Scheduling and staggering messages

Scheduling messages allows them to be sent at a specific time or on a particular date that you choose. This feature allows you to organize your communications more efficiently, ensuring that your messages reach recipients exactly when you want them to. In addition to scheduling individual messages, you also have the option to set up a campaign so that it repeats automatically according to your preferred frequency. This can be especially useful for recurring announcements, reminders, or marketing efforts, as it saves you time and helps maintain consistent communication with your audience.

Schedule messages

1. Navigate to Messaging > New message and choose your recipients and write your message.
2. In the Message Details section, name your campaign and select a sending period.
3. Click on the Schedule dropdown and select Schedule for later:

5. Select the date and time for the message to send, as well as confirm the time zone - this will default to the time zone in your account settings.

   

6. Click Schedule in the bottom right to save the message and trigger the scheduling.

Staggered message sending

If you're sending to a large volume of recipients, it might be a good idea to stagger your send - particularly if you're forwarding the replies to a mobile, or want to be able to manage replies via the inbox. This is so that you don't inadvertently become inundated with responses all at once.

1. In the Message Details section, click on the Send period dropdown and select Send messages over a period of time.

2. Nominate the number of hours to space out your message sending - the total number of outgoing messages will be evenly spaced and sent over this time period, so make sure you consider the volume of recipients when deciding the number of hours.

   

3. Click Send Now or Schedule in the bottom right to save the message and trigger the staggered sending.

Recurring messages

1. When you select the option to schedule your message, an additional option appears to set recurring messages. In the Message Recurrence section, click on the dropdown and select Schedule message to repeat.
2. Select the frequency at which you want the message to repeat - Daily, Weekly, Fortnightly, Monthly or Annually.

3. Select the termination date for the message cycle - confirmation of the termination date and the number of message occurrences will be displayed underneath.

   

4. Click Schedule in the bottom right to save the message and trigger the scheduling and recurrence.

Edit an existing scheduled message

You can pause, delete and edit message schedules, as well as edit the content of scheduled messages without having to start a new message cycle.

1. Navigate to SMS Messaging > Scheduled.

2. You'll see a list of all scheduled messages appear on the right. Click on the more options icon (⋮) on the right of the campaign you want to edit and select Pause and Edit - you can delete the schedule by clicking Delete in this menu.

   

3. You'll then be asked to confirm that you want to Pause the schedule and make Edits. Click the Pause & edit button in this pop-up to continue:

   

4. This will now take you to the familiar New Campaign screen; however this time the screen is titled Edit Message. Make the changes you want, and then click Save & Resume to save your changes and re-activate the message schedule, or Save & Pause to save your changes but keep the schedule paused until you re-activate it later.