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How is this not a feature of Slack already? Sending scheduled messages is (or should be) a basic feature of a messaging client. I guess I just avoid slack like

How is this not a feature of Slack already? Sending scheduled messages is (or should be) a basic feature of a messaging client. I guess I just avoid slack like the plague simply because I hate their android client, but I assumed that was built in. Although I just checked, and apparently I'm out of touch, as both discord and signal don't offer this feature. Maybe I'm wierd, but I use scheduled SMS and email all the time. I don't want to ping a coworker on Sunday with something non-urgent, so I schedule a 9am email or text if there is something I think of on the weekend. As the article shows, this isn't that unusual of a request,so why isn't it built in to more messaging clients? I know before I checked, I just assumed that it was a standard feature.

ncallaway 5y ago
Totally agree with you. It's baffling to me that this isn't a built in feature of Slack. It feels like it should be table-stakes for a messaging client, but it apparently isn't.
- sammorrowdrums 5y ago
  Well /remind works in exactly the same way and you can tell it to remind people or channels etc. The fact that it shows as a reminder, not a message as if you just typed does matter in some contexts, but I certainly make heavy use of scheduling reminders in channels when it's important to follow up on something. For me I think this tool would be better when for example you know it's a birthday coming up and you want to write a message now. It always bugged me that Facebook doesn't let you do this either (although it is obvious why FB want you to have to come back). But I guess the funny thing about Slack not offering this is they have all the code / infra / text parsing they need to do it, it would surely be trivial to add.
paxys 5y ago
Dunno, scheduling messages sounds weird to me. Just send it. People will look at it and respond when they want to. They aren’t going to get pinged if they have DnD hours set.
- shimms 5y ago
  It sets the expectation for a lot of people that they should be checking and responding to messages at all hours. I’m a night owl, I like to do thought work after the day of busy meetings. I don’t want my direct reports feeling like I expect them to reply at 11pm when I send them an email, or on Sunday if I’m working. So I schedule it to arrive in the morning or in the next work day instead. You can tell them until you’re blue in the face, but actions speak louder than words.
  - Kiro 5y ago
    No idea why you want to miss out on an opportunity to show your boss that you're working late. The only use-case I see for scheduling is to do the opposite and schedule it in the night to pretend to be "going the extra mile" by working outside business hours.
    - shimms 5y ago
      I’m talking about the opposite where you are the boss. I don’t send emails at night so my staff don’t feel the expectation to be constantly checking and replying to me. Just because I work weird hours doesn’t mean I expect my staff to. If one of my team sends too many emails at weird hours I’d make a point of talking to them about their workload and life balance at an upcoming 1:1 to make sure things aren’t getting too off track.
    - Mehdi2277 5y ago
      Because teams want a cultural expectation of normal work hours. I am often a night owl and I’ve sent messages late at night and gotten asked my manager if I’m overworking and since then try to avoid doing it unless I’m responding to someone.
    - selfhoster11 5y ago
      Not all of us are performative, or want to set the expectation that we don't have a personal life.
    - Taylor_OD 5y ago
oneeyedpigeon 5y ago
> I use scheduled SMS all the time. TiL. I barely use SMS anymore. When I opened my client just now, sure enough, there was a little tooltip by the 'send' button telling me I can hold to schedule. I've never considered a need for scheduling SMS before. Am I right in concluding this is a new thing? If so, I think it's a bit unfair to castigate slack for lacking a feature that's taken SMS 20+ years to adopt.
- gberger 5y ago
  It's not a feature of SMS, rather it's implemented by SMS clients.

ncallaway 5y ago

Totally agree with you. It's baffling to me that this isn't a built in feature of Slack. It feels like it should be table-stakes for a messaging client, but it apparently isn't.

sammorrowdrums 5y ago
Well /remind works in exactly the same way and you can tell it to remind people or channels etc. The fact that it shows as a reminder, not a message as if you just typed does matter in some contexts, but I certainly make heavy use of scheduling reminders in channels when it's important to follow up on something. For me I think this tool would be better when for example you know it's a birthday coming up and you want to write a message now. It always bugged me that Facebook doesn't let you do this either (although it is obvious why FB want you to have to come back). But I guess the funny thing about Slack not offering this is they have all the code / infra / text parsing they need to do it, it would surely be trivial to add.

paxys 5y ago

Dunno, scheduling messages sounds weird to me. Just send it. People will look at it and respond when they want to. They aren’t going to get pinged if they have DnD hours set.

shimms 5y ago
It sets the expectation for a lot of people that they should be checking and responding to messages at all hours. I’m a night owl, I like to do thought work after the day of busy meetings. I don’t want my direct reports feeling like I expect them to reply at 11pm when I send them an email, or on Sunday if I’m working. So I schedule it to arrive in the morning or in the next work day instead. You can tell them until you’re blue in the face, but actions speak louder than words.
- Kiro 5y ago
  No idea why you want to miss out on an opportunity to show your boss that you're working late. The only use-case I see for scheduling is to do the opposite and schedule it in the night to pretend to be "going the extra mile" by working outside business hours.
  - shimms 5y ago
    I’m talking about the opposite where you are the boss. I don’t send emails at night so my staff don’t feel the expectation to be constantly checking and replying to me. Just because I work weird hours doesn’t mean I expect my staff to. If one of my team sends too many emails at weird hours I’d make a point of talking to them about their workload and life balance at an upcoming 1:1 to make sure things aren’t getting too off track.
  - Mehdi2277 5y ago
    Because teams want a cultural expectation of normal work hours. I am often a night owl and I’ve sent messages late at night and gotten asked my manager if I’m overworking and since then try to avoid doing it unless I’m responding to someone.
  - selfhoster11 5y ago
    Not all of us are performative, or want to set the expectation that we don't have a personal life.
  - Taylor_OD 5y ago

oneeyedpigeon 5y ago

> I use scheduled SMS all the time. TiL. I barely use SMS anymore. When I opened my client just now, sure enough, there was a little tooltip by the 'send' button telling me I can hold to schedule. I've never considered a need for scheduling SMS before. Am I right in concluding this is a new thing? If so, I think it's a bit unfair to castigate slack for lacking a feature that's taken SMS 20+ years to adopt.

gberger 5y ago
It's not a feature of SMS, rather it's implemented by SMS clients.