Start and End dates and times


Message senders can only send initial messages between a campaign's Start and End dates. Both Start and End dates can be set during campaign creation and both can be edited after launching. Outside of this window, replies can still be sent by message senders inside Open and Close times.


TABLE OF CONTENTS


Start and End Dates and Times During Campaign Creation

During the first step of campaign creation, you will be given the option to set your initial message sending window:


Screenshot of black text on a white background. Two text input fields are displayed with calendar emojis in each field. The field on the left shows the start date, the field on the left shows the end date.


  • The Start Date controls the first date that initial messages can begin being sent and when they can start going out. This will default to the current date UTC, so you do not need to edit this box unless you are creating the campaign in the evening or you would like to set this for a time in the future. The start date can be edited after launch.
  • The End Date controls when initial messages can no longer be sent. This is your initial message deadline. Your initial message End Date/deadline can always be extended after launching.


NOTE - Using best practices for ThruText phone number provisioning, you will want to launch your campaigns a few hours ahead of time or the night before. It is important to check your campaign's Start date and time so that texters start sending messages at the correct time.


To make edits, click inside the calendar icon, then edit the pop-up calendar:


A calendar screenshot with the number nine highlighted in dark blue, indicating the chosen date. To the right, three columns with headers in white on a blue background represent chosen times. Entries below are in black text, providing options to adjust the time.


Editing Dates On An Active Campaign

Sometimes, you will need to edit your active campaign. For example, your texters report that they see "Inbox Zero" on their assignment. You will need to extend the initial message sending window.


To make changes to an active campaign:

  1. Open the campaign you would like to change.
  2. Click the "Edit" button at the top of the screen.
  3. You can adjust the Start or End date calendar (see screenshot above).
  4. Click "Save" at the bottom of the page.


Viewing Initials Outside of the Initial Message Sending Window

For senders, after the End Date has passed, and the initial message sending window has closed, the initial messages to send are not viewable in the Messenger; when clicking on an assignment a 'No Contacts' message will display. The message sender would see their replies if there are any though.


For users with access to Admin Conversations, unsent initial messages are viewable by accessing the Initial Message tab in the left side bar beneath the search bar.

When viewing the individual message, a warning will be shown above the message input box. The initial message will be uneditable and unsendable. The 'Send' button will be greyed out.


Screenshot of message input box. Above, is a warning composed of red text on a white background. To the right of the input box the rectangular 'Send' button is grey.


To send the initial message after the initial message sending window, extend the end date.


The Initial Message Sending Window and the Queuing System

When setting the initial message sending window in ThruText, it's essential to understand how the system operates within the framework of carrier regulations and rate limits. You can read more about this in the following guide: Details On Our Sending System.


Carriers have implemented rate limits for Application-to-Person (A2P) message sending in an effort to increase message deliverability and combat spam messaging. These rate limits dictate how many SMS and MMS messages an organization can send per minute or per day. The system was designed to adhere to these rate limits by queueing any messages that exceed the allowed rate. Messages that exceed rate limits are placed in a queue and sent out as capacity becomes available within the rate limit. Messages stay in this queue as long as the initial message sending window is open, and will retry when capacity becomes available, if the time is within the campaign daily open hours. If your campaign reaches the end date of your initial message sending window and there are messages remaining in the queue, these messages will be marked 'sending failed'. Once a message is marked 'sending failed', it can no longer be sent from that campaign.


Here are a few examples to demonstrate. For example, if you are sending 10,000 MMS messages and your rate limit allows 1,000 MMS messages per minute, the system will take approximately 10 minutes to send all your messages. As you set the initial message sending window, make sure that you keep in mind whether you want any queued messages to be retried when capacity becomes available, or if you want them to be marked unsent. If you want them to be retried, make sure to set the end date as far into the future as you want messages to keep being retried.


Here's another example with a per-day rate limit. T-Mobile enforces a limit on the number of text message segments you can send to T-Mobile users in a given day. Consider a scenario where your organization has a per-day limit of 10,000 text message segments for T-Mobile users. If you send a 1 segment text message to 15,000 users, then 10,000 messages will be delivered and 5,000 will remain in the queue. Now consider how the initial message sending window will handle this scenario.

  • 1 day: If the initial message sending window is 1 day long in this example, the 5,000 segments remaining in the queue will be marked as "failed" when the initial message sending window closes (or the end date passes).
  • 1+day: If the initial message sending window is 2 days in this example, the 5,000 segments remaining in the queue will deliver on the following day when the campaign reaches the daily open hours.


To provide admins with greater insight into the status of their messages, we've introduced deliverability data to message exports. You can see the status of a message by creating an account-level or campaign export of the messages. This enhancement reflects the impact of the sending queue on message delivery, and allows admins to track the progress and outcome of their sent messages.


As we strive to maintain compliance with these regulations to ensure high deliverability rates, it's important to consider how the initial message sending window may affect your message sending. Make sure to consider that your messages may be queued due to a rate limit, and having a longer initial message sending window will give the queued messages a longer opportunity to deliver. To maximize message delivery we recommend the following:

  • Timing: We recommend sending messages earlier in the day to ensure that your messages have enough time to deliver, since they have to observe these rate limits. MMS messages, for example, have lower rate limits than SMS messages and can take longer to send. 
  • Setting the initial message sending window duration: We understand that some text messages are time-sensitive and would not be appropriate to deliver the day after they were sent. In this case, you'll want to keep the initial message sending window shorter to ensure that queued messages will not deliver after the end date. If your text messages aren't time-sensitive to the day, then we recommend extending the initial message sending window so that messages can be delivered when there is more capacity.