Today
What needs you, and what ran on its own overnight.
Finish setting up
This disappears once it is done. Until the canon is loaded, the checks have nothing to check against.
Why we do this
Make mastery the standard, not the exception. Everything we publish either proves that, explains it, or brings someone closer to it.
Do next
Where the month stands
| Published | |
| Scheduled | |
| Waiting on approval | |
| Still a draft |
Overnight, on its own
My work
Everything assigned to you, and how loaded the team is. This is the screen that matters once there is more than one marketer.
Who is carrying what
Counts items due in each week, not hours. Amber means at capacity, red means something will slip. Reassign by opening any item.
Marketing mix
Two questions. What are we doing at each stage of the journey, and how is effort split across channels.
Drag an activity to another stage. An empty column is a hole someone falls through.
Always on means a permanent property that needs an owner and a review date, not a campaign item.
Campaigns
Each has a goal, a window, an owner and a colour that runs across the calendar.
Objectives and KPIs
What the quarter is for, who owns each number, and when it gets looked at.
Objectives
Key numbers
Audiences and personas
Every brief picks an audience and a persona. That choice decides which proof may be used and how the story is framed.
Actions
The work that is not a post. Applications, briefs, bookings, fixes. Priority A blocks a campaign.
Creatives
Every pubmat, carousel, quote card, article hero and diagram. Requested here, designed, approved before anything can use it.
A request opens an action for the designer with the sizes each channel needs, so nothing is designed once and cropped badly for the rest.
Sizes each channel needs
| Channel | Sizes | Note |
|---|---|---|
| LinkedIn, Andrew | 1:1, 4:5 | 4:5 takes more of the feed |
| LinkedIn, page | 1:1, 4:5 | Same artwork, separate post |
| 1:1 | Text kept clear of the edges | |
| 4:5 and 9:16 | Feed and story are different crops | |
| Blog | 16:9 | Hero image plus inline diagrams |
| 2:1 | Header banner |
Draft
Check
Pubmat
Uploading here adds it to the artwork library too, so the designer and everyone else can find it.
Gathered for you
| Sourced statistics | 6 |
| Proof you may use here | 4 |
| Earlier posts on this theme | 7 |
Approvals
Approving releases the post at its scheduled time. Sending it back keeps it paused with the reason attached.
If anyone edits the copy, moves the slot or swaps the artwork after approval, it drops back to waiting by itself.
Post today
Everything whose slot has arrived. The copy is approved and the artwork is attached. Copy the caption, download the artwork, post it, mark it done.
If you would rather it posted itself
The app can publish straight to a channel once that account is connected in Settings. It is off until you connect one, and even then several formats cannot be published by any tool, so those always come through this screen.
Engage
Everything people say back, from every channel, in one queue. Rules triage it before you read it, so volume does not turn into a wall of text. A rule never replies. Replying is always a person.
Brain
The whole knowledge base. Identity, context, numbers, claims, clients, research and words. Everything the system knows about PathBuilder, and everything it checks against.
Facts are proposed, never added on their own. You accept each one.
Research
What was published in this field, read once a day, with the source and the day it was found against every line. Nothing here has been written anywhere. A person decides what becomes a brief.
Numbers we have sourced
Each kept with its source and the objection someone will raise. Nothing here is in the Brain until it is put there.
How this works
| When | Every weekday at 07:00, and whenever you press Look now. |
| What it reads | Only the sources under Where we look. Nothing else. |
| What the model does | Says what each new thing is and why it might matter here, grounded in the Brain. |
| What it never does | Write to the Brain. Publish. Decide. Use this opens a brief you still have to write. |
Files and links
One repository. Everything uploaded anywhere lands here, and every entry in the Brain says which file it came from.
Drop a file here
It is filed here and offered to the Brain. Nothing enters the Brain without you saying so.
Files marked as design samples teach the visual rules. Teach a rule from one and every slide prompt rebuilds immediately. Replacing a file updates every Brain entry that came from it. Removing a file removes them. Nothing in the Brain is ever left pointing at a document that no longer exists.
Prompts
Every instruction the system gives the model lives here, versioned like anything else. None of them contain a number or a claim. They pull those from the Brain when they run, so a prompt never goes stale.
What each one costs to run
Tier is set per prompt, not per feature, so the split can be retuned as prices change without touching any product code.
Slide prompts
One standalone prompt per slide, each carrying the whole rendering contract inline. Built from the design and prompt craft rules in the Brain, so a change there changes every prompt here. Copy one and paste it straight into your own generator.
Metrics
Where the key numbers stand against what was said. Every figure here is entered by a person or read from the work, never typed into the screen.
What worked, and why
People and access
Access follows the org chart. Nobody signs themselves up and nobody picks their own permissions.
Everyone with access
What each role can do
Everything anyone does is recorded against their name either way, so these are about who should be stopped, not about who can be trusted. Open them up as far as suits you.
Connections
Every account and page connects on its own, authorised by whoever owns it. They are not equal, and the differences are set by the platforms.
We publish our own content to our own accounts and read analytics on it. No scraping, no automated outreach, no messaging automation. Platforms have removed company pages and restricted executives' personal profiles over exactly that.
Leads
People who might become a deal but are not one yet. Keeping them out of the pipeline is the point: a pipeline full of unqualified names tells you nothing.
Pipeline
A stage is something true about the buyer, not a feeling about the deal. Every open deal needs a next step with a date, or it is a hope rather than a deal.
Institutions
Who they are, who inside them matters, and which of the four buyer types each person is. The personas here are the same ones the marketing side writes for.
Submissions
Government applications, grants, awards and fellowships. Hard deadlines, no second chance, so they are warned at thirty days, fourteen, seven, three and one.
Scorecard
What was aimed at and what actually happened. Activity counts sit next to results, because activity without results is motion and results without activity is luck.
Competitors and proof
Who else is in the room, what they are good at, where to watch them, and what has actually been seen. Watch closely first, because attention spread evenly is attention wasted.
Price book
Two dimensions, a one time build and a per learner subscription across bands, and five segments. The floor is what a discount may not pass without the owner.
Renewals
Every signed contract and when it ends. A renewal that surprises you is a renewal you have already half lost.
Compliance calendar
Every filing, permit and remittance with a date that does not move. Marking one filed rolls the next one forward, so the calendar never empties and nothing is remembered by accident.
Settings
Everything you can change without touching a file. Only the database details and the two application keys live outside this screen, because nothing can read the database without them.
Automations and workflows
Rules are one thing happening. Workflows are a sequence with people, waits and branches in it.
Sign in and joining
There is no public sign up. An owner invites you and the invitation carries your role.
PathBuilder Core OS
Sign in to continue
Forgot your password? Ask an owner.
Joining
| 1. An owner picks the person and the role |
| 2. Invitation email, valid for 7 days |
| 3. They set a password and enrol a second factor |
| 4. They land on Today, scoped to their role |
Leaving
One action deactivates a person and hands their work to someone else, so nothing is stranded in a departed account.
Rules for everyone
| Second factor | Required |
| Shared logins | Not allowed |
| Guest access | Expires by itself |
| Every sign in | Logged |
Who does what
The system never publishes on its own.
The system, on its own
Precious
Andrew
From an idea to a published post
When a number changes
When someone comments
The system finds the work, gathers the material, checks the result and releases what was approved. Precious decides and writes. Andrew approves anything PathBuilder is claiming. No post leaves without a person putting their name on it.
What we took, what we left
And what stress testing this design changed.
| Source | Taken | Left behind |
|---|---|---|
| My Digital CMO | Plan, Execute, Evaluate as the shape of the tool. The mix as activity across the journey rather than a budget split. Cadence on every activity. Objectives and KPIs with an owner and a review date. A link library. | A calendar coloured by content type. Colour carries approval state here, because that is what you need at a glance. |
| Monday.com | One set of work, many views. Drag to change state. Assignment and a workload view. Automations as when this happens, do that. | Fully customisable boards. The check stage must be unskippable. |
| Notion AI | Write anywhere, format inline, generate into the page. | Blank slate generation. |
| RankPill | Crawl for opportunities, cluster, brief automatically, track daily. | Publishing without a person. |
| Sintra AI | A workspace per job. An uploaded knowledge base every workspace reads. | Separate memory per helper, and a knowledge base with no governance. |
| Social schedulers | The status spine. Per channel versions. Send back with a reason. Editing after approval returns it to waiting. | Writers holding publishing rights on the accounts they write for. |
What stress testing changed
| What breaks | What was added |
|---|---|
| The approver travels for a week | An approval window, automatic escalation to Roy, and a delegate toggle |
| The team grows past one marketer | An assignee on every item, My work, a workload view, and a Contributor role that writes but cannot publish |
| Someone leaves | Deactivate and reassign in one action, so nothing is stranded |
| A post is scheduled to a channel whose connection has died | A preflight check before scheduling, and a warning on the channel list |
| A connection quietly expires | Expiry dates on every connection, warned 7 days ahead |
| Artwork is swapped after approval | The post returns to waiting, same as a copy edit or a moved slot |
| Nobody has loaded the canon yet | A setup checklist on Today that will not go away until it is done |
| Two people open the same draft | The item shows who has it open and when they last saved |
| A number changes after publication | Corrections opened automatically, ranked by reach |