Scheduling a Campaign: Send Now or Schedule for Later
The final step of the campaign builder asks one question: When should we send this? You can send immediately, or schedule the campaign for a specific date and time. The same panel handles both email and WhatsApp campaigns.
Before you start#
Scheduling is the last step of the campaign builder, so your content and audience should already be set. The panel reads your organisation's configured timezone and shows it as read-only, so all scheduled times are interpreted in that zone — make sure your org timezone is correct before scheduling. Building the campaign itself is covered in Send an Email Campaign and Send a WhatsApp Campaign.
Choose when to send#
- In the When should we send this? panel, pick one of the two options.
- For Send now, click Send Now and confirm in the dialog. The campaign begins sending immediately.
- For Schedule for later, pick a Date and Time, check the Timezone, then click Schedule Campaign.
- Before committing, click Send a test to preview and send yourself a test of the campaign.
The two modes#
- Send now — described as Send this campaign immediately. In this mode the panel shows only the Send Now action, since a date and time are irrelevant.
- Schedule for later — described as Choose a date and time. Selecting it reveals the date, time and timezone fields, and shows both a Schedule Campaign button and a Send Now fallback so you can still send immediately if you change your mind.
The date, time and timezone fields#
- Date — a calendar picker (Pick a date). Past dates are disabled, so you can only schedule today or later.
- Time — a time picker, defaulting to 09:00.
- Timezone — read-only, pulled from your organisation's settings. The date and time you pick are interpreted as wall-clock time in this zone, so “1:20 PM” means 1:20 PM in your org's timezone regardless of where you or your recipients are.
Confirming a “Send now”#
Clicking Send Now opens a confirmation dialog titled Send campaign now?. It states that this will start sending the campaign to a specific number of recipients immediately and that the action cannot be undone, showing the exact recipient count. Choose Cancel to back out or Send Now to proceed.
Sending a test first#
The Send a test button opens the full Preview & test modal used elsewhere in the builder, so you can verify the final template and settings one last time. Any last-minute edits you make are saved before the test fires, so the test reflects exactly what you are about to send rather than an earlier draft.
Email and WhatsApp#
This panel drives both channels — it reads the campaign's channel and behaves the same whether you are sending an email or a WhatsApp broadcast. The recipient-count confirmation, the schedule options, and the test send all apply either way.
Good to know#
- Schedule Campaign stays disabled until you have picked a date, so you cannot accidentally schedule an empty time.
- Switching back to Send now clears any scheduled time you had set.
- Your scheduled time is stored precisely against your org timezone, so re-opening the panel shows the same wall-clock time you originally chose.
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