Schedule a broadcast on Workplace

Schedule a message to your intended audience at a specific time

Melita Gandham avatar
Written by Melita Gandham
Updated over a week ago

Before you start, ensure you have these permissions ticked on your integration:

✅ Message any member

This tells workplace to let us send messages to people and is required for all basic bot functionality.

✅ List group members (optional)

This tells Workplace to allow us to see who is in a group so that you can send broadcast messages to members of a specific Workplace group. If you want to send a message when someone joins or leaves a group, we need this permissions too.

You can find out more about permissions here. If you do not have access to the integrations panel on your Workplace instance, you will need to contact your system admin. More info on that can be found here.

Here is a video tutorial on how to set up a broadcast. Text instructions can be found by scrolling down.

1) Compose your message

Once the necessary permissions have been granted, it's time to compose a message for your broadcast. This message will be the first notification that your receiver gets in their inbox. 


2) Visit your list of broadcasts

On the sidebar select the button that says ‘Broadcasts’. Then choose ‘schedule new post’.


3) Set up your broadcast

First select the message you watch to send to your audience from the drop down list:

Now it's time to build your broadcast audience by choosing your target(s) from the following:

The bot audience includes anyone who has used the bot, been targeted by a broadcast, or added to a segment and has not opted out.

Workplace groups are the groups found on your Workplace instance (that also have been authorised on your integration).

Segments are groups of people who have been added via "Manage Segments" or have opted in to receive alerts. Click here to find out more about broadcasting by segment. Please note that segments will not show up on this list, unless you have created them for your bot. You can do this by going to the "Manage Segment" section under "Broadcasting".

Once you click any of the targets, a drop down menu will appear where you can set up your intended broadcast audience:

You can choose multiple targets to build your audience. So for example, if you wanted to target a general group but avoid broadcasting to those who chose to opt-out, you would set up your broadcast like this:

You will notice a little blue box underneath these settings. This will give you a summary of what your bot audience includes:

Please note that this box will turn orange if there is an issue with your bot audience set up.

Once you have set up your target, you can add a filter by attribute. For example:

As you can see, any filters added will also show up in the bot summary. You can find out more about broadcasting by attribute here and profile attributes here.. Please note, that you will note be able to filter by attribute unless you have established a target first.


4) Notification type

Select which notification type you would like - please note these only apply to mobile.

There are three types of broadcast notification:

• Notification + Sound/Vibration - if you send a broadcast message with this notification, everyone who receives the message will be “interrupted”. It will demand instant attention, don’t over use this.

• Notification only - broadcast messages sent with this notification will appear on their home screen, however it won’t demand instant attention.

• None - these are the best notifications for keeping your subscriber list, they will appear at the top of their threads when they next open up Messenger. This doesn’t interrupt them in any way, shape or form.

5) Choose to repeat the broadcast (optional)

If you would like to schedule a recurring post, tick repeat and choose how often you want the post sent.

You can choose for the broadcast to recur:

• daily

• every weekday

• weekly on specific days

• monthly

Once you have set your cadence, you will have to choose your earliest start date. The earliest start date demonstrates the first possible day of sending - the message will be sent out on the next possible day based on what you have set.

Once you have scheduled up a recurring broadcast, you will be able to edit it by clicking the "Edit" button next to the recurring broadcast in your broadcast list:

This allows you to change the settings of the recurring broadcast, as well as view how the broadcast has been originally set up.

6) Schedule your broadcast

Once you're happy with your message and audience, it is time to schedule your broadcast. Choose the desired date and time from the date picker:

You can also click the "Set to now" button to send out your broadcast straight away. The time will be set to the timezone you are currently scheduling the broadcast from. When you're happy with your broadcast settings, click the "schedule" button. You broadcast will be scheduled/sent and you will be taken back to the broadcast list to view your broadcast details.


7) Wait for the results

You can keep an eye on the progress of your broadcast by refreshing the page. Please note - Meta limits their use of the API, meaning that the messages have to be sent out in batches, especially when sending to large audiences.

Duplicating broadcasts

Broadcasts that have already gone out can now be duplicated. Simply go to the broadcast page in the platform and look for the broadcast you're hoping to duplicate. If it's been fully sent out, and is not still recurring, you will be able to see a "Duplicate button".

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