8 January 2026 · Owen Mallory
Preparing files before a quarterly pack
What to export, what to leave out, and why a named editorial contact saves a week of polite chasing.
A clean extract is dull and invaluable. For most CMS exports we need a row per URL or per newsletter send, with published time, section, author if you want it, page views, and whatever completion or scroll fields you already store. We do not need every marketing UTM variant split into thirty columns.
Date stamps should share a timezone. Mixed BST and UTC across two exports is the most common reason a “quiet Sunday” appears twice. Write the timezone in the filename.
If you use a paywall, mark articles as open, metered, or subscriber-only in a single column with values you can explain in one sentence. Partial tags such as “reg wall?” with a question mark will be treated as unknown, not as registered.
Photographs of whiteboards are not a data file. If the only record of a special’s running order is a photographed marker board, type it into a sheet before you send it. We will not transcribe from glare.
Name one person who can answer a fact query within two working days. Packs stall when the editor is on a foreign assignment and the deputy has not been told we exist. Put that name in the commissioning email.