I Love Discouse
Me and My user wants to schedule posts (not topics), it’s a feature I think is necessary, would like to share how to schedule posts?
on meta.discourse, i searched for post scheduling feature, there are many people on meta.discourse who are also interested in this feature. I think there should be a way to achieve the goal: Schedule posts
This is not possible (kinda). You can use the API and make a program to make the API call to make a post at a specific but you cant do it within the UI
on meta.discourse, i searched for post scheduling feature, there are many people on meta.discourse who are also interested in this feature. I think there should be a way to achieve the goal: Schedule posts
Hope admins, technical engineers can share how to achieve the goal: Schedule Posts
I have an alternative solution. You can turn on reply by email so users can schedule posts via scheduled email.
great idea, I love Linca.
Where can I find instructions for replying to posts by email? Can you reply to that guide for me? Thank you
I’m testing the email reply feature, with a link to test Onebox
I just replied by email with a link to Time magazine, but Onebox doesn’t show up when replying by email.
How does Onebox show up, when replying via email?
Can you tell us some more about your goals with this request? Why would you want to schedule replies to topics? And can you describe how you think this can work in practice?
Thank Tobias Eigen;
The following goals are the reasons we think people need Schedule Posts:
1, schedule Posts, help Admin post replies as planned.
2, Many time frames in a day, Admins are not Online, but the forum still needs to be maintained continuously, Admin’s answers create more trust, so it is necessary to schedule posts.
3, For Users, they also want to regularly appear on the forum, good for branding (personal brand, and company). So Users want to schedule posts.
4, However, not every User is authorized to schedule posts, we want to limit some users. Limit the permission to schedule posts to avoid automatic action.
I replaced that link and removed the markdown surrounding it. I think that was converted from html created by your email program.
I am not sure I understand why moderators would want to delay a response to a forum. Or why you would want to let people pretend to log in more frequently than they actually are, to strengthen their reputation?
I guess I’d need to see this in practice on a forum to understand it better.
We operate a Business forum, many valuable answers may require planning to schedule posts. But most importantly, scheduling helps to plan responses.
Reply by email, I tested one more link from NBC news (the purpose is to see if Onebox shows up or not)
For Email Replies, we’ve found to be heavily dependent on Gmail (or another email platform), if there are 1000 email replies, it’s likely to be considered Spam.
So, a feature to schedule Posts directly on Discourse is essential.
I’m still not understanding the use case. A “post, not a topic” is, inherently, a reply. If other people reply before a scheduled reply, the scheduled reply could look out of place or even be obsolete.
These links are coming through as html and being converted to markdown. Can you see in your email program to see if you can send plan text emails that are not html?
[https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/section-philadelphia-95-collapses-massive-truck-fire-officials-say-rcna88747](https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/section-philadelphia-95-collapses-massive-truck-fire-officials-say-rcna88747)
I’m with Matt… sorry, but I am not quite understanding the goal and agree it can get confusing if other people are also replying.
One thought I have is that for a community used for team collaboration, you might want to draft a reply on the weekend but not post it until the work week starts. That way you can still maintain a culture with a healthy work/life balance, even if you are cheating a little. 
Nobody has to know you wrote the reply on Saturday when you should have been off relaxing with your family. But in this case, you can always save the draft reply and set a bookmark reminder for yourself to look at it one last time and then send it when the work week starts.
Another handy scheduling feature for collaboration is to set a date to bump a topic at some point in the future, as a reminder to check in on a project or event that is being planned. We use this all the time internally.
@tobiaseigen We get what you mean: Have drafts ready. However, if there are 100 Posts that need to be scheduled, that won’t be possible. So a posts scheduling feature will be needed.
@mattdm For what you consider outdated. I agree, but each answer of many Users is different, each person has a different perspective. For Admins and forums, the more diversity of opinions, the better.
So the Schedule Posts feature is still really necessary. I really appreciate everyone’s support, and hope the technical engineer will have a way to achieve the goal of scheduling Posts on the Discourse platform.
This is a great use-case for a no-code workflow automation solution like Make.
For example, you could maintain an Airtable base or Google Sheet with details of the posts you want to make and when they’re scheduled for.
A Make scenario can be scheduled to run automatically, check Airtable or Sheets and then publish the post on Discourse via the API.
Best of all - no coding needed!
We use Discourse as our primary office because half of our staff work remotely. In conjunction with Zoom for video meetings. But everything is documented in and coordinated with Discourse.
Case 1.
We often do extensive brainstorming; asking for scenarios, probabilities of each scenario, suggested responses to each; executive summaries etc.
We typically give a one to three days deadline for submission. Sometimes one to two weeks, as some of these require extensive research and several iterations before satisfactory conclusion.
Our objective of getting each person’s totally original input so far often gets defeated by the fact that late submitters simply ape or build on the earlier submissions, or at times just plagiarise.
Then we resorted to asking everybody to submit at a predetermined time.
Some fail this and still submit one to two hours late, still leveraging on the work of those that submitted earlier.
We have since come to the conclusion that the best solution is for each person to write their POST within the same topic, at their own convenience, then schedule it to be sent at that same predetermined time.
This will require an icon for SCHEDULED SEND, separate from the regular SEND icon.
This will achieve all the objectives, and could simply use the services of the already existing timed reminder service.
Case 2.
Another use case is this.
For the next 3 days for example, all hands must be on deck to focus on finishing a time-bound deliverable, for example a major event.
Some other important matter comes up, that is inappropriate to publish during this season so as not to dilute the focus.
Management decision is to release it 2 days after the event. It’s more desirable to formulate and implement this decision immediately, striking while the iron is hot, but to defer release of the post or topic until the time deemed best.
For us, it’s not a like to have. It’s totally essential.
This feature will dramatically increase the capacity of Discourse to be used not just as a discussion forum, but as a productivity tool.
Case 1 sounds basically like a homework inbox. I can see that as being useful, although I’m not sure timed replies is how I’d go about it. Wouldn’t it be better to just have a feautue that’s specifically for this, rather than asking everyone to set the same time (and possibily getting it wrong)? I would suggest topic timer that keeps all replies hidden until the given time, at which point they are revealed.
Case 2 sounds like the existing timed topic feature should usually work.