Scheduling, slots and time zone

Slots

A slot is a weekly appointment on one account: Monday 9am, Wednesday 9am, Thursday 6pm. They are set account by account, under Accounts, in “Posting schedule”. Saving replaces the whole grid: it is not an addition.

While writing, “at the next free slot” looks for the first opening that is not already taken, across every targeted account at once. If none fits within three months, the date has to be set by hand.

Setting a schedule requires the admin or approver role. Reading it is open to everyone, view-only included.

The time zone

The time zone belongs to the team, not to the person. An admin sets it once under Team, and it applies to everyone. A 9am slot goes out at 9am in that zone, summer and winter alike.

If it followed the reader, two members of the same team would see two times for the same post, and nobody would know which one is real. That is the reason for the choice, and it holds for teams spread across two continents too: one zone has to be picked.

What a post’s status means

A publishing date has to be in the future and less than a year away. A post with no date stays a draft, which is a normal way to work.

What happens at the appointed time

• Timalio looks at the queue once a minute. A scheduled post goes out within the minute following its time.
• A missed slot is never dropped: the post goes out late, on the first pass that sees it. There is no window past which it would be cancelled.
• On a temporary failure Timalio retries, at most 3 times counting the first send, then gives up and says so. A permanent error (a refusal from the network, an expired access) is never retried: republishing blindly would send the post twice.
• A permanent failure triggers an email, as long as alerts are on for the organization.

If the content changed after it was approved, the post does not go out: it goes back for review. Moving its time, on the other hand, does not undo the approval: only content counts.