Roundups

A roundup is a planner that shares several posts as one post. On every run, it picks the posts that match your rules, writes one post that lists them and shares it to its channels. Use it for posts like "This week's 5 best-sellers" every Friday or a monthly digest of your blog.

Roundups are available on the Plus, Developer and Lifetime plans. A roundup is set up like a planner, with two differences: it has a Source step instead of a Sort step, and its post is written with roundup keywords.

Creating a roundup

1. Go to FS Poster > Planners, click New Planner and choose Roundup.
2. Click Choose channels and add the channels that should share the roundup.
3. Go through the steps on the right: Filter, Share type, Source and Summary.
4. Write the post for each channel on the left, as described below.
5. Give the roundup a title in Summary and click Create Planner.

Roundups are listed with your planners and carry a Roundup badge. You can pause, resume, edit and delete them like any planner, and the History icon shows their runs.

Filter

Choose the Post type. You can also filter the posts by term, such as a category or a tag, and by author. For products, you can turn on Skip out of stock products.

The post type comes first because it decides which sources the Source step offers. The WooCommerce sources appear only when the post type is Products. If you change the post type later, a WooCommerce source goes back to Latest posts.

A roundup has no publish date filter and no Filter specific posts option. The period in the Source step decides which posts count.

Share type

A roundup runs on the same share types as a planner: Interval, Weekly, Monthly and Annually. See Planner for the details of each.

The share type also sets how much time a roundup covers. With the default period, a weekly roundup looks at the past week, a monthly roundup at the past month, and a roundup every 10 days at its 10 days.

Source

Pick the posts by decides which posts go in and in what order:

• Latest posts: the newest posts published in the period.
• Most commented: the posts with the most approved comments written in the period. Pingbacks and trackbacks don't count.
• Most clicked on social media: the posts whose links, shared by FS Poster in the period, got the most clicks.
• Highest number in a custom field (e.g. views): enter the name of a custom field that holds a number, such as the field a post views plugin keeps its counter in. The posts published in the period are ranked by that number. With All time, all posts are.
• Best-selling products: the products with the most units sold in paid orders in the period.
• Top-rated products: the products with the highest average customer rating.
• Products on sale: the products that are on sale when the roundup runs.

Posts that tie are ordered newest first. Password-protected posts are never picked.

Period has two options:

• Since the previous roundup (default): only what happened since the previous run counts, whether that run was shared or skipped. That means new posts, new comments, new clicks or new sales. The first run looks back one interval: a week for Weekly, a month for Monthly and a year for Annually.
• All time: posts are ranked however old they are, for example for an all-time best-sellers post.

Top-rated products and Products on sale have no period. They always use the current ratings and sale prices.

Posts per roundup sets how many posts the roundup lists, from 1 to 20. Minimum is the fewest posts a run needs: a run that finds fewer is skipped, and nothing is shared. Don't repeat the posts of the last N roundups leaves out the posts that the last N runs picked. With 0, a post can appear again in the next roundup.

Best-selling products counts the sales that WooCommerce Analytics records. While Analytics is turned off, the step shows a warning and sales aren't counted. Turn it on in WooCommerce > Settings > Advanced > Features.

Writing the roundup post

Each channel's post is written in the composer on the left, with the roundup keywords from the Keywords menu:

• Roundup title: the title you gave the roundup in Summary.
• Roundup posts: the list of the posts the run picked, written with an item template.
• Roundup post count: how many posts the run picked.
• Roundup period start and Roundup period end: the dates the run covered.

A new channel starts with Roundup title followed by Roundup posts. Networks with a title field, such as Pinterest, Medium, Reddit and YouTube Shorts, start their title with Roundup title. Post keywords such as Post title don't go in the post itself. They go in the item template, where they are filled in for every picked post.

Click the gear icon on Roundup posts to set how the list is written:

• Item template: how each post in the list looks. Without a template the list stays empty, so FS Poster won't save a roundup until every channel's Roundup posts has one.
• Between posts: what separates the posts: a blank line, a new line, a space, a comma or a bullet (•).
• Skip the first and Show at most (0 = all): show only part of the list.

With the last two options you can feature your top post. Add Roundup posts twice: once with Show at most set to 1 under a line like "This week's top pick", and once with Skip the first set to 1 under "Also popular".

Item templates

An item template is written once and repeated for every picked post. Create one with New template in the Roundup posts options, or open Manage templates to edit and delete them. Your templates can be used in every roundup and on every channel.

Every post keyword works in a template: Post title, Post URL, Post excerpt, product prices, custom fields and so on. Two keywords exist only here:

• Item number: the post's place in the list: 1, 2, 3.
• Item number emoji: the same number as a keycap emoji, from 1️⃣ to 🔟. From 11 on, it is written as 11., 12. and so on.

For example, {item_emoji} {post_title}, ${product_current_price} on one line and {post_url} on the next gives "1️⃣ Handmade Oak Serving Board, $65.00" followed by the product's link. The Product current price keyword gives the number only, so add your currency sign in the template.

If you delete a template that roundups use, those roundups share no posts until you pick another template. A run leaves out any channel whose template is missing.

Images and links

Images and links are set for each channel in the composer:

• Featured image of the first post shares the featured image of the first post in the list.
• Featured images of all the posts shares the featured images of all the picked posts, in the order of the list. On Instagram, they become a carousel.
• Use AI template and Custom work as in any post.
• Attach link shares the link of the first picked post, unless you enter a custom link. On Telegram, the button that Add button after message adds opens the first picked post.

What happens when a roundup runs

At its time, the roundup picks the posts, writes the final text, images and link into a regular scheduled post for every channel and shares it. You find those posts in the Calendar and in Logs like any other post, and the roundup records the run in its History.

Roundups run on the WordPress cron, like every planner. To make them run on time, set up a cron job on your server.

History

Click the History icon next to a roundup to see its runs, newest first. Each run shows its time and the posts it picked. A run that shared nothing shows the reason:

• N post(s) matched, fewer than the minimum of M. The period had too few posts. Lower the minimum or pick a longer share type.
• None of the planner's channels is available. The planner was paused. None of the roundup's channels could be used, for example because they were deleted. Add a channel and resume the roundup.
• The item template of Roundup posts is missing. The template was deleted. Pick another one for each channel.
• Could not create the roundup post., or a message that starts with The roundup failed: or The roundup post could not be prepared:. Something went wrong while the post was built, for example another plugin's shortcode in one of the posts threw an error. The rest of the message gives the details.
• Roundups are available on the Plus, Developer and Lifetime plans. The license no longer includes roundups. See below.

How each channel shared the post is in Logs.

If your plan changes

If you move to a plan without roundups, your roundups are kept, but they don't share anything. Each run is recorded as skipped with the plan message, and saving a roundup or an item template shows the same message. When you move back to Plus, Developer or Lifetime, the roundups run again on their schedule.