Draft Drip Scheduler

Bulk schedule WordPress drafts into a natural drip publishing queue.

A WordPress plugin that allows you to bulk schedule draft posts to publish sequentially in the future with weekend skipping and time jitter options.

Description

Draft Drip Scheduler solves the problem of flooding your WordPress site when bulk-creating draft posts. Instead of manually scheduling each post, you can select multiple drafts and automatically schedule them to publish sequentially with intelligent spacing.

Key Features

• Universal Post Type Support: Works with Posts, Pages, and all public Custom Post Types (Products, Portfolio, etc.)
• Schedule Now Button: One-click scheduling of all draft posts from the settings page
• Smart Stacking: Automatically starts scheduling after your last scheduled post to prevent overlaps
• Weekend Skipping: Option to skip Saturdays and Sundays for more organic scheduling
• Time Jitter: Add random time variations to make scheduling look more natural
• Bulk Actions: Easy-to-use bulk action in WordPress admin lists
• Scheduled Date Column: View scheduled publication dates directly in post lists

Installation

1. Upload the draft-drip-scheduler folder to /wp-content/plugins/ directory.
2. Activate the plugin through the Plugins menu in WordPress.
3. Go to Settings > Drip Scheduler to configure your preferences.

Configuration

Navigate to Settings > Drip Scheduler to configure:

• Default Start Time: Time of day for the first post if no future posts exist (24-hour format, e.g., 08:00)
• Interval (Hours): Time between each scheduled post (e.g., 24 for daily posts)
• Skip Weekends: Checkbox to avoid scheduling on Saturdays or Sundays
• Random Jitter (Minutes): Randomly adjust schedule time by +/- X minutes (set to 0 to disable)
• Minimum Future Minutes: Minimum minutes in the future that posts must be scheduled (default: 60). Prevents immediate publishing due to timezone issues. Increase if posts are publishing immediately.
• Timezone Override: Override WordPress timezone for scheduling calculations. Leave empty to use WordPress timezone. Examples: America/New_York, Europe/London, UTC+5

If drafts publish immediately instead of being scheduled, see Troubleshooting Drafts Publishing Immediately.

Usage

Method 1: Schedule All Drafts (Quick Method)

1. Go to Settings > Drip Scheduler.
2. Review the draft post counts displayed.
3. Click the Schedule Now button.
4. All draft posts across selected post types will be scheduled sequentially.

Method 2: Selective Scheduling (Bulk Actions)

1. Go to any post list page (Posts, Pages, or Custom Post Types).
2. Select the draft posts you want to schedule.
3. Choose Auto Schedule / Drip from the Bulk Actions dropdown.
4. Click Apply.
5. The plugin will automatically schedule all selected drafts sequentially.

Viewing Scheduled Dates

After scheduling, you can see when posts are scheduled to be published:

• A new Scheduled Date column appears in all post list pages
• Shows the date, time, and relative time (e.g., In 2 days)
• Only displays for posts with future status

How It Works

1. Baseline Detection: The plugin finds the latest scheduled post (post_status='future') for the selected post type.
2. Sequential Scheduling: Each selected draft is scheduled after the previous one, respecting your interval settings.
3. Smart Features: Weekend skipping and time jitter are applied automatically based on your settings.
4. Feedback: You'll see a success message showing how many posts were scheduled and the date range.

Requirements

• WordPress 5.0 or higher
• PHP 7.2 or higher

Development

Install Composer dependencies and run the local checks:

composer install
composer run lint
find . -name '*.php' -not -path './vendor/*' -print0 | xargs -0 -n1 php -l

Release steps are documented in RELEASING.md.

Frequently Asked Questions

Does this work with Custom Post Types?

Yes. The plugin automatically detects all public post types and adds the bulk action to each one.

What happens if I schedule posts that would fall on weekends?

If Skip Weekends is enabled, the plugin will automatically push those dates forward to the next Monday.

Can I schedule posts that aren't drafts?

No. The plugin only schedules posts with draft status. This prevents accidentally rescheduling already published or scheduled posts.

How does the time jitter work?

If you set jitter to 30 minutes, each scheduled time will be randomly adjusted by between -30 and +30 minutes. This makes your publishing schedule look more organic and less automated.

Changelog

1.1.2

• Fixed bug where posts would publish immediately instead of being scheduled when using bulk scheduling from the app home
• Added edit_date => true parameter to wp_update_post() calls so WordPress respects the post date values
• Fix applies to both the Settings page Schedule Now feature and the Posts list bulk action

1.1.1

• Fixed critical bug where posts would publish immediately on first install
• Improved baseline date calculation to always start from current time + buffer
• Added debug logging to post meta for troubleshooting
• Fixed timezone handling in baseline calculation
• Baseline now uses current GMT time + minimum minutes instead of "tomorrow"

1.1.0

• Added timezone override setting for scheduling calculations
• Added minimum future minutes setting to prevent immediate publishing
• Implemented multi-layer future date validation with safety buffers
• Added timezone and date information panel in settings
• Improved date validation using multiple time sources
• Enhanced reliability to prevent posts from publishing immediately
• Removed external API dependency

1.0.0

• Initial release
• Bulk scheduling for all public post types
• Weekend skipping option
• Time jitter feature
• Settings page
• Smart baseline detection
• Schedule Now button for one-click scheduling
• Scheduled Date column in post lists

Support

Please open an issue in the GitHub Issues queue for bugs, feature requests, or questions.

Project Docs

• License
• Release process
• Troubleshooting immediate publishing

License

Draft Drip Scheduler is licensed under GPL v2 or later.