The discussion explores the feasibility of adding a “scheduled reply” feature to Discourse, allowing users to delay responses similar to Gmail. renem initiates the thread asking if a plugin can enable moderators to schedule replies via the frontend. Overgrow suggests using the API, while codinghorror proposes a workaround involving hidden categories and topic timers. renem clarifies that a dedicated button is preferred for ease of use. CaptainZac and Andrew_Bond express interest in core integration or existing solutions for non-admin users needing to delay posts for NDAs or drip-feeding information. renem later shares a custom solution: the discourse-scheduled-reply-plugin, which adds a button to delay replies by 24, 48, or 72 hours. lowkey_324 encounters an installation error, which Moin resolves by explaining the tool is a plugin, not a theme, and providing installation instructions. Finally, saurabhmithal asks if this functionality can be extended to Discourse AI agents to simulate delayed community responses.
Hi all,
Would it be somehow possible to use “scheduled” replies, similar to how you can do this in Gmail?
We use the forum for support and sometimes it could be useful to delay a reply.
Is it technically possible to create a plugin for this perhaps?
Rene
It is easy to do currently with the Discourse API.
Post it in a different category, one that nobody can see – such as the staff category that comes with Discourse by default – and then issue a topic timer via the admin wrench on the topic to publish it to a different category.
Hi Jeff,
Thanks, that’s something we can try for now. It still takes a couple of clicks to do this though. Is it technically possible to create a scheduled reply button like in my screenshot? If so, I know I can ask a developer to dive into it.
Rene
Is there any plans on going through with this for the newest version?
I have been looking into other ways to “get around” this, but in this case, I want to schedule a reply, not a whole topic. For now, is there a theme or plugin that is able to be developed (or an existing one) that can accomplish this? Is there a way that this could be integrated into the core build of Discourse?
gentle bump on this. It would be a really useful feature to have to for people who are non admins but sometimes have NDA until a certain time , or want to drip information out
I had someone code this. It’s working great for us:
https://github.com/muhlisbc/discourse-scheduled-reply-plugin
You get an extra button:
With a choice to delay the reply by 24, 48, or 72 hours.
Enjoy!
Rene
Hi, any pointers on how to install this. When I try to add it as a theme using from a github repository. I get this error message:
An error occurred: Import Error: about.json does not exist, or is invalid. Are you sure this is a Discourse Theme?
This is a plugin and not a theme or theme-component. You need to follow Install plugins on a self-hosted site
can this work with a Discourse AI agent?
we want it to respond in 1-4 hours (similar to the community frequency) instead of instantly.
