For marketing content, the small details make a huge difference. Everything from the exact publication date to the specifics of the content can determine the difference between success and failure. That’s why real-time collaboration around content and precise scheduling are essential components of the marketing process. This causes teams to look for enterprise marketing software with real-time collaboration and content scheduling features.
Opal is built to help marketing teams drive greater impact by giving them advanced functionality around both real-time collaboration on content and content scheduling. In particular, marketing teams see the feature differences when comparing purpose-built enterprise marketing software like Opal against generic project management tools. That’s why Opal is trusted by enterprise brands like Starbucks, Target, UHG, SAP and many more.
Here, we’re highlighting the specific Opal features and differentiators for both real-time collaboration and content scheduling.
Real-Time Collaboration on Content
Every word and every pixel counts. Enterprise marketing software can give teams and reviewers the ability to look closely at the details with their team. Collaboration on content is one area where Opal excels.
Collaboration on Real Content
Rather than having to upload static screenshots or links to other software, in Opal you work on a true-to-life mockup of your content. The mockup looks just like how your audience will experience your content. This makes collaboration much more specific and more beneficial. Teams can do real collaboration on content that looks just like it will to their audience.
- Feature: True-to-life mockups of every asset.
- Benefit: Collaboration is grounded in the actual audience experience, reducing wasted revisions and unclear feedback.
Collaboration Across Channels
Content collaboration in Opal is incredible because marketing team members can compare and contrast how a message appears across different channels. That means collaboration in Opal isn’t just limited to a single piece of content but extends to all of the different ways that a message will be going to market.
- Feature: Side-by-side comparisons across multiple channels.
- Benefit: Ensures campaign messaging is consistent and aligned everywhere your brand shows up.
Notifications on Content
Real-time collaboration is great, but if a team member isn’t available, they don’t have to be out of the loop. When collaborating on any piece of content on any channel in Opal, if you mention a team member or group, they will be notified.
- Feature: @mentions trigger contextual notifications.
- Benefit: Teammates stay connected to the work, even if they’re not in the platform at the same time.
In-Line Text Commenting & Version Control
For long-form text content, Opal has Opal Docs – which has all of the features you know from Google Docs. That means you can have multi-person writing and editing for great real-time collaboration. You can also leverage version control to see different takes on the same document. Finally, you can lock editing and only allow users to view the content.
- Feature: Real-time text collaboration with version history and permissions.
- Benefit: Enables fast iteration without losing past work or compromising document integrity.
PDF Collaboration
PDF content is still one of the most common forms for many types of marketing deliverables. That’s why any enterprise marketing software needs to give users a way to collaborate on PDFs. In Opal, users have the ability to mark up PDFs, leave annotations, and drop comments. Once again, these comments open up comment threads for back-and-forth collaboration. This review method is a serious cut above the experience of async writing down notes on a PDF and trying to explain where the edits belong.
- Feature: Built-in PDF markup with annotations and threaded comments.
- Benefit: Creates a seamless feedback process for one of marketing’s most-used content formats.
Content Scheduling
Having a source of truth for how your brand is going to market requires content scheduling. That way everyone can understand exactly what messages are going to market (and across what channels) on what dates and at what times. As an enterprise marketing software, Opal equips teams with powerful content scheduling features.
Easy for Scheduling Each Piece of Content
In Opal, you can schedule each piece of content while looking at the exact preview of how it will go to market. By combining true-to-life content previews with scheduling, teams know exactly how the content looks and exactly when it will go live. In Opal, you can schedule content on the exact date and time you want it to be published.
- Feature: Scheduling integrated with real content previews.
- Benefit: Builds accuracy and confidence by showing what’s going live and when.
Flighting Controls
Knowing when a piece of content is going live is of course the most critical part of scheduling. However, understanding how long it will run and how that will interact with other initiatives is equally essential. Opal offers the ability to see the flighting of a piece of content and view it alongside other pieces of content in-market at the same time.
- Feature: Campaign flighting visibility across all scheduled content.
- Benefit: Prevents campaign collisions and provides clarity into overlaps and durations.
Visual Calendar
The central visual calendar of Opal is the hub to see what content is going live and when. As soon as content is scheduled from anywhere, it appears here. Of course, you can also create and schedule content directly from the calendar. However, the calendar view is also extremely beneficial for rescheduling content. For example, if you are looking at the calendar and notice a content gap or collision, rescheduling is easy. Simply drag and drop the content to a better space and the change will be reflected everywhere.
- Feature: Drag-and-drop visual calendar.
- Benefit: Makes scheduling and rescheduling fast, intuitive, and aligned across teams.
Scheduling to Publish Social Content
Since you’re building and scheduling real content in Opal, publishing it from the platform is easily accomplished via integrations. Opal connects to all of the leading social content publishers like Khoros, Sprout, Sprinklr, DashSocial, and Hootsuite. This is beneficial as when you schedule your final content in Opal, it doesn’t need to be copied and pasted somewhere else – it can be sent directly for publication.
- Feature: Direct publishing integrations with social tools.
- Benefit: Eliminates manual handoffs and reduces risk of publishing errors.
Opal vs. Generic Project Management Tools for Collaboration & Scheduling
When marketing teams evaluate software options, they often consider generic project management tools such as Asana, ClickUp, or Monday. These platforms are strong at managing tasks and workflows, but they lack the depth required for enterprise marketing collaboration and scheduling. The difference becomes clear when looking at how Opal compares feature by feature.
Collaboration on Real Content
Opal allows teams to collaborate directly on true-to-life previews of content — whether that’s a social post, email, or PDF — so feedback is grounded in exactly what the audience will see. Project management tools, by contrast, only provide task-level collaboration, forcing teams to jump between external tools to review content.
- Opal: True-to-life previews with direct annotations.
- Generic Tools: Links, screenshots, and external docs.
Cross-Channel Visibility
Enterprise marketing isn’t about one message in isolation — it’s about how a campaign plays out across multiple platforms. Opal enables teams to see that big picture. Project management tools can only show task lists, boards, or timelines, but they don’t simulate cross-channel messaging.
- Opal: Compare content across multiple channels in one view.
- Generic Tools: Track tasks only; no cross-channel visualization.
Contextual Notifications & Comments
Feedback in Opal is tied to the actual content, making it clear and actionable. In project tools, notifications are tied to tasks, which fragments feedback across tasks, chats, and email.
- Opal: @mentions linked directly to content review threads.
- Generic Tools: Comments attached to tasks, not the content itself.
Content Scheduling & Publishing
Scheduling in Opal is designed for marketing teams — complete with flighting controls, a visual calendar, and integrations to send final assets directly to publishing platforms. Project tools stop at due dates, leaving teams to manage scheduling and publishing elsewhere.
- Opal: Exact go-live dates/times, flighting visibility, drag-and-drop calendar, and direct publishing integrations.
- Generic Tools: Task due dates only; no publishing capabilities.
Strategic Alignment
Opal acts as a single source of truth for what content is going live across markets and channels. Leaders get clarity into overlaps, gaps, and opportunities. Project management tools provide project-level oversight but lack marketing-specific visibility.
- Opal: Unified marketing calendar with strategic campaign oversight.
- Generic Tools: Task and project tracking without marketing context.
The Bottom Line: Generic project management tools are great for assigning and tracking tasks, but they weren’t designed for enterprise marketing. Opal was built specifically to help marketing teams collaborate on real content, align across channels, and schedule campaigns with precision.
Discover Opal
For enterprise marketing teams, the difference between success and missed opportunity often comes down to the details — how content is created, how teams collaborate, and how campaigns are scheduled. While generic project management tools are useful for tracking tasks, they were never built for the realities of enterprise marketing.
Opal brings everything together in one purpose-built platform: real-time collaboration on content that looks exactly as it will in-market, scheduling with precise flighting controls, and a central visual calendar that keeps everyone aligned.
By combining collaboration and scheduling in one unified workspace, Opal ensures marketing teams can plan, create, and publish with clarity and confidence — driving greater impact with every campaign.Want to see Opal in action? View our click-through demo or request to talk to a product expert.