Scheduling a Campaign

Overview

You are able to schedule proactive messages to be sent to your contacts, either immediately or in the future, including on a recurring schedule. When scheduling, you will choose the recipients, the Script you want to send, and the specific time and date.

Scheduling a Campaign

1. Navigate to the Campaigns page and click the + Create Campaign button in the top-right corner. Alternately, you can schedule a Campaign from the Calendar tool.
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     This will take you to the Campaign Schedule page.
      
2. In the Title and Description fields, provide a clear name and a short description for the campaign you intend to send. Optionally select a User Group calendar and/or a Campaign Plan.
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3. Next, select when you will send this campaign:
   • Send immediately: This will initiate the campaign right when you click the Schedule Campaign button.
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   • Send once on a specific date and time: This allows you to schedule the campaign to send in the future.
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   • Send on a recurring schedule: This option sends the campaign to intended recipients every day, week, or month. See Recurring Campaigns for more information.
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     • This option also allows you to set an end date and choose whether a contact can receive the campaign multiple times.
4. Next, choose your intended recipients.
    
   • Audience: In the first dropdown menu, you can select a rule-based Audience, or create a new one. (See Creating / Editing Audience Segments.) This uses rules to find contacts who meet that criteria when the campaign sends; these rules can include default fields, custom fields you have created, contact labels and import labels, message history, and more.
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   • Import: In the second dropdown menu, you can select an existing Import, or import a new CSV of contacts. (See Importing Contacts.)
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     • You can also select a subset of contacts from the import: All contacts, Newly Created contacts, Updated contacts, or Contacts with Updated Phone Number.
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5. Finally, choose the Script to send. You can scroll through existing Scripts that you or your team have created, preview them, and select the one you want to send.
    
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6. Once you select your Trigger, Script, and Recipients, click Schedule Campaign. As soon as you click that button, you will be redirected to the Calendar page, where you will see a message that indicating that the Campaign has been successfully scheduled.

Drafts

If you're not ready to actually schedule a Campaign, you can also save it as a Draft. Click the Save as draft button from the scheduler sidebar. This allows you to save your progress even if the Campaign is missing required information, like a title, trigger, Script, etc.

Drafts are available in a separate section of the Campaigns page, Draft Campaigns:

Drafts with specific dates/times will also appear on the Calendar. You can filter your view using the Calendar sidebar.

Editing a Draft or Scheduled Campaign

From the Calendar, click on an upcoming Campaign to edit it or delete it.

You can also edit an upcoming Campaign from the "Upcoming" section of the Campaigns list. Either method will take you to the Campaign Scheduler, where you can make changes. Click Reschedule Campaign to save your changes.

For drafts, you can choose between Update Draft (to keep it a draft) or Schedule Campaign (to convert it to an actual upcoming Campaign).

Note that you can also delete a Draft or Upcoming Campaign from the ... overflow menu.

Duplicating a Draft or Campaign

From the Campaign Scheduler view, from the ... overflow menu, select Duplicate to open up a new instance of the Scheduler page, with all the relevant data pre-filled. (See above.)

You can also duplicate a previously sent Campaign. From the Campaign Insights page, click the ... overflow menu and select Duplicate. This will similarly open up a new instance of the Scheduler page, with all the relevant data pre-filled.

Notes

• If a recipient has multiple communication channels, Mainstay will send to their SMS channel. If they do not have SMS, then Mainstay will send to web-chat.
• If a campaign is scheduled outside of your institution's Allowed Hours, it will not send until the following day when the allowed hours window reopens.