Timing Options
Here we will discuss the timing settings available to you for your course/campaign setup.
Timing options are set in Campaign > Timing Options
Start by selecting a time zone for your course/campaign. The time zone you choose should:
a) reflect the time zone your participants are located in
b) reflect a time zone that is in between the regions where participants are located
What time zone should I select?
Time zone can be a tricky decision - particularly if your audience is located around the world. Regionally is the easiest to work with. Consider creating separate, duplicate, campaigns if your participant group is divided in their locations. Time zone affects when your content pieces are delivered to the target audience. If the audience is in the US, but scattered, a 9 AM message EST, will be 6 AM PST.
Time zone also plays a role when your confirmation messages go out. If people are added to the campaign and they are all on EST and your campaign is set to begin at 3pm PST - then their first message might try to reach them during dinner. It's all part of how you want to design the user experience.
Start Date - select a start date based on when you want this course/campaign to begin public availability. You can edit this at any time, but know that this can affect your content triggers and timing if your campaign is already running with content set to go out on specific dates. Typically - the start date just makes your campaign "live" from the moment it's set.
Set start date to some time in the future only if you have a very good reason for wanting participants to sign-up before the course starts, and they will receive the appropriate messaging on sign-up, and again on the date the course begins. Learn more about Registration and Confirmation Messaging >>
End Date - if the course/campaign will only be available for a finite period of time, you can set that date and time here.
Start Date Based on Individual Join Date
If the campaign is "evergreen" and will run for a while, where progress is based on the individual participant's date they join, then you will not need to set a start date. Instead, that course/campaign is ready and available, and all content triggers will be based on when the individual learner started, regardless of other participants. Each will consume content at their pace, and dripped content will appear based on number of days passed when you set the intervals of content sends. This choice was made when you originally setup the campaign, but in timing options, you will see that choice displayed like the image below:
Learn more about the differences between campaign based on Participant Join Date vs. campaign start on a specific date >>
Allowable Days - This feature allows you to limit the delivery days for triggered content. Corporate trainers may choose to drip content out to their trainees only on Tuesdays and Thursdays, for example. A typical configuration would be to uncheck Saturday and Sunday - leaving weekends quiet for participants.
If content is scheduled to be "dripped" out every 3 days, for example, based on a contact's start date - but you wanted to keep Saturday and Sunday quiet, the content will be released every 3rd day throughout the week. If content sends land on a Saturday or Sunday that have been disabled the system will "hold" that content until the next available day (such as the following Monday) and that drip schedule will continue from there.
If I add people to my campaign at a later date, will they still see the lesson content?
Late joiners will see content if you make all past content "available immediately" when the enter their portal. OR you can stagger content based on days delayed - and the content will appear for them with the time delay you set in number of days, from the day they enter the campaign. The content will not go out again to the existing members of the campaign.
Late joiners will NOT see the previous lesson content if it was set to go out at a specific date and time, because those dates are in the past.