Scheduling: Manual Reminders vs Auto-Publish

Two ways to schedule posts — choose what works for your workflow. When you schedule a post with social connections selected, it's fully automated:

Auto-Publish (Scheduled + Connections)

When you schedule a post with social connections selected, it's fully automated:

Pick a date and time in the schedule dialog
The dialog shows a green Auto-publish badge and lists the connected accounts
Click Schedule
At the scheduled time, the post is automatically published to all selected accounts
The post moves to the Posted column with an Auto badge

Behind the scenes, an AWS EventBridge schedule fires at the exact time, triggers the publishing Lambda, which posts to each platform's API and records the results.

Manual Post (Scheduled Without Connections)

When you schedule without selecting connections, it's a reminder-based workflow:

Pick a date and time in the schedule dialog
The dialog shows an orange Manual post badge explaining you'll need to post manually
Click Schedule
At the scheduled time, you receive an email reminder with the post title, platform, and a preview
Post the content manually on the platform
Come back to the planner and click Mark as Posted

The post moves to Posted with a Manual badge.

When to Use Each

Use Auto-Publish when...	Use Manual when...
You have connected social accounts	You don't have connections set up
You want hands-off publishing	You prefer to review before posting
You're scheduling multiple posts ahead	You're on a plan without social connections
You trust the content is ready	You want to add platform-specific tweaks

Visual Indicators

Both the card view and table view show badges so you always know the status:

Scheduled items:

🟢 Auto — Will auto-publish at the scheduled time
🟠 Manual — Email reminder only, manual posting required

Posted items:

🟢 Auto — Was published automatically via API
🟠 Manual — Was manually marked as posted

Publishing from Planned (Skip Scheduling)

You don't have to schedule first. From the Planned state, click the publish button:

With connections selected → Opens the publish dialog showing which accounts will receive the post. Click Publish Now for immediate posting.
Without connections → Opens the dialog with a Mark as Posted button to record it as manually posted.

Email Reminders

For manual schedules, the reminder email includes:

Post title and platform
Content preview (first 100 characters)
Direct link to the Content Planner

Reminders are sent at the exact scheduled time via AWS EventBridge → Lambda → SES.

Tracking

Every post records how it was published:

`publishType`	Meaning
`auto`	Published via API from the planner
`manual`	Manually marked as posted from planned state
`scheduled_auto`	Auto-published at scheduled time
`scheduled_manual`	Manually posted after receiving reminder

This data is available on each post's record for analytics and audit purposes.