About

Relative message schedules allow you to build out your message schedule relative to a subscriber's custom field date value, subscription creation date or profile creation date. You can only have 1 message schedule per campaign.

Setting up your Relative Message Schedule

Select the campaign you will be building your message schedule in.
Select "New Messaging Schedule" under the "Campaign Actions" menu
Name your message schedule
Determine your Custom Delivery Time option
Custom delivery times allow you to deliver messages at the time value saved in a subscribers' time type custom field. Don't worry-you can set a default time for message delivery if not all subscriber's have a value stored in your custom time field.
Next set up your "Specify Date As" options. For this, you'll select "Relative to the user's target date."
Determine your target date from the available options

Subscription Date: the date the subscription to the campaign you are working in was created

Please note, if a user opts-in and the opts-in again, their subscription date will be the initial opt-in and they will only receive the message rows 1x based on that initial opt-in date. If the user opts-in, then opts-out, the opts-in again their subscription date will be updated to the second opt-in resetting the subscription date. If rows are based on subscription date, they will receive them again, even if they got them based on their first opt-in date.

Profile Creation Date: the date the phone number was first seen in the Mobile Commons platform

Custom Date: will base your schedule off of a custom field that is a date type

If you are using "Custom Column" you'll select "Custom Column" and then will see a drop-down list of all of your available custom date type fields. Select the one your schedule will be based off of.

You may also set this at the row level, or via csv upload. You can use the attached csv templates "custom_date_template" or "custom_time_and_date_template".

We recommend selecting "Use Subscription Date if this custom field is blank." This will send subscribers a message relative to their subscription to the campaign if they have no value saved in the custom date field selected.
Select your Timezones options
You can detail out the timezone for your message schedule via drop down list.
You can then select whether you want the messages to be sent out all at the same time or adjust them for the subscriber's timezone.
Select "Create"

Adding your Message Content

Next, you'll build your message schedule with your messaging content. You can build this by adding rows manually, or using one of our Relative Message Schedule CSV templates to build your schedule content and then upload it.

If you only have a few rows you may choose to simply add them manually. If you have a lot of content you may want to utilize the upload csv option.

Please note that you can only upload 1 message per row. If you are building out a back and forth conversation you will need to do this at the row level.

For Manual Row Add

Select "Add New Row" under content actions or select "added any rows" next to "Number of Rows"
Select your row options and add your message content. Each row has a number of options to allow you to customize your row.
1. Build out the "Custom field for target date is:" you want for this row. The custom date type field you selected when setting up your schedule will be the default date field for each row. You may select a different custom date type field row by row as well. You may also select the "Use Subscription Date if this custom field is blank" option row by row. If you do not select this and the subscriber does not have a stored value for that date field they will receive no message.
2. Build out the "Days and time relative to Target Date" you want for this row.
3. In the first box select how many days relative to the date you want the message to go out. This can be a negative number, like -2 (days before), 0 (day of) or positive numbers like 5 (5 days after). In the next box put in the time you want the row to go out. This must be in a 24 hour clock format!
4. You can also select a custom time for the row to be sent. If you select a custom time and the subscriber has no value for that custom time field in their profile it will be sent at the default time you set above in "Days and time relative to Target Date".
Add in your message content in the SMS Body section
Review your work and hit "Create"

Here is an example of a completed row. It will go out on the date stored in the subscriber's "Birth_Date" field and it will go out at their "Time_of_Day_Type" field value or if that is blank it will go out at 9:15am.

Once you build your row you'll be brought back to your main schedule view.
If you want to edit your row select "Edit Conversation". You can edit your row content, or even build out a conversation, like the one below.
Once you save your row you'll be brought to the "Edit Row" screen. Simply "Update" to save your row changes.
Repeat this process and add as many rows as you want!
When you’re ready, click Activate Schedule in the Content Actions box

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For CSV Upload

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Click Upload CSV
You can download a sample CSV as a guide by clicking the Sample CSV link or utilizing the attachments on this page.
- Day of send (relative)
- Custom Time Field and/or Custom Date Field *Please note when using custom date fields in your csv you must use all lower cases and insert _ wherever there is a space. If your field name is Happy Day the custom_date_field in the csv should be happy_day
- Hour of Send (in military time)
- Minute of Send
- Body of the message
Click Choose File.
Click the correct CSV file from your computer and then Preview Entries.
Click Save and check all your rows
If you want to edit your row select "Edit Conversation". You can edit your row content, or even build out a conversation, like the one below.
Once you save your row you'll be brought to the "Edit Row" screen. Simply "Update" to save your row changes.
When you’re ready, clickActivate Schedule in the Content Actions box