Overview

With Featurebase, it's easy to schedule a message to send at exactly the right time.

There are 3 main ways to schedule Outbound messages:

1. Send messages during or outside your team's office hours

2. Choose custom days and hourly windows when messages are allowed to run

3. Schedule a specific date and time for a message to start, and optionally stop

Scheduling works together with Outbound message rules: rules decide who is eligible, while scheduling decides when eligible people can receive the message.

Schedule your message to send when your team is available

You can schedule messages to send only when your team is available to reply. This ensures users get a quick response, and no leads are left behind.

To configure it:

1. Open a message, or create one from New Message

2. Open Frequency and scheduling

3. Under ‘When to send’, choose one of the available delivery windows:

   • Any time - the message can run whenever the person matches your rules

   • During office hours - the message can run only during your workspace office hours

   • Outside office hours - the message can run only outside your workspace office hours

   • Custom times - the message can run only during the days and hours you choose

Where possible, we recommend scheduling your message to send during your office hours.

Scheduling a date and time for your message to go live

It's easy to schedule when your message should go live. Your message will begin sending at that time, assuming that customers match the other filters that you set. When creating a message, you will see the option to schedule a time for your message:

• Immediately - the message can start as soon as you set it live

• Custom date - the message starts at the date and time you choose

For Dynamic audiences, the message becomes live at the scheduled start date and can keep reaching people who match your rules. For Locked audiences, the message sends once to the people who matched when the message was activated.

Use Stop sending when a Dynamic message should stop automatically. Choose Never to keep the message running until you pause it, or Custom date to stop the message at a specific date and time.

Sending messages during specific times

Use ‘Custom times’ when a message should run only on selected days and hours. For example, you can:

• Send an onboarding Chat only Monday to Friday during your team's working hours

• Show a Survey only during the day in your workspace timezone

• Keep an Email from sending outside a specific weekly window

When you choose Custom times, Featurebase checks whether the current day and hour are inside one of the windows you selected. If the window is open, the message can be sent or appear for people who match your rules. If the window is closed, the message stays live but waits until the next matching window opens.

To use custom times:

1. Open Frequency and scheduling

2. Under When to send, choose Custom times

3. Select the days and hourly windows when the message is allowed to run

4. Save the message, then use Set live, Send now, or Schedule, depending on the message setup

Custom times only control the delivery window. A person still needs to match the message's audience rules, trigger rules, frequency settings, and message state before they can receive it.

FAQs