Explanation
Is anything shared without me knowing?
What keeps automation in your hands, from approval and test mode to the checks before posting and an emergency stop.
Automation rules prepare posts every day, without anyone pressing a button. That's the point of them, and also the risk: a mistake in a rule would repeat itself every day too. SemPost leaves the decisions to you at several points, and some safeguards hold a post back even when nobody is looking.
The short answer
Not with the settings a workspace starts with.
- Approval. Under the recommended approval rule, Only what the AI and automation write (recommended), every automation post waits in the Approval queue until an admin or the owner approves it.
- Test mode. A new workspace starts in test mode: when a post's time comes, SemPost only checks it against the network's rules. Nothing reaches your accounts until live publishing is switched on.
- Before a rule starts. A rule's preview is free and shows its next posts. The window that switches a rule on says when it first prepares posts, where they go and which mode you're in.
If you choose None as the approval rule, automation posts are planned and shared by themselves. The top of the Automation page then says, in red, Approval is off: automation posts are planned without approval and shared by themselves.
The safeguards
Most of them work whatever the approval rule says, None included:
- Networks that always need a person: Pinterest and LinkedIn posts always wait for approval, TikTok posts arrive in the TikTok app as drafts, and YouTube and Google Business Profile need your consent in each rule.
- No misleading prices: automation writes only today's price. A text that claims a discount percentage, a former price or stock running out stays a draft.
- Checked again just before posting: the product is read again right before its post goes out. A post still waiting for approval two hours after its time is never published late, and an account that keeps failing is stopped.
- Original posts, not copies: accounts on the same network get different texts, and a near copy stays a draft.
- Pause everything, and days without automation: stop every rule at once, or keep chosen days free of automation posts.
- Fix a post a safeguard held: what each reason means and how to send the post on.
A post held back waits in the Drafts tab of the Approval queue, and its card says why. In a rule's Content step, the box Automation's safeguards sums these up.