🌐 Distribution module

Every version.
Every deadline.

One film becomes dozens of deliveries: a dub here, subtitles there, an accessibility pack, each with its own vendor and deadline — and every territory with an opinion about what it can show. Routine gives your distribution team one pipeline for every version, one spec for what each licensee is owed, and one register for every clearance and classification across the slate.

1
Record per title — versions, specs, materials and dates
6
Version types out of the box — add your own
4
Manifest formats ingested — DCP, IMF, CSV/JSON, shasum
4
Identifier standards — EIDR, ISAN, IMDb, licensee ref
What's inside

Everything your distribution team needs.

Every version type. Every delivery stage. Every stakeholder — all connected in one pipeline.

🗂

Version management

Track every DUB, SUB, OV, HOH+AD, Dual Sub, and KDM version across your slate. Each version has its own pipeline, schedule, and task list.

🔄

Delivery pipelines

From Script Delivery to DCP Delivery — configure the exact stages your team uses, apply templates in one click, and track every stage to completion.

⚠️

Delay alerting

Delayed versions surface automatically at the top of your pipeline view. Know exactly what needs attention before it becomes a problem.

🏢

Vendor integration

Assign dubbing studios, subtitling houses, and delivery partners directly to each stage. Vendors see their work in their own jobs view — no manual updates needed.

📅

Schedule & resources

Book recording studios, screening rooms, and equipment against your pipeline stages. Spot conflicts before they happen with the resource timeline.

📋

Reusable templates

Build version bundles and pipeline templates once, apply them to any production instantly. Fully customisable to match exactly how your team delivers.

📐

Delivery specifications

Hold a licensee's delivery document once and reuse it across every title. Per-item compliance shows what has been received, what is in flight and what is still awaited.

🔐

Package integrity

Checksums, package IDs and manifest ingest. Read a DCP ASSETMAP or PKL, an IMF PKL or CPL, a vendor CSV or a pasted shasum sidecar and reconcile it against what the version holds.

🆔

Content identifiers

EIDR, ISAN, IMDb and each licensee's own asset reference — recorded per edit, where they belong, rather than as one field on the title.

🛡

Clearances

A register of every rights and sensitivity concern — timecode, category, status — captured from a tablet in the screening room or ordered from a vendor on a no-account link, then circulated to the territories with a respond-by date.

🏷

Classification

Every territory, every ratings body, every version: what was submitted, what it was rated, and what is still waiting on cuts — with each required cut linked back to its issue in the register.

🎞

Screenings and the calendar

Festival submissions, premieres and trade or press screenings on the Distribution schedule and Gantt, with a guest list that signs an NDA before the details are released — and the release calendar per territory alongside.

Version types: DUB SUB DUAL SUB OV HOH+AD KDM
Version detail

Every stage of every version, fully managed.

Click into any version to see its complete pipeline — each delivery stage, its current status, the vendor assigned, and the schedule attached. Everything in one place, nothing in your inbox.

Track stage by stage. From script delivery through adaptation, cast approval, recording, mix, printmaster and QC to DCP delivery — each stage with its own status, dates and vendor, and a completion percentage measured against the pipeline it declared.

Delivery held until the master passes QC. A version linked to its Post master cannot be mastered or delivered until that master's QC has passed — the handover from Post is enforced, not assumed.

Formats and territories in one view. 2D, 2D Atmos, 3D, 3D Atmos format flags and all territory release dates sit alongside the pipeline — no cross-referencing needed.

Distribution · The Lighthouse Keeper · French Theatrical Dub
Routine distribution version page for a French theatrical dub showing the pipeline stage by stage with vendor, planned dates and status, the delivery and deadline dates, formats, studio and territory releases
Distribution · French Theatrical Dub · Stage · Recording
Routine distribution stage drawer open over the version page showing vendor and contact, assigned-to, planned and actual timeline, deliverables and cost entries with a save button
Stage drawer

Everything about a stage, in one drawer.

Click a stage and the drawer holds the rest: the vendor and their contact, who it is assigned to internally, planned and actual dates, the deliverables it produces, the cost entries against it and the approvals it is waiting on. Nothing lives in an email thread.

Vendor and contact. The studio or house doing the work, their booking address and the person to chase — or a display name override when the licensee should see a different one.

Planned against actual. A planned window per stage and the actual start and end when it happens, so a slip is a number rather than a feeling.

Deliverables and costs on the stage. What the stage produces and what it costs are recorded where the work happens, and roll up to the version and the title.

Distribution · The Lighthouse Keeper · All versions
Routine distribution version grid for a title showing dubbed and subtitle versions grouped by type, with a status dot per pipeline stage, formats and delivery dates
Version matrix

Every stage. Every version. One grid.

The version matrix gives you a complete picture of your entire localisation operation — every version across every delivery stage, visible in a single scrollable grid.

Click any cell to update status. Cycle through Not Started, In Progress, Done, Delayed, and Blocked without opening a detail view — perfect for rapid end-of-day updates.

Filter by version type, territory or language. Isolate the dubs, the subtitles, the OV or the HOH+AD packs, or one territory's versions, and hide what is already complete.

Delivery dates at a glance. Each version shows its delivery deadline alongside its completion percentage — making priorities obvious at a glance.

Dashboard

What's due next, across every title.

The dashboard counts every version by status — not started, in progress, completed, delayed, blocked — and lines up the next deliveries across all your titles, with each production's versions-complete figure beside it.

Distribution · Dashboard
Routine distribution dashboard with version counts by status, a list of upcoming deliveries by date with version type, and productions with their versions-complete figure
⚡

Delays surface automatically

Delayed and blocked versions are counted on the dashboard and sorted to the top of the pipeline view the moment they are overdue — no manual triage required.

🔎

Search across everything

Search by version name, language, or production. Filter to Active, In Progress, Completed, or Blocked at any time.

📊

Progress at a glance

Upcoming deliveries are listed by date with the days remaining, and each production shows how many of its versions are complete — without opening a single detail view.

Schedule

Every stage on one schedule.

The schedule draws every phase from every version's pipeline onto one Gantt — hour, day, week or month — with festival and trade screenings marked alongside, so a slip shows before it costs a date. Collapse a title, expand a version, jump to now.

Distribution · Schedule · Gantt · Week
Routine distribution Gantt showing pipeline phases for several versions of one title as bars across weeks, with a festival screening marked and a today line
Resource scheduling

Book the right resources at the right time.

Assign people, rooms, and equipment directly to your pipeline stages. The resource timeline keeps everything visible so clashes are caught before they cause problems.

Schedule · Resources · Day view
Routine resource scheduling timeline showing persons, rooms, and equipment bookings
👤

Persons, rooms & equipment

Separate swimlanes for every resource type — see who's booked where and what equipment is tied up across your productions.

⚠️

Conflict detection built in

Toggle "Conflicts only" to instantly surface any double-bookings across people, studios, and facilities.

📅

Hour, day, week, or month

Switch between granular and high-level views. Jump to today instantly or zoom out to plan across months.

Templates

Your workflow. Not ours.

No two distribution operations work the same way. That's why every pipeline stage, every version type, and every template in Routine is fully customisable to match exactly how your team delivers.

Version bundle templates. Create reusable version sets — like a "Scandinavia Pack" with Norwegian, Swedish, Danish, and Finnish — and apply them to any new production in one click.

Customise every pipeline stage. Add, rename, reorder, or remove stages for each version type. Dubbed features need different stages to subtitle files — set each up exactly as you need.

Default tasks per stage. Attach standard tasks to any pipeline stage so the right checklist is automatically created every time a template is applied.

Per-organisation configuration. Every setting lives at the organisation level — different companies using Routine keep completely separate templates and workflows.

Distribution · Settings · Templates
Routine distribution settings showing a timeline template with phases and durations, a Scandinavia version bundle that creates five language versions in one click, and the pipeline configuration of version types and stages
Distribution · Assets
Routine distribution asset management showing DCP, subtitle, audio mix, and poster assets across productions with QC and delivery status
Asset management

DCPs, subtitles, audio mixes. All accounted for.

Distribution means managing a constant flow of deliverables — DCPs, IMF packages, subtitle files, audio mixes, trailers, key art — moving between labs, localisation houses, broadcasters, and territory offices. The Distribution module gives you a single place to track every asset, in both directions, across every production on your slate.

Track every deliverable across your slate. All distribution assets across all productions in one table. Filter by production, direction, delivery method, approval status, or tag — find anything in seconds.

Incoming and outgoing, both covered. Log assets arriving from post houses and those being sent to broadcasters or territory offices. Direction, source or destination, delivery method, and date are all captured per record.

QC tracking with a complete log. Record QC pass or fail against any asset with notes and a timestamp. Every QC event is logged automatically — a full audit trail without the spreadsheet.

Approval pipeline built in. Move assets from internal review through to client approval without leaving the platform. No separate email thread. No chasing.

Export the full list. One click exports your current filtered asset view to CSV — ready for a QC handoff, territory report, or client delivery summary.

Asset detail

The complete record. Attachments, approvals, and history.

Every asset opens into a full detail drawer. Attach delivery receipts, QC reports, and compliance documents directly to the asset. See the full approval workflow and a timestamped activity log of every change — so when a territory office asks what happened with a file, you have the answer immediately.

📎

Attached documents

QC reports, delivery receipts, cue sheets, agreements — attach any file directly to the asset record and access it instantly from anywhere.

🔗

Secure share links

Generate a secure public link for any asset — send it to a territory office or broadcaster for review without requiring a Routine account.

🏷

Tags & search

Tag assets by territory, language, format, or anything relevant. Filter your entire distribution slate by tag in one click.

Distribution · Asset detail
Routine asset detail drawer showing delivery method, approval status, QC log, file attachments, tags, and activity history
Multi-module studios

Distribution asset ready for the marketing team?
Share it across — without duplicating the record.

Studios running both Distribution and Marketing on Routine can share any asset directly from the distribution asset drawer into the Marketing team's view. A completed DCP or approved trailer appears in both modules instantly — same record, same status, no duplication. Single-module studios won't see this option at all.

Push to Marketing instantly

Toggle a module share in the asset drawer. The marketing team sees it in their assets page straight away — no export, no re-upload.

One record, always in sync

Approval status, QC notes, and attachments are the same in both modules. There's nothing to keep in sync — it's one record, two views.

Revoke access any time

Untoggle the share at any time and the asset disappears from the other module immediately. You control what each team sees.

Only for multi-module orgs

The sharing UI only appears if your organisation has multiple modules licensed. No clutter for distribution-only studios.

Delivery specifications

A finished pipeline is not a finished delivery.

A pipeline measures the work your team does. A delivery specification measures the artefacts that have to exist at the end. They are different questions, which is exactly why a pipeline can read 100% while the delivery is short two stems and a CCSL. Routine asks them separately.

📄

Held once, reused everywhere

A licensee's own document — their feature delivery specification, at the version they issued — is stored once for your organisation and applied to any title. Update it in one place when they revise it.

📊

Compliance counted, not claimed

Every required item shows as received, in flight, awaited or verified against the quantity the specification asks for. The counting happens in the database, not in someone's head.

➕

Outstanding items raised for you

Assigning a specification raises an expected deliverable for everything still outstanding. It is safe to run twice — it counts what already exists rather than duplicating it.

Distribution · Settings · Delivery Specs
Routine delivery specs settings listing a licensee's feature delivery specification with required video, audio and timed-text items, and a second licensee's spec

The licensee's spec, held once. Every master, stem and subtitle file it requires — ProRes master, 5.1 M&E stems, HoH subtitles, Atmos ADM — at the version they issued, reused across titles.

Distribution · French Theatrical Dub · Delivery specs
Routine version page panel showing an assigned delivery specification with each required item counted received against required and marked awaited, complete or verified, beside content identifiers and a delivery manifest ingest

What they are still owed. Assign the spec to a version and Routine raises what is outstanding — one of one awaited, two of two complete, one verified — counted against the spec, not the pipeline.

Several specifications per version. One version can deliver against more than one licensee's requirements at the same time, each tracked separately.

Specifications don't quietly rewrite your pipeline. Assigning one adds pipeline stages only when you explicitly ask it to — your delivery workflow stays yours.

Material types come from a controlled list. The vocabulary is shared with the transfer log, so a deliverable created by a specification and one logged by hand are the same thing rather than two spellings of it.

Package integrity

Reconcile the package. Don't retype it.

Every material can carry a checksum, file size, package identifier and package type. Point Routine at the manifest your lab or localisation house already produced, and it will tell you whether what arrived is what the version says it holds.

📥

Reads the manifest you already have

A DCP ASSETMAP or packing list, an IMF PKL or CPL, a vendor CSV or JSON, or a shasum sidecar pasted straight in. No re-keying, no bespoke export from your vendor.

🎯

Matches only when it is certain

Checksum first, filename second, and only where exactly one candidate matches. Two candidates is reported as ambiguous and named — it is never guessed.

🛡

A mismatch is the finding

A disagreement is never silently overwritten. The material keeps its value and the mismatch is surfaced for a human — which is the whole reason you ran the check.

Distribution · French Theatrical Dub · Materials & Transfers
Routine materials and transfers log for a version listing pending transfers with the expected file name, the SHA-256 checksum, the transfer method, the licensee and the expected date

Every file, checked. Each transfer records the file name it should arrive with, its SHA-256 checksum, the method and the expected date — so everyone knows exactly which file is coming, and a mismatch is a finding rather than a surprise.

Reading changes nothing. Ingest shows you the reconciliation. A second, separate action writes it — so you always see the result before it lands.

One canonical form. Checksums are stored one way and length-checked per algorithm, with base64 converted on the way in — because three encodings of the same twenty bytes compare unequal, and the comparison is the point.

"Verified" means verified. It means two independently supplied checksums were compared and agreed — not that a hash was copied off a manifest, and not that the same manifest was read twice.

Identifiers & reporting

The record a licensee actually asks you for.

Identifiers, a licensee-facing spec sheet and a delivery calendar — the three things that get asked for by email and answered by hand.

Identifiers per edit, not per title

EIDR, ISAN, IMDb and each licensee's own reference. An EIDR is issued per edit — the theatrical cut and the airline cut have different ones — so identifiers sit on the version where that matters and on the title where it doesn't.

Validated, never blocked

Format is enforced. A failing check character raises a warning rather than refusing the entry, because a validator bug must never make a real identifier unstoreable.

Version Spec Sheet

One landscape row per version — name, type, language, formats, per-territory release dates, delivery date, current stage, vendor and progress. The same columns on screen, in print, in CSV and by email.

Written to be sent

The spec sheet is licensee-facing by design. Internal data-quality warnings stay on your screen and never appear in the exported copy — an instruction to your team is not an instruction to your licensee.

Delivery schedule by month

Every version's delivery and release dates grouped by month across the slate, filterable to deliveries, releases or both, with overdue and today marked.

Territories that mean one thing

Territory names resolve through a controlled vocabulary covering ISO codes, punctuation variants and planning groupings such as EMEA, LATAM, Benelux and DACH — so a territory counts once, not three times.

One derivation behind every percentage

A version's progress is measured against the pipeline it declared, not against the stage rows that happen to exist. A version two stages into a seven-stage pipeline reads 29% and in progress — it does not read complete because the only two rows present are both finished. There is exactly one calculation behind every status and percentage in the module, and the build fails if a screen tries to do its own.

🛡 Clearances & classification · part of Distribution

Every territory has an opinion about your film.

A logo in shot, a song nobody cleared, a map with a disputed border, a cigarette in close-up: every rights and sensitivity concern lives in one register — where it is in the film to the frame, what kind of issue it is, and what every territory said about it. Clearances replaces the Smartsheet, and imports it.

Distribution · Clearances · The Lighthouse Keeper
Routine clearances register listing issues by timecode with category, status and which territories have answered, above the reviews ordered from a vendor
⏱

Logged against the clock

Timecode, reel, scene, category, rights holder, status — and the review it came from, whether a screening-room pass or a vendor's order.

🌍

Answered per territory

Each issue shows which offices have answered — no issue, keep, replace or cut required — and which are overdue.

📥

Smartsheet in, CSV out

Export your Smartsheet as CSV and import it as it is; columns are matched by heading and rows with a reference update on re-import. Export the register the same way.

Capture

From the screening room, or from your vendor.

In the screening room, issues are logged from a tablet against the running clock — tap a category at the moment it is on screen, hold to add your own buttons. Or order the review from your vendor: you see when they opened it, when they received it, every issue they log, and when they pressed Complete.

Clearances · Capture · Tablet
The tablet capture screen with a running clock, a grid of category buttons such as music, logo, artwork, real person and location, and the issues logged so far

Tap a category at the moment it's on screen. The clock runs from the first frame of picture; each tap logs the timecode and the category, and the note can be filled in afterwards.

Clearances · Review · Vendor order
Routine clearance review page showing the vendor order with ordered, opened, received and complete timestamps, the due date, chase and withdraw controls and the issues the vendor logged

Ordered, opened, received, complete. Every step on the vendor's order is timestamped. They work from one no-account link, log each issue straight into your register, and are chased to the due date.

Circulate

Offices answer in their own language.

Pick the offices and the issues, set a respond-by date, and reminders go out on their own — two days before and after the date, up to three times. Each office answers from its own link, in its own language, with no login: no issue, keep it, replace it, or cut required, with a note on why. An internal office can answer inside the app instead.

Clearances · Circulate to territories
The circulate dialog with offices to select, each with its office name and contact, a respond-by date, a message to the offices and the issues to include

Choose offices and issues, set a date. One email per office with its own link; the message to the offices carries the context for the whole batch.

Office link · Japan · 日本語
The Tokyo office's answer page in Japanese showing an issue with four answer options — no issue, keep, replace, cut required — and a note

No login, their language. The office page is translated per language, so a Tokyo office answers in Japanese and the answer lands in your register in one vocabulary.

Matrix

Every issue against every territory.

Back at HQ, the matrix fills in as the offices answer — no issue, keep, replace, cut required, awaiting, overdue — so who is holding up delivery shows at a glance. Open any issue and every territory is there, overdue first, with a chase for the ones that are late and the whole thread of circulations, answers and notes underneath.

Distribution · Clearances · Matrix view
Routine clearances matrix with issues as rows and territories as columns, each cell coloured by the office's answer or marked awaiting or overdue
Classification

Classification, territory by version.

Classification works the same way: every territory, every ratings body, every version — what was submitted, what it was rated, and what is still waiting on cuts. When a board asks for a cut, it is linked back to the issue in the register, and the compliant version is recorded against the rating.

Distribution · Clearances · Classification
Routine classification grid with territories and their ratings bodies as rows and versions as columns, each cell showing the rating, a cut required, or a pending submission

What each body was sent, what it said. Rated, submitted, or waiting on cuts, per version — the theatrical OV, the home entertainment cut, the territory-specific edit.

Clearances · Classification · Singapore · IMDA
The classification drawer for Singapore showing submitted and decided dates, certificate reference, fee and currency, the cut required linked to a register issue, and the compliant version recorded

Cuts linked to the issue. Singapore's cut points at the wall map in reel four; the compliant version — OV v3, map replaced — is on record against the rating, with the certificate reference and fee.

One organisation, many offices

Local titles, local offices, one record.

Offices live inside your organisation — Paris, Berlin, Tokyo, Sydney — each with its language. A title is owned by one office or by none, and shared with others by name, so a local acquisition stays local while the Hollywood title every office sees stays global. Clearances, Distribution versions and stages respect the same rule.

Office requests in the app. An internal office answers a circulation from its Requests screen and its My Routine card, with an in-app notification and an "Open in Routine" link in the email.

Translations ready to go. Screens resolve their language user → office → default; the clearance office page is already served in Japanese as a labelled draft.

Nothing changes until you open it. An organisation that never opens Settings › Offices sees no difference at all.

Bring the sheet with you

Already tracking this in Smartsheet?

Export it as CSV and import it as it is. Columns are matched by heading — Timecode, Type, Item, Description, Rights holder, Status, Notes and their usual aliases — and rows with a reference column update on re-import instead of duplicating. Attach the import to a review, or not.

Dry run first. The preview shows every row with its category and warnings before anything is written.

Sample set included. Load the sample data and you get a reviewed master, twelve issues, two offices, two circulations with answers and threads, and three classifications to click through.

Part of Distribution. Clearances is included in the Distribution licence — no extra module to buy.

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