How to Use Motion to Turn a Campaign Brief Into a Schedule

The short answer: for a team of 4 that runs the same kind of launch every month, Motion's Project Workflow Template is the part worth paying for, at 4 x $19 = $76 a month on Pro AI billed annually, per the pricing page, checked on 26 October 2026. Write the brief once, let Motion's AI draft the stages and tasks, correct the draft by hand, then launch every later campaign from the template and let auto-scheduling place each task in the right person's calendar. The steps: set everyone's schedules, generate the template from the brief, review stages, roles, durations and dependencies, save it, launch a project and map the roles to people, then watch the calendar's risk markers.

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A campaign brief usually ends as a list of tasks in someone's notebook and a launch date in everyone else's head. The designer finds out about the banner on the day it is due. Motion's answer is to turn the brief into a project whose tasks book themselves into calendars, ahead of their deadlines and around meetings. What Motion includes and costs is in the Motion entry.

What to settle first:

1. What the trial commits you to. Sign-up asks for billing details and places a $1 card hold, per the account FAQ. For example, a team of 4 that stays on monthly billing pays 4 x $29 = $116 a month, against $76 billed annually.
2. The last campaign you ran. Take its brief and the task list it really needed, with who did what and how long each step took. That is the raw material for the template, and better than a blank page.
3. Last month's slippage. Count the tasks that finished after their deadline in the last campaign. The template has to bring that number down.

Step 1: Give everyone a schedule

Each person goes to Settings, Schedules, clicks + New schedule, names it and drags across the days and hours they work, per the auto-scheduling guide. Motion only places tasks inside these hours and treats busy calendar events as unavailable. A deleted schedule cannot be restored, the guide warns, so edit rather than delete.

Step 2: Generate the template from the brief

Click + New, choose New Project, then New Project Workflow Template, and pick the workspace it belongs to, per the projects guide. Write a short description, for example: "A monthly product launch campaign: landing page, email, paid social and a webinar, with legal review before anything goes live." Attach last month's brief and any checklist as files, then click Generate & Preview. Motion drafts the stages and tasks and lays them out for editing before anything is saved. This is the agent step, and the guide frames the output as a draft for you to review and edit.

Step 3: Review the draft line by line

The human check sits here. Go through every stage and task before saving:

• Stages are the milestones, such as Planning, Production, Review and Launch. Give a stage a deadline where timing matters.
• Durations tell Motion how long each task takes. Rough estimates are fine at first, and the guide says changes flow into future and unvisited stages.
• Dependencies: set Blocked by so the email cannot be scheduled before the copy is approved. Motion will not schedule work out of order.
• Roles: assign tasks to placeholder roles, such as Designer or Copywriter, rather than names, so the template survives a change of staff.

Delete what the AI invented that your team never does, and add the legal step if it was missed. A wrong template repeats its mistake in every campaign that follows.

Step 4: Save it and launch the first campaign

Click Save, then Create project with this template. Motion asks you to map each placeholder role to a real teammate, and assigns every task in the project to them, per the projects guide. Set the project's start date and deadline. Template changes made later reach new projects and the unvisited stages of active ones, which means you can fix the process mid-flight.

Step 5: Let auto-scheduling place the work

Motion now books each task into its owner's calendar, using start date, duration, deadline, priority and any chunking you allowed, per the scheduling parameters article. Tasks without a deadline can be pushed back, so give every task in the template one. Meetings keep precedence; when one lands, the task moves elsewhere instead of the meeting moving.

Step 6: Watch the markers, not the list

Open the calendar weekly. A yellow exclamation flags a stage at risk or an approaching deadline, a red one a missed deadline or overdue blocker, and a blue rocket a stage ahead of schedule, per the indicators article. Mark a task Blocked the moment it waits on someone, so the reason is visible rather than silent. For a quick summary, ask AI Chat which tasks in the launch are at risk this week; it asks before it changes anything.

Step 7: Compare with the last campaign

When the campaign is live, count the tasks that finished after their deadline and set the figure beside your baseline. Then open the template and fix the durations that were wrong. The second campaign is where the template earns its keep.

What Motion's help pages point out

• An ad-hoc stage breaks the link. Adding a stage to a live project disconnects it from its template, and Motion asks you to confirm that, per the projects guide.
• No deadline, no urgency. Flexible tasks without deadlines may be delayed by the scheduler.
• Guests are limited. They cannot create projects or manage calendars, per the workspace limits.
• Workspaces do not merge. Projects in two workspaces stay apart, so decide the workspace before generating the template.

Without paying for anything

The free version of this job is a shared document: the brief, the stages, owners and durations, with dependencies written as "after X". Do that first; it is the input Motion needs anyway, and for a team that runs one launch a quarter it may be enough. What Motion adds is the scheduling and the re-planning. Motion bills every member with full access, owner, admin or member, as a seat, per its billing article, and role mapping makes it natural to invite every contributor, so the freelance designer who owns two banners a month becomes a paid seat; decide who needs full access before the invitations go out.

FAQ

Can I edit the template after launching a campaign?

Yes. New projects use the latest version, and active projects pick up changes in stages that have not started yet, per the projects guide.

Do I have to use the AI draft?

No. A regular project can be built from scratch for a one-off campaign; only workflow templates offer the AI draft, per Motion's project types article.

How does a team plan get cancelled?

Only a team admin can do it, under Settings, Billing, Manage Plan, Cancel Plan, and cancelling does not trigger a refund, per the cancellation article.