The Dashboard is the plugin’s home screen – a quick health check for your automatic news feed, and the fastest way to generate an article right now instead of waiting for the daily schedule.
Overview
Every time you open AI News Publisher → Dashboard, you see a snapshot of your content pipeline: how many topics are waiting, how many articles have been published, whether anything failed, and when the next automatic run will happen. It is designed so you can tell in a few seconds whether everything is working normally.
How It Works
The Dashboard reads live information from your Keyword Queue and Generation Log and displays it as simple counters and cards. The Generate Posts box in the middle of the page is not just a status display – clicking its button actually triggers real-time article generation, using the same process the daily schedule uses, so you can test everything or publish breaking coverage without waiting for the scheduled time.
Step-by-Step Guide
1. Check the top metrics row
Along the top you’ll see six tiles: Auto Publish (on/off), Daily Posts, Pending Keywords, Published, Failed, and Tokens Used. Click any tile to jump straight to the related screen – for example, clicking “Pending Keywords” opens your keyword queue filtered to pending items.
2. Read the Generate Posts panel
This central panel shows a status badge – Ready, Attention, or Blocked – along with quick facts as small chips: your AI model, article length, publish status, writing mode, topic-selection mode, and how many topics are in queue.
3. Review "Up next in queue"
Below the chips, you’ll see the actual keywords that will be used for the very next articles (or, in Smart mode, the pool of topics the AI will choose from). This lets you confirm the right stories are lined up before you generate anything.
4. Use Generate Now for an instant article
Set the number in Posts to generate (limited to how many pending topics you have, up to 10), then click Generate Now. A progress bar appears while the AI writes – this can take anywhere from 30 seconds to a few minutes per post, so stay on the page until it finishes.
5. Check the Schedule card
On the right-hand side, the Schedule card shows your Next run time, your Last run date and how many posts it produced, and your daily Frequency.
6. Check the System card
Just below Schedule, the System card confirms your current AI provider, model, and connection status at a glance – useful for a quick sanity check without opening Settings.
7. Scroll down to Recent Activity
The bottom of the page lists your most recent generation attempts with their keyword, status, tokens used, any error, and a link to the resulting post – a shortcut into the full log covered in Reading the Newsroom Activity Log.
Fields Table
| Field Name | Description | Example |
|---|---|---|
Auto Publish |
Whether the daily automatic schedule is currently switched on. |
On / Off |
Pending Keywords |
How many topics in your queue are still waiting to be written about. |
14 |
Published |
Total number of keywords that have successfully become articles. |
132 |
Failed |
Number of generation attempts that ran into an error. |
2 |
Tokens Used |
Total amount of AI “words” processed so far – related to your provider bill. |
1,204,500 |
Posts to generate |
How many articles the Generate Now button will create in this run. |
3 |
Next run |
The date and time the automatic daily job will next fire. |
Tomorrow, 9:00 AM |
Field Explanations
The Generate Posts button is disabled (greyed out) whenever the plugin cannot currently run – usually because your AI is not configured (see Connecting Your AI News Engine) or there are no pending keywords (see Building Your Story Topic Queue). The status badge and message above the button always explain exactly what’s blocking it.
Tokens Used is a technical measure of how much text has been processed by the AI. It doesn’t need to be managed directly, but a sudden, unexpected jump can be a useful early sign that something (like a runaway retry) is generating more content than intended.
Tips
- Use Generate Now right after setup to confirm everything works before trusting the daily schedule.
- Check the Dashboard every few days at first – after that, the Generation Log takes over as your routine health check.
- If the status badge says Attention instead of Ready, read the message above the button – it names the exact thing to fix.
- Don’t close the browser tab while a manual generation is in progress – let the progress bar finish.
Common Mistakes
- Clicking Generate Now repeatedly because it “seems slow.” AI writing takes real time – clicking multiple times can queue up duplicate work.
- Ignoring a “Blocked” status badge. This means generation cannot run at all until the listed issue (usually AI setup or an empty queue) is resolved.
- Assuming “Published” count means everything is perfect. Always glance at “Failed” too – a growing failed count usually points to an API key or billing issue with your AI provider.