Email & Text Messaging Scheduler

Both emails and text messages sent from the Communications module can be scheduled. The scheduler is designed to provide bulletproof communication scheduling for a single send or recurring sends.  It also produces notification emails on job success or failure.

This article includes the following sections:

• Sending With the Scheduler
• How to Tell if An Item is Scheduled

Sending With The Scheduler

To Schedule an Item From The Communications Edit Screen

IMPORTANT NOTE: You can only schedule items in a communications category if that category does not have both email and text messages set up as media types. Setup text messaging and emails in their own separate category if you are going to want to schedule messages to send or even simply run the messages on the server, set up email and text messages in their own categories.

1. Click Schedule On Server

When an email or text message is saved, tested, and ready to be send, it may be scheduled to send by clicking the Schedule On Server button. 

It is recommended to use this option for larger groups, even if you wish to send the item out immediately. Scheduling one-time items from a Gnosis server provides more reliability against any potential connection interrupts that are beyond your control.

Note: For sending smaller communications items, you can continue to use the Run On This PC option - which begins sending immediately from your own computer.

2.  Set Schedule

Use this tab to set the Immediate, One Time or Recurring schedule to send the item.

Not Scheduled

Indicates that the items currently has no schedule set.

Run Once Immediately

If selected, the item will be sent one time immediately after confirming these settings; the one-time immediate send is completed from the server instead of your PC directly.

One time

• Set the desired date and time by either:
  • Clicking the down arrow to open the calendar and time window, choose the date and time, then click OK; or,
  • Enter the desired date/time directly into the text box.

Recurring

• Set the Starting On date.
• Set the Ending On date or leave it set to the default of No End Date.
• Single-click the desired Daily, Weekly, or Monthly tab to access the related settings.

Daily – Select Every Day (Sunday-Saturday) or Every Week Day (Monday-Friday).

Weekly – Select desired day(s).

Monthly – Selected desired day(s) of the month and optionally the desired month(s).

• Start At – Identify the time to send.
• Hourly Repeat Every – Check this box to send the item multiple times on each selected day at the specified hourly interval.
• Preview Schedule - Shows a sample list of up to the next 100 send date and times.

3.  Set Notifications

Use this tab to identify a Gnosis user(s) to receive system notifications on job success and or failure.

Email Results To

The Gnosis User to receive a notification. The logged-in person will be listed by default. You may add other users to receive either success statistics or failure notifications. To add another user, type the person's first and last names or part thereof or search in the Add User field.

On Success

All users selected for this type of notification will receive a success notification email from the system when a one time or recurring item is sent successfully.

On Failure

All users selected for this type of notification will receive a failure notification email from the system when a one time or recurring email has failed.

4.  Click Save & Close.

5. Confirm the set schedule.

A window will appear asking to Confirm the schedule as well as the success/failure notification recipients.

How to Tell if An Item is Scheduled

IMPORTANT NOTE: Viewing The Scheduled Item

When you are looking at a scheduled item that has been previously scheduled, if the recipient group being used has changed since the item was initially scheduled, the item will continue to use the previous version of the recipient group unless you cancel and re-schedule it.

If this is the case, you will see the following message above the schedule button to notify you of this:

Scheduling Icons in Comms Item List

When viewing the Communications Items list, a new column has been added to the screen, identifying the scheduled emails. The following icons will display based on the schedule settings and job completion information.

Viewing All Scheduled Items

At any time, upon first opening Communications and viewing the Category list, click View Schedules to see the following, grouped by Communications Category.

1.  All recurring emails schedules.
2.  All single schedule emails sent in the past 30 days.

Each schedule can be edited or deleted using the drop-down at the end of the line item. NOTE:  If you elect to edit the schedule, the existing schedule will be canceled and replaced by the new one that you enter.