Shortform Planner — Help & SOP

What this app is for. Shortform Planner is the research-to-shoot engine. It is where you find winning content to model, capture and triage ideas, build them into tickets, write and approve scripts, and plan shoot days. When a video is ready to film it flows on to the Ben Heath Social Planner, the separate app that handles captioning and scheduling.

NOTE Every screenshot is marked with numbered callouts that match the numbered steps beside it. The shots swap automatically: read this on a desktop and you get the desktop layout, read it on a phone and the same figure shows the phone layout, with the same numbers on it. A MOBILE note calls out anywhere the phone behaves differently rather than just looking different.

1 Getting around

The app opens on Choose your planner. Shortform (1) is the TikTok & Reels pipeline — the one this guide covers. Longform (2) is the YouTube pipeline: the same sections, but different stages, fields and extra Campaigns and Packaging tabs. Pick one to get in. The choice is remembered on that device, and you can switch at any time from the planner name at the top-left of the header.

The Choose your planner screen, with the Shortform and Longform cards. — The app opens here. Shortform is the pipeline this guide documents.

Inside Shortform the header holds the four sections — Inspiration, Ideas, Planner and Call Sheets — each with an icon, the active one picked out in cyan (violet is reserved for an unread count, like the badge on Ideas). Top-right shows when data last synced, a manual refresh, and a settings gear that holds Refresh, Activity, Sounds, Help & user guide and your Asana account.

The strip along the bottom (Approved Ideas · Scripting · Script Approval · To be filmed) shows live counts for every stage of the pipeline. A stage holding tickets that have sat too long also shows ⚠ N stuck — click the chip to see exactly what has stalled.

The Inspiration board. Numbered areas are explained through Section 2.

Switch sections using the tabs at the top (1).
Switch planners from the planner name at the top-left — open the drop-down and choose Shortform Planner or Longform Planner. Switching resets you to Inspiration and reloads everything for that planner.
Watch the pipeline bar at the very bottom (6) for a live count of everything in production, and for the stuck warning.

MOBILE The four sections move to a bottom tab bar (1), and the whole filter row collapses behind a single Filters & options button (2) that opens as a bottom sheet. The pipeline counts still show; only the ⚠ stuck chip is desktop-only. Everything else works the same.

2 Inspiration board — find winning content

The board pulls recent videos from the creators you monitor so you can spot outliers worth modelling. Each card shows the platform, handle and date; views, likes, comments and engagement rate; and two multiples — × avg (versus that creator’s own average) and × global. A ✓ Analyzed badge means the AI breakdown has already been run.

Filter, sort & save views

Filter by platform, creator and sort order (e.g. “Outliers × creator”), plus min/max views and ER, posted-in-last, Analyzed / Unanalyzed, and Outliers only (2).
Search captions or handles with the search box.
Bulk analyze, Export CSV and Refresh feeds sit at the right end of the sort-controls row. Manage channels and Hooks (3) get their own row directly underneath.
Category chips (All categories, Meta Ads, Content Strategy, AI, Brand building) filter by niche (4). Underneath them is the SAVED row — set up any combination of filters and click + Save current to keep it there for one-click recall.

Manage the channels you monitor

Click Manage channels.
Review the monitored channels list — each row shows platform, category, video count and average views (1).
Add one under Add a channel: paste a @handle or profile URL, pick the platform and category, then Add channel (2).
Or use Discover channels (3) — Search, Describe, Suggested or Add URL. (Keyword and suggested searches are paid.)
Use Export CSV (4) to pull this channel list to a file — a separate button from the board's own Export CSV below.

Manage channels — monitored list, add-a-channel form, and AI discovery.

TIP Back on the board, Refresh feeds pulls the latest videos, Bulk analyze runs the AI breakdown on many videos at once, and Export CSV exports the current view.

Analyse a video (the workspace)

Opening a card gives you a full workspace: the video on the left, and on the right an AI summary plus five lenses you can study.

On a card click Why viral? (or open the card) to launch the workspace, then Analyse this video.
Read the AI summary (1), then switch between the five lenses (2): Transcript, Idea Analysis, Hook, Storytelling Format and Visual Layout.
Use Copy caption to grab the original caption.
Act on it (3) with the shortcut buttons: Create script, Shortlist idea, Save hook format, Export for LLM, Open in new tab or Remove.

The video workspace with the AI breakdown run — summary, five analysis lenses, and the action shortcuts. (The embedded player is blank in these captures because third-party embeds were blocked while shooting; it plays normally in the app.)

The Transcript lens is fetched on demand — open it and click Get transcript. Once pulled it is stored on the video (1) and stays there, so the button does not come back. The lens tabs (2) keep working while it loads.

The Transcript lens showing a transcript already pulled and stored on the video. — A transcript that has already been pulled — it is stored on the video from then on.

Hooks you save with Save hook format collect in the Hooks library (next to Manage channels) so you can reuse proven opening lines. Save hook format is greyed out until a video has been analysed — the hook comes from the breakdown.

The Hooks library, empty — saved hook formats land here. — The Hooks library — saved hook formats land here. It opens as a side panel on desktop and a bottom sheet on a phone.

3 Ideas — capture & triage

The Ideas inbox is where raw ideas gather before they enter production. It pulls automatically from Slack, Asana, X, Instagram and Threads, and offers AI Suggestions you can Accept or Dismiss.

Add one yourself with + New idea (1). It uses the same form as a new ticket: a working title, Content and Vertical pills, a Priority, which platforms it is to be posted on, and optionally an Inspo link or an attachment.
Each card shows where it came from (2) with a link back to the source (Open in Slack / Open in Asana).
When an idea is worth making, click Approve → Planner (3) to promote it into the Approved Ideas stage. Dismiss anything you don’t want with the ×.

The Ideas inbox — AI suggestions on top, then cards auto-collected from Slack, Asana, X, Instagram and Threads. — The Ideas inbox — auto-collected from Slack, Asana, X, Instagram and Threads, with AI suggestions across the top.

MOBILE Ideas keeps the AI Suggestions panel at the top (Accept / Dismiss) and stacks the cards in one column, with the same Approve → Planner action on each.

4 Planner — the production pipeline

The Planner is a tracker of every video in production, grouped into four stages: Approved Ideas → Scripting → Script Approval → To be filmed. (The old Up Next stage has been retired — it duplicated Approved Ideas and always sat empty.)

Anatomy of a ticket

Each row is a ticket. Left to right the columns are: the progress tracker dots (how far it has moved), priority, ticket name, assignee, content type, vertical, posted on (which platforms it is destined for), script (document icon), inspo link and shoot date. On a narrow window the table scrolls sideways to reach the last columns.

The pipeline board — stages down the page, ticket fields across the columns.

Create a ticket

In the stage you want (usually Approved Ideas or Scripting) click + Add (2 above).
Fill the New ticket form: a working title (1), then Content and Vertical (2) — both are one-tap pill rows, not drop-downs — plus a Priority (H / M / L) and the platforms it is to be posted on.
Optionally paste an Inspo link or add an attachment (3).
Click Create ticket (4).

The New ticket form — working title, content and vertical pills, priority, platforms, inspo and attachment. — The New ticket form. + New idea on the Ideas tab uses the identical fields.

Open & manage a ticket

Click a ticket name to open its detail panel: stage and assignee, Attributes (content, vertical, priority), Shoot date, Script, Inspo with a live preview, Attachments, Comments, an Asana link, and Complete to move the ticket forward.

Script a video

Click the script (document) icon on a ticket to open the writing workspace — the editor on the left, the ticket detail on the right.

Write in the editor using the formatting toolbar (1) — bold/italic/underline/strikethrough, H1/H2, lists, links, Clear, undo/redo, and History. A live word count, character count and read-time sit at the bottom and the script auto-saves.
Use the AI tools (2): Check writing, Ask BenHeath.AI (an ad-strategy chat) and ✨ Studio.
Review the ticket details (3) and use Complete (4) to advance the ticket when the script is done.

The script editor with the ticket detail alongside.

Open ✨ Studio to draft with AI: it shows Your draft (1), a Generated script written in Ben Heath’s voice from the ticket + inspo (2), and the Original transcript (3).

Script Studio — your draft, the generated script and the source transcript, side by side. — Script Studio — generate a script in Ben’s voice from the ticket and its inspiration. The three columns stack on a phone.

MOBILE The board becomes a stack of ticket cards, one per ticket, with every field shown — no column headers and nothing to scroll sideways for. Tap the script icon to write — the ticket details sit underneath the editor rather than beside it.

5 Call Sheets — plan the shoot day

A call sheet gathers everything to be filmed on a date. Each card shows the date, label, location, video count and a % of day capacity bar.

Create a call sheet

Click + New call sheet.
Set Shoot date, Label, Location and Start time (1), then Create (2).

Creating a call sheet — date, label, location and start time. — Creating a call sheet.

Build it out

Session details (1) — label, location, date and start time.
Crew / Talent (2) — use + Add person to set name, call time, email and meet location.
Schedule (3) — auto-built from the videos; Regenerate to rebuild, add + Break, + Lunch or + Custom blocks, reorder them, and set per-video timing. The heading and these actions are shown; the timed rows themselves run on below this crop.
Share (4) — Print, generate a View-only link, or Sync to a connected calendar.

Inside a call sheet — session details, crew and call times, and the auto-built shoot schedule. — Inside a call sheet — session details, crew, and the auto-built shoot schedule. A call sheet is several screens long; on a phone the crew table and the schedule sit below the fold.

MOBILE Call Sheets shows the same day cards in a single column; open one to edit the details, crew and schedule. The crew and schedule tables scroll sideways.

6 Shortcuts & everyday flow

Video workspace shortcuts

Key	Action
C	Create script from this video
S	Shortlist idea
H	Save hook format (to the Hooks library)
E	Export for LLM
O	Open in new tab
R	Remove from library

The everyday flow

Inspiration (find & analyse a winner) → Create script / Shortlist or capture in Ideas → Approve → Planner → write in Scripting → Script Approval → To be filmed → add to a Call Sheet. Filmed videos then move into the Ben Heath Social Planner for captioning and scheduling.

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