Message Scheduling is Now Generally Available

Time to read: 3 minutes

September 20, 2022
Written by
Casey Runnells
Twilion
Reviewed by
Bill Higbee
Twilion

MessageSchedulingGA

We are excited to announce that Message Scheduling is now generally available!

With Twilio’s Programmable Messaging API Message Scheduling feature you can request that your SMS, MMS, or WhatsApp messages be delivered at a future date and time by including two extra parameters in your API request!

As part of general availability, we have enhanced this feature to be HIPAA eligible. Additionally, you can now schedule messages to be distributed as soon as 15 minutes out, versus the previous criteria of 60 minutes out.

Message Scheduling is a great feature for appointment reminders, alerts, notifications, promotional messaging, or other use cases where scheduled communication is important. By leveraging Message Scheduling, you can let Twilio send your SMS, MMS, or WhatsApp messages at a fixed time without the need for your own queuing or scheduling logic; ensuring that your messages are delivered at the right time, per your specifications.

Owl Shoes CRM Scheduler

 

To take advantage of Message Scheduling you will need to have your SMS, MMS, or WhatsApp capable numbers configured inside of a Messaging Service.  A messaging service sid will need to be referenced in your API request when using the Message Scheduling feature.  

Eager to get started? Check out the Docs to learn more!

How customers are using Message Scheduling

Since launching into Public Beta in January 2022, we have seen a number of Twilio customers use the Message Scheduling feature to automate and simplify timed delivery of their messages. Here’s what a few of them had to say about implementing Message Scheduling:

Inflection Poynt uses Twilio Programmable SMS for appointment reminders.

"So far I have found it excellent! My program uses it to remind candidates who apply for our jobs that they have interviews/phone-calls in 1 hour... the API/functionality is very easy to use... and most importantly, the documentation was excellent and easy to follow." - Ryan Hendry, CTO | Inflection Poynt

RiskWire, LLC uses Twilio Programmable SMS to schedule and send notifications to employees regarding new safety content.

“Experience was great - this capability was very important to us as it allowed our team to better manage demands on our application - especially during peak times.” - Ken Saitow, Co-Founder | RiskWire, LLC

Here are some other common use cases for Message Scheduling:

In addition to notifications and promotional messaging, Message Scheduling is great for:

  • Appointment Reminders - notify end users of upcoming appointments based on their scheduled time or follow up afterwards to receive feedback.
  • RSVP Alerts - Send guests or attendees important information about your event while being mindful of their time zone or schedule.
  • Automated messaging with more “human-like” response behavior (i.e. random and or intermittent response intervals)

What’s new with Message Scheduling

We announced Messaging Scheduling earlier this year as a public beta. As a part of the GA release, Message Scheduling is now HIPAA eligible and you can schedule messages as soon as 15 minutes out.

Try Message Scheduling today

Leverage these resources and get started, quickly and simply:

Check out some of our demos and tutorials in the following blogs:

As communicated on Dec 1, 2023, Message Scheduling will be added to and billed as Twilio Messaging Engagement Suite.

Customers can use Engagement Suite features for free until January 31, 2024. Starting February 1, 2024, Twilio will charge customers $0.015 in addition to the base message fee whenever one or more Engagement Suite feature is used. The first 1,000 Engagement Suite premiums per month are free. 

If you don’t want to be charged, stop using Engagement Suite features by January 31, 2024. Specific to Message Scheduling: don’t include the "ScheduleType" and "SendAt" fields in the API request.

Want to try it out? Here’s some example code from our earlier blog to get you started!

Example API Request 1. An SMS reminder to be sent out 24 hours prior to an appointment

curl -X POST https://api.twilio.com/2010-04-01/Accounts/$TWILIO_ACCOUNT_SID/Messages.json \
--data-urlencode "Body=This is a reminder about your appointment tomorrow at 3PM with Dr. Strange" \
--data-urlencode "MessagingServiceSid=<Your Messaging Service SID From Step 1>" \
--data-urlencode "To=<Your Patient's E.164 Formatted Phone Number>" \
--data-urlencode "ScheduleType=fixed" \
--data-urlencode "SendAt=<Scheduled UTC Date Time in ISO-8601 Format>" \
-u $TWILIO_ACCOUNT_SID:$TWILIO_AUTH_TOKEN

Here is an example response.

{
"sid": "SM93b9cd1adf4045c592cd30984d8d4f32", "date_created": "Fri, 31 Dec 2021 07:56:51 +0000",
"date_updated": "Fri, 31 Dec 2021 07:56:51 +0000", "date_sent": null, "account_sid": "REDACTED",
"to": "+17815367324", "from": null, "messaging_service_sid": "REDACTED",
"body": "This is a reminder about your appointment tomorrow at 3PM with Dr. Strange",
"status": "scheduled", "num_segments": "0", "num_media": "0", "direction": "outbound-api",
"api_version": "2010-04-01", "price": null, "price_unit": null, "error_code": null, "error_message": null,
"uri": "/2010-04-01/Accounts/REDACTED/Messages/SM93b9cd1adf4045c592cd30984d8d4f32.json",
"subresource_uris": {"media": "/2010-04-01/Accounts/REDACTED/Messages/SM93b9cd1adf4045c592cd30984d8d4f32/Media.json"}
}

Example API Request 2. An MMS sent out 3 hours prior to an appointment with a QR code for a patient to check-in on arriving at the place of appointment

curl -X POST https://api.twilio.com/2010-04-01/Accounts/$TWILIO_ACCOUNT_SID/Messages.json \
--data-urlencode "MediaUrl=https://i.ibb.co/D7fKNxw/frame.png" \
--data-urlencode "Body=This is a reminder about your appointment tomorrow at 3PM with Dr. Strange" \
--data-urlencode "MessagingServiceSid=<Your Messaging Service SID From Step 1>" \
--data-urlencode "To=<Your Patient's E.164 Formatted Phone Number>" \
--data-urlencode "ScheduleType=fixed" \
--data-urlencode "SendAt=<Scheduled UTC Date Time in ISO-8601 Format>" \
-u $TWILIO_ACCOUNT_SID:$TWILIO_AUTH_TOKEN

We can’t wait to see what you build!

Casey Runnells is a Senior Solutions Engineer at Twilio and is passionate about helping businesses grow and redefine their strategies around enhanced customer communication and data. You can reach Casey at crunnells@twilio.com

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