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Trigger for email at a specific time of day

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alltheragedave
4 - Data Explorer
4 - Data Explorer

Hi! 

I'm attempting to have an email going out to remind clients of their appointment time & details the before it happens. For example at 9am on the day of the appointment. 

I created a formula for "Is this today?" 

IF(IS_SAME(TODAY(), SET_TIMEZONE({Start Time}, 'America/Anchorage'), 'day'), 'Yes', 'No')
 
The automation for "When a Record Matches Conditions" (When "Is this today?"=Yes) is used so that it creates an individual email for each appointment, rather than one email with all of them. 
 
This fires at a weird time of day (5pm PST) so I'm sure it has something to do with time zones. I have attempted to modify the time zone this formula references with no luck. 

There is surely a simpler way to do this, can anyone point me in the right direction?

Any help is appreciated! 
2 Replies 2

Could try re-work the automation to trigger at a specific time of day. Then make the first step a look up action to find any that match for "today". Then a repeating action for the email. Not sure if this will fix that timezone issue though.

Or you could try triggering when record enters view. Then simply make a locked view somewhere where those records enter if the specific date is today to or before today. With this one, you may be able to mess around with the view's filters so it enters at the exact timings you want.


Justin Ng
Programme Coordinator at Sistema Aotearoa
https://www.sistemaaotearoa.org.nz/

+1 for the triggering at a specific time option with a repeating group to send one email per record

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I think that "SET_TIMEZONE" only modifies the display and not the underlying data which is saved in GMT, and so the formula's really just checking whether {Start Time} in GMT is equals to TODAY() (which is calculated in GMT), resulting in the automation firing at around 5pm PST (which is 12am GMT)

To handle that, I think you'll need to modify the {Start Time} value by the time difference between PST and GMT?

This is a really long winded way of saying: I think you should go with @Sistema_Aotearo's suggestion and trigger the automation at a time of day you set heh