Choosing How to Send
The schedule step opens with three modes:- One-time — Send the campaign once. Choose immediate, scheduled, or local-time delivery.
- Recurring — Send on a repeating schedule. Serval automatically creates a new run each time the schedule fires.
- Triggered — A workflow decides when the campaign fires — on an incoming webhook, a Serval event, a schedule (cron) you build, or any condition. A scheduling workflow can drive it on a cadence like a recurring campaign, plus react to events and branch on logic.
One-Time Schedules
One-time campaigns support three delivery modes.Immediate
Messages are sent as soon as you run the campaign. Serval begins delivering to all recipients right away. Best for: Urgent announcements, time-sensitive updates, or situations where delivery timing doesn’t matter.Scheduled
Pick a specific date, time, and timezone. All recipients receive the message at the same moment. Best for: Coordinated announcements tied to a specific moment, such as a product launch, a policy effective date, or a scheduled maintenance window.If you run a scheduled campaign before the chosen time, Serval queues the messages and delivers them when the time arrives. If the time has already passed, messages are sent immediately.
Local Time
Pick a wall-clock time, and each recipient receives the message at that time in their own timezone. Serval groups recipients into timezone batches and delivers each batch at the appropriate time. Between batches, the campaign status shows Waiting for next batch. Best for: Messages that should arrive during business hours for each recipient, such as a benefits enrollment reminder or an IT survey.Recurring Schedules
Recurring campaigns repeat on a cron-based schedule. When you select Recurring, you configure three things: frequency, delivery mode, and whether to run immediately on activation.Frequency
Choose how often the campaign fires:
For day-of-week, day-of-month, and month frequencies you also pick a time of day and timezone for delivery.
Delivery mode
For fixed-time frequencies (day of week, day of month, months), you choose how the time is interpreted:- Specific timezone — Everyone receives the message at the same moment, using the timezone you selected.
- Local time — Each recipient receives the message at the chosen time in their own timezone, the same way one-time local scheduling works.
Minute and hour interval schedules always deliver to everyone at the same time. The local-time option is only available for fixed-time frequencies.
Run immediately
When you activate a recurring campaign, you can choose whether to fire the first run right away or wait for the next regular cycle:- Run immediately (default) — The first run starts as soon as you activate the series. For local-time delivery, recipients whose local time has already passed that day receive the message right away.
- Wait for next cycle — The series waits until the next scheduled fire time before sending the first run.
Upcoming sends preview
The schedule step shows a preview of the next several upcoming send times so you can verify the cadence is correct before activating.Runs
Each time a recurring schedule fires, Serval creates a new run that goes through its own send lifecycle. You can view all runs from the parent campaign’s Runs tab and drill into any individual run to see its delivery and response data.Triggered
A triggered campaign sends when a workflow fires it, through the Trigger Campaign action — the workflow owns the timing, instead of a fixed schedule set on the campaign. Each fire sends the campaign’s message to its configured recipients, with per-fire values passed in from the workflow. What sets off that workflow is up to you: an incoming webhook from another system, a Serval event (a ticket created, access granted), a schedule (cron) you build in Workflows, or any condition you can express. So “triggered” isn’t limited to external events — a scheduling workflow can drive it on a cadence the way a recurring campaign does, while also reacting to events and branching on logic that a plain schedule can’t.How it works
A triggered campaign is a template: a saved message, recipient list, and delivery channel that never sends on its own. A workflow fires it by calling the Trigger Campaign action with the campaign’s ID. Each fire spawns a new run (like a recurring campaign’s runs), delivers to the recipients configured on the campaign the moment it fires, and fills any{{Trigger.*}} variables in the message from values the workflow passes in.
The trigger controls when the campaign sends and supplies per-fire variables. It does not choose recipients — those stay statically configured on the campaign (users, groups, or a CSV), exactly like a one-time or recurring campaign.
When to use it
For a straightforward time-based send, the built-in one-time or recurring modes are simpler — no workflow needed. Reach for triggered when an external system, a Serval event, or conditional logic should decide when to send — or when you want the schedule to live in a workflow alongside other steps.
Creating a triggered campaign
1
Choose Triggered in the schedule step
Create a campaign as usual (see Create a Campaign). On the Schedule step, pick Triggered. The date/cadence options are replaced with a panel explaining that the campaign fires from a workflow.
2
Write your message with trigger variables
Compose the message as normal. Wherever you want a value the workflow supplies per fire, insert a trigger variable like
{{Trigger.incidentTitle}}. Per-recipient {{Recipient.*}} variables still personalize each message alongside them.3
Save the campaign
Save to create the campaign as a draft. Saving assigns the campaign an ID — the workflow needs this ID to fire it. The triggered panel shows the ID (copyable) once the campaign is saved.
4
Build the triggering workflow
From the triggered panel, click Create trigger in Workflows. Serval opens the workflow builder pre-seeded to wire up the Trigger Campaign action for this campaign — including any trigger variables your message references. You choose how the workflow is triggered (a webhook, a Serval event, a schedule, …) when you build it.
5
Activate the campaign
Back on the campaign, click Activate. Only an active campaign fires — until you activate it, the workflow’s calls are ignored (nothing sends). Pause it any time to stop fires without deleting it.
Trigger variables
Trigger variables carry values from the workflow into the message. Reference one as{{Trigger.<key>}} in the message or subject — for example, {{Trigger.incidentTitle}}.
A trigger variable is one value per fire — the same for every recipient of that send. That’s different from
{{Recipient.*}} and {{CSV.*}} variables, which vary per recipient. Use trigger variables for facts about the event that fired the campaign (an incident title, a system name), and recipient variables to address each person.Hi {{Recipient.FirstName}}, a new incident ({{Trigger.incidentTitle}}) was opened — please take a look. renders each recipient’s own first name next to the one incident from this fire. (Note that {{Trigger.*}} does not address the recipient — the campaign sends to its statically configured recipients, and the trigger value is shared across all of them.)
The set of {{Trigger.*}} keys your message references is the campaign’s fire-time contract: every referenced key must be supplied on each fire, or that fire is rejected and nothing sends. (An empty value is allowed; a missing key is not.) The workflow you build from Create trigger in Workflows is pre-seeded to map each key, so it satisfies the contract out of the box.
Trigger variables only resolve for a triggered campaign. If you reference
{{Trigger.*}} in a one-time or recurring campaign, Serval flags it and blocks activation — those campaigns have no trigger to fill the value.Wiring the workflow
The Trigger Campaign action is what fires the campaign from a workflow. Create trigger in Workflows sets it up for you, but it helps to understand what it does:
Serval de-duplicates fires by event ID so the same event never sends twice:
- Provide an event ID (e.g. the webhook’s delivery ID) and re-deliveries of that same event are ignored — the campaign fires exactly once for that event, even if the workflow runs again later.
- Omit it and the event ID defaults to the workflow run’s ID, so an automatic retry of a run doesn’t double-send — one run, one send. A new run sends again.
Activating, pausing, and runs
Triggered campaigns use the same lifecycle as recurring campaigns: Activate to arm the campaign so workflow fires send, Pause to stop sending on new fires (a run already in progress finishes), and Resume to re-arm it (fires that arrived while paused are not replayed). Each fire creates a run on the campaign’s Runs tab with its own delivery and response data.Good to know
- Recipients are static. The trigger fires the send and supplies per-fire variables — not the audience. Set recipients on the campaign itself.
- Activate it first. A draft or paused campaign ignores fires (nothing sends, and the workflow doesn’t error).
- Same team only. A workflow can only fire campaigns in its own team.
Choosing a Schedule
Related
Create a Campaign
Walk through the campaign wizard step by step
Manage Campaigns
Run, activate, stop, and manage campaign lifecycle
Workflows
Build the workflow that fires a triggered campaign
Analytics
Track delivery progress and response data