Introduction

The Scheduled Actions feature enables you to pause or resume campaigns, groups, or creatives at a specified date and time in the future. This is useful for making changes in advance for delivery to publishers, allowing you to prepare for upcoming promotional or seasonal changes instead of having to push them during off-hours. For example, Scheduled Actions could be used to launch new campaigns on a schedule, or activate promotional creatives to coincide with a sale period.

You can have multiple scheduled actions applied on an ad. If you want to view the list of scheduled actions pending for a specific ad, click the Creatives tab, find the ad and click on the name to go to the ad's settings. Then scroll down to the Scheduled Actions section.

And if you want to see the next scheduled action set for each campaign, group, or creative, you can also bring in the Sched. Action column to the Grid (View Builder > Advanced).

How to schedule an action

1. From the Campaigns, Groups or Creatives Grid, use the checkboxes on the left of the Grid to select the objects (keywords, creatives, etc.) to be scheduled.
    
2. Click the Schedule button ('calendar icon') at the top of the Grid.
    
3. Select Resume or Pause and enter the date and time for the action. Scheduled Actions can only be set to occur on the hour.
    
4. It's important to remember when scheduling actions, that the scheduled time is based on your account's time zone. You can view this by clicking the Admin link, clicking the Clients sub-tab, choosing an account and looking for the Time Zone settings.

How to change a scheduled action

The date and time for a pending action can be changed on the Campaign/Group/Creatives settings page. You must click the Save button on the page for any changes to be saved.

Scheduling an action from the Grid will add a new scheduled action for the selected objects, even if the objects already have a scheduled action created.

How to cancel a scheduled action

To cancel a Scheduled Action, follow these simple steps:
 

1. From the relevant Grid (Campaign/Group/Creatives), click directly into the object that you set the Scheduled Action for.
    
2. Click into the Settings sub-tab for that particular object.
    
3. Click the - 'minus' button next to the relevant Scheduled Action on the settings page. 
    
4. Click Save and the Scheduled Action will be removed.
    

Removing a Scheduled Action via multi-edit

1. From the relevant tab (Campaigns, Groups, etc.), select the object(s) where you wish to remove all Scheduled Actions.
   
   Keep in mind that this action will clear out all Scheduled Actions for the selected objects. If you need to remove Scheduled Actions granularly, use the How to Cancel A Scheduled Action instructions above.
    
2. Click the Schedule button ('calendar icon') at the top of the Grid.
    
3. From the drop-down, select Remove Scheduled Actions.
    
4. Click Save.  

Understanding items in Held status

If an action is scheduled on an item that is Held in the Activity Log, the change will be made at the Publisher (overriding the Held status). You can find Held activities by filtering the status column. It is best to either cancel or post these jobs before scheduling any actions.

To exclude individual held items when creating a Scheduled Action, you can add a filter to the Operation Status column:
 

In order to be sure that the changes resulting from your scheduled action went through on time, we recommend setting up an alert for confirmation confirm. You can set up an alert quickly and easily by following the instructions in How to Set Up Alerts.

Important information about timing

• You should check the time zone of your account (Admin > Clients > Edit) to ensure it is set correctly before scheduling any actions. This is especially important if you work across multiple time zones in the publisher accounts that are linked to the Platform.
   
• Scheduled Actions is a useful feature to trigger status changes at a future date and time. However the time chosen is not precise and users should be aware of this when they decide to use the feature. If the action is for an event with a short timeframe such as a lunch hour or has a definite deadline such as the end of a competition then it would be advisable to manage this action manually.
   
• For any actions scheduled, the Platform will trigger the action to happen on the hour that you set. However, this does not mean it will happen immediately at the Publisher.
   
• If an item is being edited or synced then the Platform will be unable to edit the status until this first action is completed. A Scheduled Action that does not succeed will be resent multiple times until it is successful, which could cause a delay from the time set by the user.
   
• If the Publisher has any API issues at the time of the action then the Platform will be unable to send the change, but it will be re-sent once the issues with the Publisher have been resolved.
   
• If the Platform has scheduled maintenance during an hour when you have set an action then it will be sent once the work is completed.
   
• A scheduled action will not override a campaign's end date, so if a campaign is already completed when a scheduled action is due, the action will not take place. This is expected behavior.
   
• In order for Scheduled Actions to work most effectively, the proper status settings need to be synced at the time the scheduled action is to occur. For example, if a creative has a scheduled action to be paused on March 15th at 1:00am, but as of that time the Platform is showing the status as Paused already (even though the publisher shows the status as active) the Platform will not push the change as it believes that the creative is already in the Paused status.  For this reason, it is recommended to make all edits within the Platform to ensure the status of objects are in sync with the publisher.
   
• If objects included in the scheduled action are in the Sync Error status due to a publisher-related error, this may cause the complete scheduled action to fail. For example, a Google creative headline that exceeds the 25 character policy limit.