Schedule a Direct Assignment to be delivered at a specific date and time in the future. Useful for quarterly launches, cross-timezone coordination, and letting an assignment fire when you're not logged in.

Scheduled Assignments let you build a Direct Assignment ahead of time and pick when it goes out, down to the specific date, time, and timezone. Once scheduled, the assignment sits in the queue until the scheduled moment, then fires automatically. You don't need to be logged in.

This capability applies to Direct Assignments only. Automated Assignments (driven by Smart Segmentation) evaluate on their own cadence and don't use scheduling.

When to Use Scheduled Assignments

• Quarterly launches. Build the assignment in advance, schedule it for the launch date, walk away.
• Cross-timezone rollouts. Send at a time that lands in learners' business hours, not yours.
• Coordinated release with content. Pair the assignment schedule with a content publish date so learners get the assignment right when the content becomes available.
• Off-hours delivery. Fire an assignment at 8:00 AM Monday without having to be logged in over the weekend.
• Approval workflow. Draft the assignment, get sign-off, then schedule it for the agreed-on send date.

How to Schedule a Direct Assignment

Build the Direct Assignment as you normally would (see Creating a Direct Assignment for the full walkthrough). When you reach the Publish step, you'll see the Publish Assignment panel.

Under Publish Settings, choose one of the three options:

• Publish Now — sends the assignment immediately.
• Schedule for Later — sets a specific date and time when the assignment will be delivered.
• Save as Draft — parks the assignment for you to return to later. Nothing is sent until you come back and choose Publish Now or Schedule for Later.

Selecting Schedule for Later reveals the Schedule Date & Time picker with three fields:

• Date — the day the assignment should go out.
• Time — the time of day it should fire (e.g. 9:00am).
• Timezone — the timezone the date and time are interpreted in. Set this deliberately if you're scheduling for an audience in a different region.

The primary button at the bottom of the panel changes to Schedule when the Schedule for Later option is selected. Click Schedule to queue the assignment.

Finding Your Scheduled Assignments

Scheduled assignments appear in the All Assignments table alongside your live and draft assignments. In the Delivered Date column, a scheduled assignment shows a distinct pill: Scheduled [Date] · [Time]. Drafts show a Draft pill; delivered assignments show the actual delivery date.

Use the pill to see at a glance what's queued to go out, when, and to whom. Filter or sort by the Delivered Date column to review upcoming sends.

Editing a Scheduled Assignment

You can edit any part of a scheduled assignment before it fires, such as recipients, content, due date, notifications, escalation settings, and everything else. Open the assignment from the All Assignments table, make your changes, and re-save. The schedule stays in place unless you change it explicitly.

If you need to change the send time itself, edit the schedule from the Publish step of the assignment builder. The date, time, and timezone fields work the same way they did when you originally scheduled it.

Cancelling a Scheduled Assignment

To cancel a scheduled assignment before it fires, open the assignment from the All Assignments table and cancel it from there. Once cancelled, the assignment will not be sent at the scheduled time and no learner receives it.

Cancelling a scheduled assignment is different from cancelling a live assignment. A scheduled assignment hasn't gone out yet, so no learners are affected. A live assignment (already delivered) requires you to manage the recipients directly — see Managing And Manually Completing Assignments.

What Happens When the Schedule Fires

At the scheduled date and time (in the chosen timezone), Continu delivers the assignment as if you had clicked Publish Now at that moment:

• The assignment is created and appears in the assigned learners' dashboards.
• Assignment notifications fire per the notification configuration you set (new-assignment notifications, custom notifications, and so on).
• Due-date logic kicks in based on the assignment's due-date settings.
• The Delivered Date column updates from the "Scheduled" pill to the actual delivery date.

You don't need to be logged in for the assignment to fire.

Considerations

Set the timezone deliberately. The timezone picker defaults to your admin timezone. If you're scheduling an assignment for a global audience or a specific regional cohort, change the timezone to match the audience so the send time lands where they are, not where you are.

Verify recipients before scheduling. The recipient list is captured when you schedule. If your recipient list is based on a Smart Segment, learners who move in or out of that segment between now and the fire time will not be re-evaluated — the assignment goes to the users you scheduled it for.

Set a due date that makes sense from the send time, not from today. If you're scheduling four weeks out, a due date "in two weeks" measured from today would already be overdue by the time the assignment fires. Set the due date relative to the scheduled send date.

Preview your notifications. Any notification copy you set will be sent when the schedule fires. Review the notification text and any custom notifications you've added before scheduling.

Common Pitfalls

Scheduling in the wrong timezone. Setting the picker to your admin timezone when the audience is in a different region means the assignment lands at an unexpected time for the recipients. Always confirm the timezone matches the audience.

Forgetting to check the "Scheduled" pill before creating a duplicate. If the assignment already exists as a scheduled item, creating a fresh one and sending it now will result in duplicate assignments for the recipients. Filter your All Assignments view by scheduled items before creating something new.

Editing without checking the fire time. If you edit a scheduled assignment, verify the schedule is still what you want. The schedule doesn't change unless you change it, but a distracted edit can accidentally leave you with a send time that's already past.

Assuming scheduling applies to Automated Assignments. It doesn't. Automated Assignments (driven by Smart Segmentation) evaluate on their own cadence, as there's no scheduled-send option for them.

Where This Fits

Scheduled Assignments is a publish-time option in the Direct Assignment builder. If you're new to Direct Assignments, start with Creating a Direct Assignment, then come back here for the scheduling piece.

See Also

• Creating a Direct Assignment — the full Direct Assignment walkthrough.
• Designing Assignments: Direct vs. Automated — when to use each type.
• Assignments: FAQ — common questions.
• Managing And Manually Completing Assignments — for post-delivery management.

Build the Direct Assignment, choose Schedule for Later at the Publish step, pick date + time + timezone, click Schedule. Edit or cancel any time before it fires. Direct Assignments only.