Need help with Email Scheduling

Question

Hi,I would like to configure my Marketo email campaigns to be sent only during regular working hours, specifically from 9 am to 5 pm, and exclusively on weekdays (Monday to Friday). Here's the desired behavior:If it's a working day and the current time falls between 9 am and 5 pm, I want emails to be sent immediately when certain trigger conditions are met.If it's a working day but the current time is after 5 pm, I want the email to be scheduled for delivery at 9 am on the next working day (if the next day is also a weekday. If not, the email should be sent on the following Monday at 9 am).If it's a working day but the current time is before 9 am, I want the email to be scheduled for delivery at 9 am on the same day.If it's not a working day, I want the email to be scheduled for delivery on the next Monday at 9 am.My question is whether it's possible to achieve this entirely within the Marketo UI, using flow steps? Currently, we've implemented a solution where we calculate and update a custom 'nextWorkingDateTime' field in the Person object using our middleware service. Then, in the flow step, we wait until the 'nextWorkingDateTime' is reached before sending the email.However, we would prefer to handle this logic solely within the Marketo UI and not rely on our middleware service.I've gone through these links, but I couldn't find a solution for this =>How can you send emails within a time frame? - Marketing Nation (marketo.com)Marketo Time-Based Logic for Emails, Lead Routing,... - Marketing Nationhttps://nation.marketo.com/t5/product-discussions/sending-emails-in-working-hours/td-p/131812https://nation.marketo.com/t5/product-discussions/wait-step-duration-end-time/td-p/205071https://nation.marketo.com/t5/product-discussions/wait-step-timeframe-range/td-p/337098https://nation.marketo.com/t5/product-blogs/velocitips-switch-email-content-based-on-day-time/ba-p/242703Thanks in advance.

Darshil_Shah1 · Answer

Well, you could use advanced Wait properties, but that would allow you to mention the wait step must end on days/range (e.g., M-F) and time, but not allow you to mention the time range so people don't come out of the wait step after a certain time of the day (e.g., 5 pm). Unfortunately, I think you'd still need to rely on your external service to calculate the correct datetime and populate it in a custom field on the person object. Strategically, if this email is an auto-responder or acknowledgment email based on a person's action, then I wouldn't mind sending the email in real-time instead of making them wait for the next M-F 9-5 window.

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