Every AI Content Generator campaign has an Output status field in Base data that controls what happens to generated articles the moment they finish. Four options: Draft, Pending review, Published, Scheduled (calendar). Each one triggers a different downstream flow — different reviewer roles get notified, different automation runs, different SEO indexing happens. Picking the right one per campaign is what turns “articles that pile up” into “articles that ship”.
This tutorial covers all four end-to-end: what each does, when to use it, how they interact with the WordPress role system, and the recommended pattern for evolving a campaign from Draft → Published as it matures.
Draft — safe default, requires manual publish
When the article generates, WordPress sets its status to Draft. It doesn’t appear on the public site. It sits in Posts → Drafts waiting for a human to open it, review it, and click Publish (or trash it).
Right for the first two weeks of any new campaign. Every draft passes through a human before going public — no risk of a hallucinated statistic or a broken image landing on the site. The trade-off is manual effort: someone has to open each draft.
Pending review — send to an editor
Same as Draft but visible to WordPress users with the Editor role in a dedicated Posts → Pending Review queue. WordPress can send email notifications to editors when new pending posts arrive.
Right for team blogs where content generation and content approval are separate roles. The campaign owner (author) generates; the editor reviews and either publishes or sends back. The workflow mirrors traditional editorial pipelines.
Published — goes live immediately
When the article generates, WordPress sets its status to Published and it appears on the public site instantly. It hits the sitemap, gets picked up by Google’s next crawl, appears in RSS feeds, shows up on the blog index page.
Right for mature campaigns you trust — typically after 2–4 weeks in Draft mode, when the drafts are consistently good enough that manual review adds no value. Also right for news campaigns where speed matters more than review.
Warning: mistakes go live. A hallucinated statistic in a Published article is on the public web until someone spots it. This is why campaigns should earn their way to Published status via the Draft phase, not start there.
Scheduled (calendar) — hand to the Content calendar
The article generates but doesn’t immediately publish. Instead, it lands in the Content calendar with a scheduled date/time based on the campaign’s Base data time window, fixed times or random window settings. WP-Cron fires the actual publish at the scheduled moment.
Right for high-volume campaigns where you want articles to publish at specific times of day (respecting the reader window) rather than the moment they finish generating. Pairs perfectly with the editorial calendar template — anchor times at 09:00, random distribution in afternoon.
Step 1 — Start every campaign at Draft
Regardless of the campaign’s final goal, launch it at Draft for the first two weeks. Review every generated article. Fix patterns in Extra AI instructions. Watch the quality curve rise.
Step 2 — Graduate to Pending review or Scheduled
Once the first two weeks are stable, move the campaign to Pending review (if you have a team editor) or Scheduled (if you’re solo and want automated pacing). Continue lightweight review — the 4-minute workflow from the Review drafts tutorial is enough.
Step 3 — Graduate to Published only when patterns are stable
After 4–8 weeks of no significant errors in the Pending review or Scheduled phase, you can move to Published if you want. Recommendation: don’t. Even mature campaigns benefit from the 30-second glance the Pending review or Scheduled queue enforces.
Published is right only for news-style campaigns where a 24-hour delay would defeat the editorial purpose.
Interaction with author role
- Author WordPress role — can create Drafts and Pending review posts but can’t Publish directly. Editors approve.
- Editor role — can move Pending → Published for their own or other’s posts. Right role for reviewers.
- Administrator role — no restrictions. Right role for the campaign owner.
If you set Output status to Published on a campaign whose author is a WordPress Author role, WordPress overrides to Pending review because the role can’t self-publish. Match role capabilities to intended output status.
Interaction with Live News Mode
News campaigns pair naturally with Published (fresh news should be fast) or Scheduled (news at fixed times). Draft or Pending review defeat the “breaking” purpose — by the time an editor reviews, the news is stale.
Recommendation for news: Scheduled with tight interval and Anti-hallucination guards in Extra AI instructions doing the work Draft mode would normally do.
Troubleshooting
- Articles set to Published land as Pending — author role can’t publish. Change author or role.
- Scheduled articles don’t publish at the scheduled time — WP-Cron issue. See the external cron tutorial.
- Pending review queue never gets reviewed — editor doesn’t have notifications enabled. Enable in User settings.
- Bulk publish from Drafts throws errors — capacity issue. Publish in batches of 10 instead of 50+.
You’re done
Four output statuses: Draft for new campaigns and audit periods, Pending review for team editorial workflows, Published for mature campaigns and news, Scheduled for calendar-driven pacing. Start Draft, graduate through the ladder as the campaign matures, respect the author role capabilities.