Understand Campaign Capacity and Calendar Conflicts

Overview

CntX plans content in time-bounded capacity buckets, usually aligned to ISO weeks in the workspace or strategy timezone (Monday 00:00 local inclusive to next Monday exclusive). Each active content strategy declares a weekly effort budget—the nominal maximum content units per week distributed across enabled channels. Campaign plan slots and their briefs consume capacity in those same buckets when policy treats them as included in editorial cadence; some campaigns may stack additively, depending on campaign calendar policy configured for your organization.

Capacity is not a cosmetic warning. When generation proposes more items than a week can hold—evergreen calendar items plus provisional or committed campaign reservations—the system surfaces overflow and conflict signals so you adjust frequencies, move dates, remove briefs, or split initiatives before production gridlock.

Separately, editorial memory and anti-collision protect topic quality during campaign generation: cumulative memory records titles, angles, keywords, and canonical channels already used earlier in the same run; a shared comparator flags overlapping proposals so repairs target colliding slots instead of regenerating entire weeks. This is distinct from capacity—two briefs can fit a week but still cannibalize each other if angles duplicate.

The unified calendar helps you see conflicts: layers for Strategy, Campaign, Opportunity, and Manual can be read together with multi-planning selection, while generation and mutations stay focused on a single strategy at a time to avoid ambiguous edits. Parent/child strategy hierarchy (common campaign strategy versus per-workspace child strategies) appears as glyphs and cross-workspace links—not as a separate technical calendar container.

When to use

Study capacity and conflicts when you:

• Run campaign plan generation alongside an active evergreen content strategy in the same workspace.
• See overflow, over capacity, or conflict warnings during or after generation.
• Approve campaign briefs and wonder why evergreen generation suddenly skips weeks.
• Notice duplicate or near-duplicate topics across campaign weeks or brands—memory and collision repair may need strategy fixes, not just more capacity.
• Operate multi-workspace campaigns where each brand has different `maxItemsPerWeek` on its child strategy.

You do not need to master internal reservation keys to publish successfully—but understanding included versus additive campaign policy and provisional versus committed briefs explains why weeks look “full” before writers start.

Before you start

• Know your workspace timezone and strategy weekly effort budget.
• Identify which calendar layers are active in the unified calendar view.
• Clarify campaign calendar policy with your admin if available: included campaign briefs compete with evergreen slots; additive briefs stack on top for planning visibility but still affect realistic staffing.
• Have campaign and evergreen channel frequencies visible on child and content strategies respectively.

How capacity works

Sources of reservation in a week may include:

• Evergreen calendar items and their briefs in draft, review, approved, or scheduled states within the date range.
• Campaign plan slots once briefs are created: provisional while in needs_review, committed after approval or when content generation starts.
• Manual calendar items added outside automated generation.

Deduping prevents double-counting: a brief linked to a campaign slot reserves through the slot, not twice. Dismissed or failed slots stop reserving.

Cadence shapes buckets: weekly strategies use seven-day buckets; biweekly and monthly use broader display buckets but may still evaluate underlying weeks strictly.

Target capacity subtracts active reservations from the weekly effort budget. Remaining editorial capacity near zero means generation should propose fewer items or you should reschedule existing ones.

How conflicts differ from capacity

Editorial memory spans the generation run across weeks and workspaces. It does not replace human review.

Steps to diagnose a crowded week

1. Open the target workspace Calendar and enable Campaign and Strategy layers (multi-select if needed).
2. Navigate to the overloaded week. Count visible items by layer and channel.
3. Open Campaigns → [campaign] briefs table; filter by workspace and date range around that week.
4. Check brief status: provisional review briefs still reserve included capacity; approved briefs commit it.
5. Open the workspace content strategy and note weekly effort budget versus summed channel frequencies.
6. Compare campaign child strategy frequencies for the same workspace—double-counting often comes from campaign plus evergreen both targeting the same channel heavily.
7. Decide: remove or dismiss low-priority campaign briefs, reschedule evergreen items, lower frequencies and regenerate, or extend horizon across more weeks to spread load.
8. After approval changes, revisit the week to confirm remaining capacity matches realistic staffing.

Expected result

You can explain why a week looks full, distinguish capacity limits from topic duplication, and choose between editing strategy, regenerating plans, approving fewer briefs, or moving evergreen work. Campaign launches proceed without silent over-commitment; evergreen planning retains breathable cadence.

Teams align on included versus additive campaign policy before launch.

Tips / common issues

• Everything approved but team underwater — Budget too high versus real headcount; lower `maxItemsPerWeek` to match reality, not optimism.
• Campaign-only overflow — Child strategy channel targets too aggressive for launch window. Reduce frequencies before regen, not only after review fatigue.
• Evergreen starved after campaign — Included policy + full provisional reservations block generation. Dismiss campaign briefs you will not produce or shift campaign dates.
• Additive policy misunderstanding — Additive stacks for visibility; humans still must staff the work. Capacity warnings may be softer—do not ignore headcount.
• Timezone shifted weeks — Items jump buckets when strategy timezone changes; revisit reservations after timezone edits.
• Collision repeats after regen — Narrow pillar set or repetitive key messages; enrich document sources and pillar diversity.
• Parent calendar view read-only — Aggregated hierarchy views may disable mutations; edit in the focused child workspace calendar or campaign brief actions.
• Protected approved briefs during regen — Reconciliation keeps commitments; you may still need manual reschedule if they anchor overflow weeks.

Next step

Generate Campaign Plans and Briefs with adjusted frequencies and dates once you have resolved capacity constraints—or Move and Reschedule Calendar Items to rebalance evergreen work around an approved campaign window.