Campaign Status Board: Track a Campaign From Brief to Delivery

Key Takeaways

• Storyflow is our pick for running a campaign from brief to delivery, because the brief, the deliverables table, the weekly status note and the client's view link sit on one board, and the AI reads that board back as a summary and a list of what changed.
• A campaign status board answers one question at any moment: where is every deliverable? Everything on it serves that question, and anything that does not belongs on the project plan.
• One row per deliverable, one owner per row, and the table holds 100% of the scope: if a deliverable is not a row, nobody is making it.
• A Storyflow table's status column has six fixed options, and four of them are the stages every deliverable moves through (Not started, In progress, In review, Done); the other two are exceptions with a written reason: Blocked for a row waiting on someone outside the team, Archived for a deliverable cut from scope.
• A deliverable moves only when its exit condition is met: a named owner and due date to start, a version at the file link to go into review, a written approval with a name and date to be Done.
• In Storyflow, a five-line status note every Friday (counts per status, due next week, blocked, changed, one decision) replaces most status meetings, and the change report names who moved what.
• The client gets one view-only link, which opens with no account. Storyflow does not schedule or publish posts, mark up video frames or compare versions, so those jobs go to a social scheduler and a proofing tool.

What a Campaign Status Board Answers

A campaign with 22 deliverables produces the same question 22 times a week, from the client, the creative director and the finance lead: where is it? A status board exists so that the answer is a glance, not a round of messages. It is not the brief, the plan or the asset library, though it links to all three.

The one question, and the five that follow it

"Where is every deliverable?" breaks into five questions the board must answer without anyone being asked:

• Who has it? One owner per deliverable.
• What state is it in? One status: a stage, or an exception with its reason.
• When is it due? One date per row.
• What is stuck, and why? A reason and the person who can unstick it.
• What changed since last week? A dated list with names.

If the board answers those five, the status meeting has nothing left to do but make decisions.

Why most campaigns cannot answer it

Most campaigns spread the answer across an email thread, a shared drive, a chat channel and a spreadsheet someone updates on Fridays. The answer exists; it just has no single address. The cost shows up early: the IPA's BetterBriefs research found that marketers and agency staff estimate 33% of marketing budgets are wasted on poor briefs and misdirected work, and misdirected work is often a deliverable made to an old version of a decision. A status board with the brief at the top and every deliverable underneath it gives that decision one place to live.

What counts as a deliverable

A deliverable is something you hand to the client or publish: a film, a cutdown, a still, a carousel, a page of copy, a poster. APM's definition of project management frames projects around "final deliverables" completed within a set schedule and budget. Tasks that produce a deliverable (a casting call, a colour grade) are not rows on the status board; they live with the owner or on the plan.

Status Board vs Project Plan

A project plan says what will happen, in what order and by when; a status board says where every deliverable is right now, and in Storyflow the two sit on the same board as different walls, so the plan is written once and the status is updated every day. Mixing them is why most status documents are unreadable: the plan's phases and dependencies crowd out the one column the client wants.

The plan is made once; the status board every day

A plan earns its effort in week one, when the team agrees the order of work. After that, a plan changes only when the campaign changes. A status board earns its effort every day, because every handover, review round and approval moves a row. Keep them apart so each stays readable.

Why one board can hold both

The plan and the status share the same deliverables, so splitting them across two tools means two lists that drift. On one Storyflow board, the Plan wall holds phases and milestones, and the Status wall holds the deliverables table; the AI reads both, so "which deliverables in phase two are not started?" is answered from one place.

When you need a separate plan

If the campaign has dozens of dependent tasks across many teams (a retail launch with packaging, regulatory sign-off and store installs), the plan needs dependencies, a critical path and workload, which Storyflow does not have. Run that plan in a project management app with a Gantt chart, and keep the status board as the one place the client looks.

A kanban works as a status board for a handful of deliverables; past about a dozen, a table with an owner, a due date and a status per row reads faster.

How to Build a Campaign Status Board: 9 Steps

Build it in the first week, before production starts, and the board pays for itself in the first review round.

1. Put the signed brief at the top. In Storyflow, the brief goes in a document on the Brief wall, with the objective, audience, mandatories and the client's approver written as notes above it, so every deliverable can be checked against it.
2. List every deliverable, one row each. Write the table from the brief and the media plan; the work breakdown structure "100% rule" applies: the table holds all the work in scope and no more. In Storyflow, the in-app AI can draft the rows from the brief on the board for you to check.
3. Give each row one owner. Many project management approaches to the responsibility assignment matrix require exactly one accountable person per deliverable. In Storyflow, a person column links people who already have access to the board, so invite the team first.
4. Set a due date per row, rows in date order. In Storyflow, tables cannot be sorted, so keep rows in due-date order by hand as you add them; empty date, status and person cells show a hint, which makes a gap visible.
5. Use four stages and two exceptions. Set the status column to Not started for every row, and use its other two options, Blocked and Archived, only as the section below says.
6. Add the file link and round columns. Every row gets a link to its current version and a count of review rounds, so "which version did you see?" has one answer.
7. Write the exit conditions on the board. A note on the Status wall says what moves a row from each status to the next, so the board means the same thing to everyone who edits it.
8. Share one view-only link with the client. In Storyflow, a view-only link opens with no account; to comment or draw, the client signs in. Send it once, in the kick-off email, and never send a second source.
9. Run the Friday note and the Monday change report. In Storyflow, a five-line status note goes on the Status wall every Friday, and a change report on Monday shows what moved and who moved it.

A Brief wall at the top of a campaign board: objectives, insight and direction stay in view of every deliverable below.

The Storyflow 4-Status Rule

The Storyflow 4-Status Rule is our editorial recommendation, not a research finding. A Storyflow table's status column ships with six fixed options. The rule makes four of them the stages every deliverable moves through (Not started, In progress, In review, Done) and keeps the other two for exceptions that need a written reason (Blocked for waiting on someone outside the team, Archived for a deliverable cut from scope). The list is built in and cannot be edited, so the rule needs no setup.

The rule, defined

Not started: the deliverable has an owner and a due date, and work has not begun. In progress: the owner is making it. In review: a version is at the file link and someone other than the owner is judging it, internally or at the client. Done: the client approved it in writing and the final file is at the link. Each status has one exit condition, set out in the next sections, and only the owner or the producer changes it.

Why four stages

Four is the smallest set that separates the states a client asks about: nobody has touched it, it is being made, it is waiting on someone's eyes, it is finished. Review needs its own status because that is where campaigns slip: work sits finished and unjudged. A three-status board (to do, doing, done) hides every review round inside "doing". A seven-status board (briefed, drafting, internal review, client review, revising, approved, delivered) makes owners spend their time choosing a status; the Round column carries the detail instead.

Blocked is an exception, not a parking place

In Storyflow, the status column's Blocked option marks a row that is waiting on something outside the team: footage from the client, a legal check, a supplier's proof. Set it only with a reason and a name in the Next step cell ("Waiting on factory footage from the client; Mira chases Monday"), and move the row back to the status it left as soon as it clears. A row that stays Blocked for two Fridays goes into the status note as the decision the client must make.

Archived keeps the cut on record

When the client cuts a deliverable, set it to Archived and write who cut it and when. Deleting the row erases the decision, and someone will ask in week six why the shelf talker never arrived.

When the client's process has a state of its own

Some clients need a named state reported: a regulated product that needs "Legal approved" before "Client approved". The status column's options are fixed, so write that state in the Next step cell ("Legal approved, 3 Mar") and keep the row In review until the client approves; the counts in the Friday note still add up.

Status chips on every item make the board's state readable at a glance; four stages keep the chips meaning the same thing on every wall.

Stages and Exit Conditions

A status changes when a condition is met, not when someone feels it has moved. Write these conditions on the Status wall in week one.

Count review rounds, do not hide them

The Round column counts how many times a deliverable has gone into review. The scope of work usually allows two or three rounds; when a row reaches the limit, the producer flags it in the Friday note before the fourth round starts, which is where scope conversations are cheapest. The five gates for client sign-off set out what each approval covers.

Done means approved and delivered

A deliverable is Done when two things are true: the client approved it in writing, and the final file sits at the row's link in the format the channel needs. Approval without delivery is still In review in practice, because the file can still change. Write the approval as a short note ("Approved by Hana, 16 Feb, round 2") in the Next step cell, so the record survives the email thread.

Watch the In review count

Kanban practice treats limits on work in progress as feedback: the Kanban article says WIP limits give teams "immediate feedback on common workflow issues", and a step at its limit takes no new items until one moves on. On a status board, the In review count is the number to watch. If eight deliverables are waiting on one client approver, the bottleneck is the approver's week, and the Friday note should say so.

Stages read left to right on a board; each deliverable's status says which stage it has cleared.

The Board Layout: Six Walls From Brief to Delivery

A status board is easier to read when every campaign uses the same layout. These six walls, left to right, take a reader from the brief to the delivery record.

The Status wall is the one the client reads

Put the deliverables table at the top of the Status wall and the latest Friday note above it, so a client opening the link sees this week's state first. Older Friday notes stack below, newest first, which gives a dated history without a separate report.

The Decisions wall stops relitigating

Every approval, cut and change order gets a dated note with the client's name. When someone asks in week six why the bumper is 6 seconds and not 10, the note answers it. Storyflow's comments are for questions; the Decisions wall is the record.

The Delivery wall is the handover

At wrap, the Delivery wall holds a link per final file, grouped by channel, and a note of what was delivered when. In Storyflow, export the whole board as a PDF on delivery day and keep it with the contract; the live board can still change after the campaign, and the PDF cannot.

The Deliverables Table: Columns That Earn Their Place

Every column must help answer "where is it?" A column nobody reads is a column people stop filling in, and then the table lies.

Spec the format from the platform's own page

The Channel and format cell is where most rework starts, so fill it from each platform's own specification, as of November 2026. The Instagram feed ad guide recommends 4:5 at 1440 x 1800 pixels with primary text up to 125 characters. TikTok's video ad specifications list 9:16 vertical as recommended, at 540 x 960 pixels or more. LinkedIn's single image ad specs recommend 1200 x 628 for 1.91:1 and advise intro text of 150 characters to avoid truncation. The bumper ad help page for YouTube ads says bumper ads are "videos up to 6 seconds long", and the video ad specs list 16:9, 9:16 and 1:1 as the recommended ratios.

Keep the person column real

In Storyflow, a person column links only people who already have access to the board. When the AI fills the column and any name matches nobody on the board, the whole column becomes plain text with the names as written. Invite freelancers and the client's approver before you assign rows, or keep the client's approver in the Approved column as text.

One table, not one per channel

Split tables by channel and the Friday counts need adding up by hand. Keep one table, group rows by due date, and let the Channel and format cell say where each one runs.

A status tracker beside phase columns: the tracker answers "where is it?", the columns answer "what comes next?".

Copy This: The Campaign Status Board Template

Here is the deliverables table for a fictional agency, Fieldnote, running a four-week spring webinar campaign for a fictional software client, Tessellate. It shows the columns filled on a Friday in week two. Copy the header; replace the rows with your deliverables from the brief.

The empty cells are deliberate: a Not started row has no file link yet, and only Done rows have an approval. In Storyflow, an empty date, status or person cell shows a hint, which is the cue to fill it.

The Friday status note template

Five lines, the same five every week. A client who reads only line 5 still knows what you need.

The Weekly Status Note: Friday, Five Lines

The Friday note replaces the status meeting for everything except decisions. It goes on the Status wall, above the table, and the client reads it through the same view-only link.

Write it from the board, not from memory

In Storyflow, ask the in-app AI "Review what's on this board" or, through ChatGPT or Claude, ask for a summary of the Status wall, then edit the result into the five lines. The counts come straight from the status column. The "Changed" line comes from the change report, which is why it runs before the note.

Lead with the decision when one is late

If the client owes a decision that will move a due date, put line 5 first and say which rows move if it slips. A status note's job is not to look calm; it is to make the next decision happen on time.

Keep the history on the board

Each Friday note is a dated note on the Status wall, newest first. After eight weeks, the wall is a campaign diary that anyone can read in order, and the PDF export at wrap keeps it.

A weekly rhythm written on the board: Monday's change report, Friday's note, and the reviews between.

The Change Report: What Moved and Who Moved It

A status board updated by six people needs a way to see what each of them changed. Storyflow reports what was created, edited, moved or deleted on a board, with who made each change and when.

Ask for it on Monday

In the app, ask the in-app AI on the open board what changed in the last week and who changed it. Through the plugin in ChatGPT or the connector in Claude, ask for the changes on the board in the last week; that route runs on your assistant's plan and uses no Storyflow AI credits. Paste the three changes that matter into Friday's "Changed" line.

Read it for surprises, not for credit

The useful entries are the ones nobody announced: a due date moved, a row archived, a file link replaced. Ask the person who made each one why before it goes to the client. The report says what changed, not why, and the ChatGPT plugin cannot read board comments.

Use it to keep the table honest

If a deliverable went from In progress to Done without passing In review, the report shows it. That is either a missed approval or a status set by hand to look good, and either way the producer should fix it before Friday.

The Client View Link

The client gets one address for the whole campaign, and it is the board.

What the client sees and does

In Storyflow, a view-only link opens with no account, so the client's approver, their boss and their legal reviewer can all read the board. To comment or draw, a visitor signs in, and anyone a paid member invites to the board joins free. Test the link in a private browser window before you send it.

Present it in the review call

Presentation mode goes fullscreen and steps through one wall, note, image or document at a time. In a weekly call, step through the Friday note, then the In review rows, then the Decisions wall, and write each decision on the board before the call ends.

Keep a dated record

A live board keeps changing. At concept approval and at delivery, export the board as a PDF and file it with the contract. Storyflow has no version compare, so the dated PDF is what proves what was approved.

Worked Example: 22 Deliverables for Lumen & Larch's Spring Launch

Lumen & Larch, a home fragrance brand, and its agency, Studio Fennel, are fictional; the example shows the method on a realistic campaign, not a measured result. The campaign kicks off on Monday 25 January 2027 and launches a candle line on Thursday 18 March 2027. Mira is the producer, Theo the creative director, Sana the designer, Kofi the editor, Ines the copywriter and Raf the social lead. Hana, the client's brand manager, approves.

The brief and the 22 deliverables

Mira put the signed brief on the Brief wall, built the six walls, and wrote one row per deliverable from the brief and the media plan. Here is the table on Friday 19 February, the end of week four.

The rows are grouped by status here so the counts read easily; on the board, Mira keeps them in due-date order.

Week four: the Friday note

Mira asked for the change report on Monday and the board review on Friday, then wrote the note in five lines:

1. Counts: 5 of 22 done; 6 in review; 7 in progress; 3 not started; 1 blocked.
2. Due next week (by 26 February): hero film round 2, Morning ritual vertical, Fig still, carousel, retail poster, creator check-in.
3. Blocked: Behind the pour vertical, waiting on factory footage since 15 February; Mira chases Monday. If it is not in by Wednesday 24 February, Raf switches to the studio pour shot already filmed.
4. Changed: launch email moved from 26 February to 5 March (Ines, agreed with Hana on Tuesday); two feed stills and the landing page copy approved.
5. One decision: Hana's notes on the hero film's second round by Tuesday 23 February, because the cutdown and bumper start from the approved cut.

Week five: the blocker becomes a decision

The factory footage did not arrive. On Wednesday, Mira wrote a Decisions note ("Behind the pour switches to the studio pour shot; agreed by Hana by email, 24 Feb"), Raf moved the row back to In progress, and the Monday change report showed the edit under Mira's name. Six deliverables sat In review that Friday, all waiting on Hana; the note led with that count and asked for a 30-minute review call instead of six separate emails.

Week eight: delivery and wrap

By launch week, 21 rows were Done and the shelf talker was Archived after the retailer dropped the fixture, with Hana's name and the date in the Next step cell. Mira filled the Delivery wall with a link per final file, exported the board as a dated PDF, and filed it with the contract. The wrap notes went on the same wall: what ran, what slipped, and the two review rounds that went past the limit.

An example campaign board's Plan and Brief side: goals, budget, timeline and team sit beside the walls the status table serves.

Do This in ChatGPT or Claude

Most of the board can be built and read from a chat. ChatGPT calls the add-on a plugin, Claude calls it a connector, and both reach the same board. This route runs on your assistant's plan and uses no Storyflow AI credits; it is separate from the in-app AI, which works inside the app.

Install in ChatGPT

Open the Storyflow listing and select Install plugin. Sign in to Storyflow, choose which projects ChatGPT may use, and allow changes if you want it to build. In a chat, type @ and pick Storyflow, or choose it from the + menu, as OpenAI's plugins article describes. Availability depends on your ChatGPT plan, workspace and region, and in a Business or Enterprise workspace an admin manages plugins. The connection ends after 30 days and ChatGPT asks you to sign in again. OpenAI's app permissions article explains settings such as "Allow read actions", which lets ChatGPT read without asking and ask before changes; that suits a client board. The ChatGPT campaign plan and ChatGPT client updates pages show related jobs.

Connect in Claude

Open Customize, go to Connectors, choose Add, then Add custom connector, per Anthropic's custom connector article. Name it Storyflow, enter https://mcp.storyflow.so/mcp and sign in. On Team and Enterprise, an owner adds it first, and Claude's free tier allows one custom connector. Every assistant's setup is on the Storyflow MCP page; the Claude campaign plan and Claude kanban board pages show the same work in Claude.

Prompts to copy

Pick Storyflow first, then paste. Replace Lumen & Larch with your campaign.

1. "Read the brief on my Lumen & Larch board and build a deliverables table on the Status wall with columns Deliverable, Channel and format, Owner, Status, Due, Round, File link, Next step and Approved, one row per deliverable in the brief, rows in date order."
2. "Set every row's status to Not started and Round to 0, and leave Owner empty where the brief names nobody."
3. "What changed on my Lumen & Larch board in the last week, and who changed it? List only changes to the deliverables table."
4. "Count the deliverables by status and list every row due in the next seven days, then write it as a five-line status note: counts, due next week, blocked, changed, one decision."
5. "Add a note to the Decisions wall: Behind the pour switches to the studio pour shot, agreed by Hana by email, 24 February."
6. "Change the Due cell of the Launch email row to 5 March and its Next step to: moved from 26 February, agreed with Hana."
7. "Add a comment card to the Status wall saying: Six deliverables waiting on client review; can we book a 30-minute call Tuesday?"
8. In Claude: "Read the attached media plan PDF and add any deliverable it lists that has no row in my Status table, with its channel and format."

What lands on the board

Tables, notes, headings, to-dos and comment cards appear on the board; open it to see them. The plugin can set a ticket's due date when you give one and add one comment card authored by you; it cannot read comments or set an assignee on a to-do or ticket. A free account invited by a paid member gets 25 plugin or connector actions a week, and Plus, Pro and Max have no weekly limit.

What to check by hand

Check every row against the brief and the media plan, because an assistant will merge two similar deliverables or invent a format. Check owners: if any name matches nobody on the board, the whole person column becomes plain text. Check that the counts in the status note add up to the total rows. The approvals are yours to write, from the client's own words.

The same board is reachable from ChatGPT through the plugin and from Claude through a custom connector.

Where to Build It: Storyflow vs a Spreadsheet, a Project Management App and a Proofing Tool

Our pick first, on the basis that the brief, the deliverables table, the status notes and the client's link share one board the AI can read, then the other kinds of tool by the part of the job they do best. Kinds of tool, not brands, on purpose.

Storyflow: the status board beside the brief

What it does best: one board where the brief, the deliverables table, the Friday notes, the decisions and the delivery links sit together, with a client link that needs no account. Its real limit is the schedule: no calendar view, no Gantt chart, no dependencies and no recalculating dates. Choose it when the campaign is one team's work with a client approver, which is most agency and in-house campaigns.

A spreadsheet

What it does best: sorting and filtering a long list, and formulas. Its limit is that it holds only the list; the brief, the direction and the decisions live in other files. Choose a spreadsheet for the budget tracker and the media cost report, and link it from the Brief wall.

A project management app

What it does best: dependencies, critical paths and workload across many people and projects. Its limit for a creative campaign is that the work itself (references, cuts, copy) sits outside it, so the status is tracked away from the material. Choose this kind instead for a retail or product launch where packaging, regulatory and store tasks depend on each other.

A proofing tool

What it does best: mark-up on a frame, version compare and an approval stamp per file. Storyflow has no proofing mark-up, version compare or frame-level approval status. Choose a proofing tool, with a link from the row's File link cell, when the client's legal or brand team signs off final files frame by frame.

A shared doc

What it does best: a narrative report for a reader who wants paragraphs. Its limit is that it repeats what the board says and goes stale the day after it is written. Choose a shared doc only for a monthly summary to a stakeholder outside the campaign; the Friday note covers the week.

A social scheduler

What it does best: queuing and publishing approved posts on each channel. Storyflow does not schedule or publish posts. Choose a scheduler for the step after Done, and put the scheduled date in the row's Next step cell.

An agency hub board can link every campaign's status board, so a producer sees all live campaigns from one place.

Mistakes and Fixes

Each of these makes the board lie, and a board that lies once stops being read.

Tracking tasks as deliverables

"Book the colourist" is a task; "Hero film, 30 seconds" is a deliverable. Rows for tasks bury the client's question under the team's to-do list. Fix: deliverables only on the status table; tasks go to the owner's to-dos or the Plan wall.

Two owners on a row

A row owned by "Sana and Kofi" is owned by nobody when it slips. Fix: one owner per row; name the second person in Next step if they have a hand-off.

Using In progress as a parking place

A row In progress for three weeks with no file link is a row nobody is looking at. Fix: In progress needs a version at the link within a week, or a note in Next step saying when one will exist.

Blocked with no reason

"Blocked" alone tells the client nothing and gets nothing unblocked. Fix: every Blocked row says what it waits on, who chases it and by when.

Marking Done before the approval is written

An approval given on a call and never written down is reopened by the next person who joins the call. Fix: Done only with a name and a date in the Approved cell.

Splitting the table by channel

Six channel tables make the Friday counts a sum nobody does. Fix: one table, with the channel in its own cell.

Sending the client a spreadsheet and the board

Two sources with two "latest" versions is how the wrong version gets approved. Fix: one view-only link, sent once, and nothing else.

Letting the Friday note lapse

When the note stops, the status meeting comes back. Fix: a "Friday note" to-do with the producer as assignee and Friday's date, re-dated each week, and the note written from the board review and the change report.

Storyflow's Honest Limits for This Job

Storyflow earns the status board for a campaign; these are the parts of running a campaign it does not do.

• No calendar view and no Gantt chart: dates live in table date cells and to-dos, with rows kept in date order, and nothing recalculates when a date moves.
• Tables cannot be sorted or filtered, so the table is ordered by hand.
• No dependencies, critical path, workload view or time tracking.
• No proofing mark-up on video frames, no version compare and no frame-level approval status; add a proofing tool for frame-level sign-off.
• No social post scheduling or publishing; a social scheduler takes over after Done.
• No version compare and no locked versions of a board: export a dated PDF at each approval to keep a record.
• To-dos carry an assignee and a due date with in-app notifications, but there are no due-date reminders, and the AI cannot set a to-do's assignee.
• The ChatGPT plugin cannot read board comments, and no plugin route generates images.
• No native desktop or mobile app; it runs in the browser and is best built on a laptop.
• Storyflow is paid-only during early access, from Plus at $7.99 a month billed annually ($9.99 monthly); anyone a paid member invites to a board joins free, without the in-app AI.

The Bottom Line

A campaign from brief to delivery has one recurring question, and a status board exists to answer it without a meeting. One row per deliverable, one owner per row, four stages, and one link for the client. Storyflow is our pick because the brief, the deliverables table, the Friday notes and the decisions sit on one board, the in-app AI and ChatGPT or Claude read it back as a summary and a change report, and the client opens it with no account. Take your next campaign, write one row per deliverable from the brief on a board built from the campaign brief to delivery flow, set every status to Not started, and send the client the link on day one. Plans are on the pricing page.