Product Review: Editorial Calendar App

So I have been checking out Editorial Calendars. Every now and then I need to regroup and be more organised. That means I need to look at the systems I use (assuming of course I’m using one!) and review how effective they are.

I have a couple of editorial calendars on my desktop. The problem is these are not portable and often get out of date. I could load them into Dropbox or OneDrive or Evernote but I find I don’t work well that way.

I also have an editorial calendar plugin on a couple of my websites which is useful. The challenge is that these are site-specific and so I don’t have an overview of all my content schedules, and I need to log in to each site to make any edits.

Then I came across an iPhone app.

Curiously, it is called “Editorial Calendar” (EC).

I became excited. Then disappointed. Then intrigued.

Excited because I thought this might be an answer if it was cross-platform. Disappointed because it wasn’t.

The app is available on both the iPhone and iPad. You can install on both but they don’t sync. There’s no web app or desktop app to sync with either.

You enter data into the calendar. The current months calendar is displayed. Pick a date and select “+”. Give a post title as ‘new event’, select a Category (where you will post eg social media, blog) then choose a location (I used this to show which website the post related to) and finally select a date and time. These did not seem the most relevant fields to me. Basically however the app does the job. What you end up with is a month calendar with a marker for each post by day and the post detail is listed below when you tap on it in the calendar. It would be an nice improvement to have the full months posts in the list below the calendar and be able to move them around for better flow.

It’s possible to also record notes by text or by voice recording which is a great feature.

The app has a Document Scanner and a QR Code Scanner which could come in handy for collecting resource material.

There is a Tips function although that just tells you what each app module does rather than offer specific tips.

In summary, this app has a number of basic elements for an editorial calendar and would be much better if the functionality was developed just a little further.

The good: visual planning calendar; centralised data collection; ability to email notes and voice; ability to create PDF from scan and email.

The bad: inability to sync; inability to see actual content of calendar in one view; limited functionality in calendar module.

For me, it’s a tool that could be quite useful and with more functionality it would be a keeper.

The app is a decent lead generator for up-selling to the developers magazine on Social Media. You get a free sample issue and then it is a paid subscription through the App Store.