Scheduled & Recurring Messages

Chat can send for you. A scheduled message goes out once, at a time you pick; a recurring message is a series that keeps sending itself — a morning safety huddle, a payday reminder — until you stop it. Both send in your company's timezone, not whatever timezone your laptop happens to be in.

Type the message in the composer, then press the clock icon in the composer's tool row — Schedule send. The menu offers four quick picks (In 1 hour, In 4 hours, In 1 day, In 1 week) plus Custom date & time…, which opens the Schedule message window.

That window has an editable Message box seeded with whatever you already typed, a Send at date and time picker, and shortcut chips (In 1 hour, In 4 hours, Tomorrow, Next week). Times in the picker are company time, and past times can't be selected. Underneath, the window tells you exactly what will happen — "Sends Thu, Jun 11 at 1:30 PM" — or, if something's missing, "Type a message and pick a time in the future." Press Schedule to confirm.

Picking a time does not send anything yet. It arms the composer: a pill reading "Scheduled — Thu, Jun 11 at 1:30 PM" appears above the input. Click it to change the time, or the X beside it to go back to sending normally. The message is only created when you press Send, so you can keep editing the wording until then.

Two limits worth knowing. Scheduled messages can't carry attachments — if files are staged, the app tells you to remove them first. And a chat message must be 5,000 characters or fewer. A counter appears in the tool row as you type, turns amber as you approach the limit and red past it, and past the limit the send is refused with "Messages must be 5,000 characters or fewer." Messages sent as text (SMS) have a tighter limit of 1,600 characters.

Inside the conversation, anything still waiting to send appears as a card just above the composer, marked "Scheduled — " with its send time. The pencil icon reopens the picker with the text and time filled in so you can rewrite or move it; the X cancels it.

For everything at once, open the ⋯ (More chat tools) menu at the top of the channel list and choose Scheduled messages. That page lists every message waiting to send across all channels, soonest first, with who it's being sent as, where it's going, whether it's going as chat or SMS, a preview of the text, and the send time. Each row has a Cancel button. If a send time has already passed but the message hasn't gone out yet, the row reads "Overdue" — normally it's moments from sending.

Below that, Recent outcomes shows sent, failed, and cancelled messages from the last week, so a failed delivery is visible rather than silently vanishing, with the reason on the row.

Recurring messages live behind the same ⋯ menu, under Recurring messages, and are available to chat admins. Each row is one series: its name, whether it's Active, Paused, or Ended, a plain-English summary ("Weekdays at 7:15 AM · to all active drivers · from Viki"), how the last send went, and the next send time.

Press New recurring message to build one. It's a four-step form — Message, Recipients, Schedule, Review — and nothing sends until you finish the last step and press Start sending.

Message — use a template (the series always sends the template's latest wording, so editing the template updates future sends) or write the text yourself. Choose whether it comes from Viki, a persona, or you; messages to individual drivers are always delivered by Viki.

Recipients — specific people you pick by name, all active drivers (new hires included automatically), drivers rostered that day, a channel, or an existing conversation. For the driver options you also choose whether they receive it in chat or as a text.

Schedule — repeat on days of the week (pick the days, and repeat every week, every other week, and so on) or on a day of the month (shorter months fall back to their last day). Add one or more times of day. Then choose when it ends: when you stop it, on a date, or after a set number of sends. A live preview shows the next few send times.

Review — give the series a name (only admins see it), check the summary and the driver's-eye preview, and start it.

Every action sits behind the ⋯ menu on the row: skip just the next send, pause and resume, edit (changes apply to future sends), view history, or delete. View history shows the last 90 days — every occurrence, including the ones that didn't send, marked Sent, Failed, Skipped, or Missed with a one-line explanation and how many people it reached. A missed time is never sent late: if a send can't run within about an hour of its scheduled time, it's recorded as Missed and the series moves on to the next one. Deleting a series stops all future sends and removes its history permanently.

Templates, personas, channels, and message moderation each have their own settings elsewhere in chat and feed into these flows.