Scheduling & Automation
Automate content generation and research tasks on recurring schedules
Scheduling & Automation
Scheduling in TractionDesk allows you to automate content generation and research tasks so they run automatically at specific times or on recurring intervals. Instead of manually creating content every Monday or remembering to research competitors every month, you set up a schedule once and the platform handles execution forever (or until you disable it). This automation transforms TractionDesk from a tool you actively use into a system that works in the background, continuously producing marketing assets while you focus on strategy and growth.
The scheduling system supports all major content types (images, videos, copy) and research tasks. You can schedule one-time future execution ("Generate an image tomorrow at 3pm") or recurring execution ("Generate 5 social posts every Monday at 9am"). Schedules use standard cron expression syntax for maximum flexibility, but the platform also provides simple presets for common frequencies like daily, weekly, and monthly. Each schedule can be enabled or disabled independently, giving you fine-grained control over your automation.
Scheduled tasks run using TractionDesk's background job queue (powered by Trigger.dev), which means they execute reliably even if you're not logged in or your computer is offline. When a scheduled task completes, the generated content is saved to your account and you receive a notification. You can review results at your convenience—there's no need to be actively monitoring when schedules fire. This "set it and forget it" capability is particularly valuable for maintaining consistent marketing presence without constant manual effort.
Schedule Types and Frequencies
TractionDesk supports several scheduling patterns to match different content workflows:
Daily Schedules: Run a task every day at a specific time. Perfect for daily social media posts, morning research briefs, or daily motivational content. Example: "Generate 3 tweets every day at 8am using the Daily Social preset."
Weekly Schedules: Run a task on specific days of the week. Ideal for weekly content series, newsletter preparation, or recurring campaigns. Example: "Generate a blog post every Monday at 10am" or "Research competitors every Friday afternoon."
Monthly Schedules: Run a task on a specific day of each month. Useful for monthly reports, seasonal content planning, or periodic market analysis. Example: "Generate 20 images for the month's content calendar on the 1st."
Custom Cron Expressions: For advanced scheduling needs, use cron syntax to define complex patterns. This enables schedules like "every weekday at 9am and 5pm" or "first and third Tuesday of each month." The platform's schedule builder can help generate cron expressions if you're unfamiliar with the syntax.
Creating Content Schedules
To schedule content generation, navigate to the Schedule Manager in your dashboard and click "New Schedule." Select the content type (image, video, or copy), choose a preset and prompt that define what should be generated, specify the frequency and time, and save the schedule. The schedule will appear in your active schedules list and begin executing according to its configuration.
For image schedules, you typically want to pair a visual preset with varied prompts. For example, schedule your "Product Photography" preset but use different prompts each time to build a diverse image library. You can configure the schedule to cycle through multiple prompts or use a dynamic prompt that includes variables. This creates variety within consistency—all images match your brand style, but each is unique.
Video schedules work similarly but require more careful credit management since videos are expensive (20 credits each). Most users schedule videos weekly or monthly rather than daily to avoid rapid credit depletion. Consider your video needs and credit budget when setting frequency. A weekly 5-second video (4 videos/month = 80 credits) is sustainable on most plans, while daily videos (30/month = 600 credits) requires a high-tier plan or supplemental credit packs.
Copy schedules are the most economical and can run frequently without credit concerns. Daily social post generation (2 credits/day = 60 credits/month) fits comfortably within most plans' credit allocations. Many users schedule daily copy generation for different platforms or purposes, creating a robust content pipeline that produces fresh material continuously.
Schedule Management
All your active schedules appear in the Schedule Manager with details about frequency, next run time, and execution history. You can pause a schedule temporarily (useful during holidays or product blackout periods) without deleting it—just toggle the "Active" switch off. When you're ready to resume, toggle it back on.
Edit existing schedules by clicking the edit icon. You can modify the time, frequency, preset, or prompt without creating a new schedule. This is helpful when your needs change—perhaps you want to switch from daily to weekly, or update the prompt to focus on new topics. Changes to schedules take effect immediately, so the next execution will use the updated configuration.
View execution history for each schedule to see what's been generated and when. This historical view helps you understand your content production patterns and identify any schedules that may no longer be necessary. Some users start with many schedules, then consolidate after seeing which automated content they actually use versus which sits unused.
Research Schedules
Scheduled research is one of the most powerful features for staying informed. Set up research schedules for topics you need to monitor continuously: competitor activity, industry news, regulatory changes, or technology trends. The AI performs the research automatically, scrapes current sources, and delivers fresh insights on schedule.
Common research schedules include daily industry news briefings, weekly competitor blog monitoring, monthly trend analysis, and quarterly market research. Each scheduled research task costs 10 credits per execution, so daily research consumes 300 credits/month. Factor this into your budget when creating multiple research schedules.
You can create content directly from research results using the "Create Preset/Prompt from Research" feature. After reviewing a research report, click this option to have the AI generate a copy preset or prompt based on the findings. This creates a natural workflow: scheduled research discovers insights, you create presets from those insights, then use those presets to generate informed content. This closed loop keeps your marketing grounded in market intelligence.
Credits and Scheduling
Scheduled tasks consume credits just like direct generation, so monitor your credit balance if you have many active schedules. A simple calculation helps plan: if you schedule daily image generation (5 credits/day), daily copy (2 credits/day), and weekly research (10 credits/week), that's approximately 210 + 60 + 40 = 310 credits per month just from schedules. Ensure your plan's monthly credit allocation can support this automated load, or purchase credit packs to supplement.
The platform provides credit usage forecasts in the Schedule Manager showing projected monthly consumption based on your active schedules. This forecast updates when you add, remove, or modify schedules, helping you stay within budget. If a scheduled task tries to execute but you have insufficient credits, it will fail gracefully, log the error, and you'll receive a notification to add credits.
For users with predictable content needs, scheduling is the most cost-effective approach because you can optimize around your plan's included credits. Rather than sporadic on-demand generation that might exceed your allocation some months and underuse it others, consistent scheduled generation allows you to fully utilize your monthly credits with minimal waste.
Automation Strategies
Evergreen Content Pipeline: Schedule weekly blog post generation on timeless topics relevant to your industry. Build a content library that grows automatically without effort.
Social Media Consistency: Daily social post generation ensures you never have gaps in your posting schedule. The AI creates fresh content every day that you can publish immediately or queue in your social media management tool.
Competitive Intelligence: Weekly or monthly competitor research keeps you informed about rival activities, new products, messaging changes, and market positioning shifts.
Content Calendar Preparation: Schedule bulk content generation monthly (e.g., "30 images on the 1st" and "30 social posts on the 1st") to prepare a full month's content calendar in one automated batch.
Seasonal Campaigns: Create schedules that run during specific periods. Enable them before holiday seasons or product launch windows, generate content automatically, then disable when the season ends.
Schedule Reliability
TractionDesk's scheduling infrastructure is built for reliability. Schedules are managed by Trigger.dev, a professional background job system with automatic retries and error handling. If a scheduled task fails due to temporary API issues, the system automatically retries with exponential backoff. This means brief outages in content generation services don't cause missed schedules—the task will retry until it succeeds or reaches maximum retry limit.
Schedules respect time zones based on your account settings. When you schedule something for "9am," it runs at 9am in your configured time zone, not UTC. This ensures content appears when you expect it rather than at odd hours. You can see the next scheduled run time displayed in your local time zone for each schedule.
All scheduled executions are logged with success or failure status. You can review this execution log to audit your automation, troubleshoot any issues, or understand your content production patterns over time. The log includes execution timestamps, credit consumption, and links to generated assets.