Auto-approving topics: when to let the writer start on its own

Normally a suggested topic waits until you approve it. Then the writer starts. If you would rather skip that step, RankMill has a team setting that approves every new suggestion automatically. The writer starts on its own, and you review the finished post instead of the topic.

This post covers what the setting does and the spending floor that keeps it in check. It also helps you work out whether it suits your team.

What auto-approval does

A topic hunt reads your website profile and comes back with five suggested topics. Each one has a title and an outline. Without auto-approval, those topics wait for you. You read them, approve the good ones and decline the rest.

With auto-approval switched on, every new suggestion is approved automatically. The writer takes the topic, the outline, any answers you have given, the website profile and the project's writing rules. Then it writes the full post.

Here is the automatic path, step by step:

1. A topic hunt runs, either on the project's cadence or because someone on the team started one.
2. Each new suggestion is approved automatically.
3. If the team's credits are still above the spending floor, the writer starts on the post.
4. The finished post lands in the project, ready for you to read, edit and schedule.

Hunts are free. Writing is what costs credits.

That is why the third step has a check in it. The check is the spending floor.

The spending floor

Each team gets 100 credits a month while RankMill is in early access. Everyone in the team shares them, and they reset on the 1st, in UTC. Writing a post uses 10, so the allowance covers 10 posts a month.

If nothing stopped it, auto-approval could spend that whole allowance on its own. The spending floor is what stops it. Automatic writing stops while you still have credits left for the posts you ask for by hand. Those are:

• a topic you approve yourself
• a post you write from your own idea
• a rewrite of a finished post
• an import you want rewritten in your project's voice

So the agents can keep busy in the background, and you still have room for the post you suddenly need next week.

A few more things worth knowing about credits:

• Only writing spends credits. Hunting topics, edit turns, audits and their fixes, publishing, answering questions and scheduling are all free.
• Failed writes keep their credits spent. Writing the failed post again is free, though.
• Paid plans are not open yet. There is nothing to pay. If you need a bigger allowance, you can ask RankMill to raise it.

Does auto-approval fit your team

Auto-approval is a good fit when:

• You already trust the topics. If you would approve most suggestions anyway, approving them by hand is just a click you keep forgetting to make.
• Your website profile is in good shape. Every agent reads it. A profile that describes your business well gives you topics and posts that sound like you.
• You would rather review posts than topics. You still read every finished post before it goes out. Auto-approval only moves your review to later.
• Nobody has time to check in every few days. The writing keeps moving without waiting on anyone.

It is a worse fit when:

• You are still shaping the project. Early on, reviewing topics one by one is how you teach the hunts what you want.
• You want to choose where the credits go. Auto-approval approves every new suggestion, so credits go to whichever topics arrive first.
• Your topics depend on facts only you know. Think prices, dates or customer names. You may want those posts to wait for you.

That last point needs a closer look.

Auto-approval and blank questions

A suggested topic can arrive with up to four questions. These are the facts the agent could not find on its own, like a price, a date, a customer name, or whether you support some integration. You answer them in the app. The writer treats your answers as facts from the business.

Questions are not a gate. A topic can be approved with them blank. With auto-approval on, that is what happens to any question you have not answered yet. The writer then writes the post so the missing fact is not needed. It does not invent one.

That keeps your posts honest, but it does change them. A post about pricing without your prices will talk around them. Sometimes that reads fine. Sometimes the missing fact was the whole point.

Here is what you can do about it:

• Write the facts into your website profile. Every agent reads it, so facts that live there are in front of the writer on every post. The Profile tab is the editor, and it saves itself.
• Read each post before it goes out. If a gap matters, fix it in the block editor or tell the editor agent what to add. Edit turns are free.
• Keep auto-approval off for now if your topics keep needing facts only you can give.

Declining topics keeps the pipeline on track

With auto-approval on, you no longer pick topics before they are written. Declining is your main way to steer the hunts.

You can decline a topic and add a reason if you like. Every later hunt is told what you declined and why, so it stops suggesting the same thing. A reason like "we do not sell to large companies" tells the next hunt far more than a bare decline. Make a habit of giving one.

There is also a built-in brake. A project holds at most 20 posts that are not out yet, suggestions included. No hunt runs while it is full. Auto-approval can write posts faster than you publish them, and finished posts count towards that 20 too. When the project fills up, the hunts pause until some posts go out. Needs attention helps here, because it lists finished posts that are not on the calendar yet.

Watching credits in the Working now panel

Working now is a panel you can open from anywhere. It shows what the agents are doing for your team right now, grouped by project. The credits used this month sit at the foot of it, and it updates as runs start and finish.

With auto-approval on, take a quick look now and then:

• After a hunt. If writes start on topics you did not expect, decline the next ones with reasons, or tidy up your website profile.
• Later in the month. Compare the credits used with your allowance of 100. Each post costs 10, so you can count how many writes are left.
• When one project seems busy. Runs are grouped by project, so you can see where the automatic writing is going.

For the full history, open Activity. It lists every run the team has made, what kind it was, what it was working on, how long it took and why it failed if it did. You can filter by project, kind and status.

If one project keeps using credits you meant for another, change how often it hunts. The cadence can be off, daily, weekly, every two weeks or monthly. Fewer hunts means fewer suggestions, and fewer suggestions means fewer automatic writes.

A simple way to decide

Start with auto-approval off. Run a few hunts, decline what you do not want with reasons, and fill in your website profile. When most suggestions are ones you would approve anyway, switch auto-approval on.

For the first month, keep an eye on Working now. Answer questions when they come up, and read every post before it goes out. If the posts look right and the credits land where you want them, leave it on.