Message Scheduling

When posting a Message, you can define the Message scheduling options on the Post Action tab of the Post Message dialog. This determines when the Message will be queued to be sent.

A Message can be scheduled in one of three ways:

• Immediately
• Delayed
• Recurring

Actual delivery time of a Message to a recipient will depend on a number of factors including the size of the queue and any speed throttling that a recipient's ISP (Internet service providers) may do.

Immediately

If a Message is scheduled to be sent immediately, it will actually be queued for five minutes before it is sent. This allows some leeway in case a Message is accidently posted containing errors in the content or targeting.

Scheduling a Message immediately means that the Message is only sent once.

Delayed

If a Message is scheduled to be sent later using the Send Later option from Schedule Options, the Message will only be sent once.

To schedule a Message to be sent later

1. From Schedule Options, click Send Later.
2. Enter the Send Date / Time in the boxes provided. You must specify a date and time in the future.

Unlike sending a Message immediately, there is no five minute time delay before the Message is sent. The Message will be queued to be sent at the specified date and time.

Actual delivery time of a Message to a recipient will depend on a number of factors including the size of the queue and any speed throttling that a recipient's ISP (Internet service providers) may do.

Recurring

A Message can be scheduled to be sent on a regular basis. When a Message is configured to be sent in this way, it is important that you ensure that the targeting criteria will stop the Message from being sent to the same Contact more than once (unless that is the intention). For example, if you schedule a Message to be sent everyday to newly registered Contacts, the targeting criteria should only match those Contacts that registered the day before.

There are several different scheduling options for setting a recurring schedule:

• Hourly
• Daily
• Days in the Week
• Monthly
• Calendar Month
• Advanced

Each option requires that you specify a date and time that the Message will not be sent before. After this time the recurring schedule will come into effect. You may also optionally specify an expiry date and time, after which the schedule will no longer be effective.

Hourly

An Hourly recurring schedule allows you to specify the number of hours to wait between each Message send. Specifying a value of 1 will mean that the Message is sent every hour, a value of 2 every second hour, and so on.

Daily

A Daily recurring schedule allows you to specify the number of days to wait between each Message send. Specifying a value of 1 will mean that the Message is sent every day, a value of 2 every second day, and so on.

You can also specify the Send Time. This is the time that the Message will be sent on a scheduled day.

Days in the Week

A Days in the Week recurring schedule allows you to select the specific days of the week to send the Message on.

You can also specify the Send Time. This is the time that the Message will be sent on a scheduled day.

This schedule will repeat every week until it expires or is disabled.

Monthly

A Monthly recurring schedule allows the Message to be sent on the specified Days of the month and the number of months to wait between each Message send. Specifying a value of 1 will mean that the Message is sent every month, a value of 2 every second month, and so on.

You can also specify the Send Time. This is the time that the Message will be sent on a scheduled day.

Calendar Month

A Calendar Month recurring schedule allows you to select the specific days of the month and the calendar months that you would like the Message to be sent on.

You can also specify the Send Time. This is the time that the Message will be sent on a scheduled day.

This schedule will repeat every year until it expires or is disabled.

Advanced

An Advanced recurring schedule allows you to specify a schedule using a CRON scheduling format.