Pipelines
A pipeline is a recipe that turns something happening (a stream ending, something the team made, a picture approved) into clips and post drafts, without anybody starting it by hand. Left as it comes, it stops at a draft: a person still reads, approves and schedules each post.
Open Pipelines to see your brand's pipelines, whether each is on, how many runs it made this week and what it has spent this month.
What a pipeline is made of
- Source: where items come from. A stream ending, a "Clip that" press, a blog post going live, a time of the week.
- Step: what happens to each item. Cutting a clip, writing a post, checking it is not a repeat, asking a person.
- Outbox: the last step, where what the pipeline made goes.
A pipeline has at least one source and exactly one outbox. Each thing that comes in starts one run, and a run takes that item through the steps in order.
Here is one for Lanternfall, a game by Hollow Oak Games:
Stream markers → Cut a clip → Write the post → Not too similar → Outbox
Each time the team presses "Clip that" during a stream, the clip is cut once the recording arrives, AI writes the post, a check holds it back if it reads too like a recent post, and the post lands as a draft.
Where what it makes goes
The outbox has three settings, and every template but one comes set to the first:
| Setting | What happens |
|---|---|
| Drafts somebody approves and schedules | The post lands in Posts as a draft, as one written by hand does. |
| Posts proposed at a time, for approval | The post is complete, with a time proposed, and waits in the review queue. |
| Posts scheduled by itself where allowed, else for approval | Gated, and off unless GreenMind has approved your brand. See Posting by itself. |
Drafts and review are the normal way to use pipelines. The outbox can also leave things in the library rather than making a post. See The outbox.
Making your first one
- Open Pipelines and choose New pipeline.
- Under Start from, press Use this on a template, or Start empty to build your own.
- Give it a Name, choose its channels on the Outbox step, and press Make the pipeline. It starts Off, so nothing runs yet.
- Try it on a real item with Dry run, which shows what each step would do and what it would cost, and spends nothing. See Trying a pipeline.
- Press Turn on.
On, Off and Paused
| Status | Meaning |
|---|---|
| Off | Nobody has turned it on yet. Nothing runs. |
| On | It reads its sources and starts runs. |
| Paused | No new runs. The page says why. |
| Put away | Finished with. It stops for good, and runs under way stop too. There is no button to bring it back. |
A pipeline reads its sources from the moment it was turned on, so it does not go back over last month's streams. After a pause it picks up from where it stopped.
A pipeline runs its live version. Saving a change, or an assistant proposing one, adds a new version that waits until somebody makes it live on the pipeline's page; making a version live, or going back to an older one, never turns the pipeline on or off. See Versions.
A pipeline that is on runs as the person who turned it on, and the page says who. Making a version live while it is on makes it run as whoever did. If that person may no longer run it, it pauses by itself until somebody turns it on again.
What it costs
Every step carries one of three labels:
- Free: costs nothing.
- Uses credits: spends the org's credits when it runs, such as Write the post and Cut a clip.
- Reaches out: does something people outside can see. The outbox carries this one.
Pipelines spend from the same credits as everything else. See Credits. A dry run shows an estimate first, and budgets put a limit on a pipeline.
Who can do what
These are the roles' defaults. An org's own roles can divide them differently.
| What | Who |
|---|---|
| See pipelines, runs and the review queue | Everybody on the brand |
| Make and change a pipeline that only drafts, dry run it, turn it on, pause it, put it away, try a failed step again, stop a run | Editors and above |
| Save a new version of any pipeline, make a version that only drafts live | Editors and above |
| Turn on, or make live, a version that proposes posts, set what the optimiser does, share a pipeline | Admins |
| Make a new budget live, use Preview for real, allow a run over its budget | Admins |
| Approve and reject in the review queue | Admins, as it takes the right to publish the brand's posts |
See People and roles.
If it goes wrong
See Pipeline problems.