Case Study: AAP News and Resource Planning System

Short form

A planning system for a national newswire that shows the whole team what is coming and who is covering it, on the desk and on their phones.

The challenge

AAP sets the schedule of news coverage in Australia — every court case, every company AGM. Customers like News Ltd and Fairfax base their own resourcing on AAP's agenda. And for years that agenda was one text document, compiled by hand, reviewed by key staff who had to be on deck at 5am, then delivered once a day — by FTP over a modem, or by fax. Planning visibility was a day, maybe two. Everything after the morning cut-off travelled by phone.

What we built

We designed and built a solution that lets all staff see upcoming newsworthy events and incidents. Planners decide which events to cover and assign an appropriate team, journalists, video and camera, to each one. The whole team can see their upcoming schedules, and on their phones they receive updates and schedule changes as they happen.

The outcome

The daily text file became a live activity feed — every upcoming event with its description, planning and AAP resourcing, updating in real time for internal staff and external customers alike. Nobody needs to be on deck at 5am; changes reach the people who need them the moment they happen; and forward visibility stretched from a day or two to a fortnight, whenever anyone needs it. Coordination that once leaned on manual effort now runs off a shared, live picture — the newsroom spends less time chasing the plan and more time covering the news.

Related

Suggested image

A national newsroom mid-morning: a planner reading a wall of the day's events while a camera crew checks their phones on the way out the door. Warm natural light, real people, Melbourne. No stock clichés.