → Scheduled → Queued → Published | Ready → Published (direct) |
You can use both methods within the same project. Drip Feed manages the automated queue, while you can still manually publish any Ready article at any time.
Time Zone Configuration
Your configured time zone affects all scheduled times in the Content Calendar. Ensure this is set to your target audience's location or your primary working time zone.
To change it:
- Go to your Project Settings.
- Find the "Default Time Zone" field under Publishing Settings.
- Select your preferred time zone from the dropdown list.
- Click Save. Future schedules will use this new time zone.
Changing the project time zone will not recalculate the absolute publish times for articles already in the Scheduled queue. It will only apply to new schedules created after the change. Review your existing queue if you update this setting.
Next Steps
- Learn how to generate the articles that populate your calendar: Generating Articles
- Connect your CMS to start publishing: CMS Integrations
- Understand the full article lifecycle: Article Statuses