Scheduling an Automation

Overview

This article outlines the variety of ways you can schedule a communication send in Bullhorn Automation. You can do this using your send window settings or by using a fixed date automation.

Utilizing the Send Window in Your Automation Settings

Using a standard automation, you can schedule your communications to be sent on specific days in your Automation Settings. Here you can control the day(s) and the hours that you want your communication to be sent out.

Use case example: Say you want to send your placed candidates a weekly timesheet reminder every Friday starting at 9:30 AM in the contact’s time zone. Once you create an automation, in your automation settings that is where you will want to select the day and time range you want this email to go out.

We recommend that you have a minimum of a 4 hour send window. Bullhorn Automation will always try and send your email as close to the start time of your Sending Window as possible. Example: If your Sending Window is 9:00 AM - 2:00 PM, Bullhorn Automation will try to send that email as close to 9:00 AM as possible.

The 4 hour window allows for emails to continue to send should there be a slight delay for any reason and inform you if you will have the option to send this message in the contact's time zone.

Using a Sending Window with Staggered Start

If your automation uses a Staggered Start and the send window closes before the email or text message is sent to all groups, the staggered groups will restart and the remaining contacts will be reassigned into new groups to ensure they all receive the message. We recommend increasing your send window time frame to make sure that the messages send out the way you want them to.

Creating a Fixed Date Automation

Use case example: Monthly Newsletter or a Holiday email.

Fixed date automations must be set up at least one day in advance. If you are making this automation the day of, you will want to use a standard based automation. This allows Bullhorn Automation time to register the appropriate date trigger for the following day. For more information, see date based automations.

We do not recommend using A/B Testing in a Fixed date automation.

FAQ

If an automation has a one day sending window on a Wednesday, and I allow re-entry “every 1 day”, when will Contacts re-enter the automation?

Contacts will re-enter the automation the next day, but they will sit in the email step until the next Wednesday. The can re-enter after number of days field does not take into account the sending window you have selected.

Why aren’t emails sending in my chosen sending window?

Below are some possible reasons:

• Multiple Automations Syncing: When turning on multiple automations, Bullhorn Automation needs time to sync all of the list criteria, then allow the contacts to enter the automation. By the time Bullhorn Automation has finished syncing, it may have missed the outlined sending window.
• Large Lists Syncing: Syncing a large list can take some time, especially when Bullhorn Automation is syncing other lists or automations in your instance. By the time Bullhorn Automation has synced the list, it may have missed the outlined sending window.