Publishing is what turns a draft schedule into something your team actually sees. One click sends each employee their week via email and SMS.
The Publish button
Top-right of /dashboard/schedule. Click it, pick which employees to send to (default: everyone with at least one shift this week), then Send.
Each opted-in employee receives:
- An email with a PDF attachment of their week and a link to subscribe to the live calendar feed.
- An SMS with a short summary and a link to the PDF (if SMS opt-in is on).
Pre-shift reminders are separate and fire automatically — see below.
Two SMS templates, two different jobs
A common confusion: there are two distinct SMS templates in Timely, and they fire on different events.
| Shift alert | Publish SMS | |
|---|---|---|
| When it fires | ~30 min before each shift, automatically (cron-driven) | When you click Publish |
| Audience mindset | "I'm about to work" | "What's my week look like?" |
| Default copy | "Hi {employee.name}, reminder: your shift starts at {shift.start} today." | "Hi {employee.name}, your {org.name} schedule for the week of {week.start} is ready. {shift.count} shifts. View: {schedule.link}" |
| Where to edit | Settings → Notifications → "Shift alert" tab | Settings → Notifications → "Publish (SMS)" tab |
| What turns it on | Per-week Send SMS Alert toggle in the schedule editor |
Employee sms_opt_in (always sent on publish if opted in) |
If you customize one template thinking it'll change both — it won't. They're stored separately so you can write tone-appropriate copy for each.
The publish email
Single template, configurable subject and body. Edit at Settings → Notifications → "Publish (Email)" tab. Available variables:
| Variable | Example output |
|---|---|
{employee.name} |
Sarah Chen |
{employee.first_name} |
Sarah |
{org.name} |
Maya's Lashes |
{location.name} |
Downtown |
{week.start} |
Apr 27 |
{week.end} |
May 3 |
{shift.count} |
5 |
{schedule.link} |
(URL to PDF) |
The PDF attachment is auto-generated and shows the full week formatted for printing. Employees can also click the calendar link to subscribe to a live-updating ICS feed in Google Calendar / Apple Calendar / Outlook.
Picking who to send to
The Publish dialog defaults to "everyone with a shift this week, who's opted in to whatever channel they need." You can override:
- Specific employees only — useful for a partial mid-week change.
- Email only / SMS only — bypass one channel if you've already sent it.
The dialog shows live counts: "Sending to 8 via email, 6 via SMS, 2 skipped (no contact info)."
What if I publish, then change the schedule?
Two paths:
- Manual republish — make your edits, click Publish again, pick the affected employees. Fastest for one or two changes.
- Per-employee send — there's a paper-airplane icon on the Edit Schedule modal that publishes just one employee's week. The icon auto-saves your form first, so you don't accidentally email last-published times.
If you forget to republish, the pre-shift reminder still uses the latest saved schedule — so the day-of text is accurate even if the original publish email is stale.
What gets sent when
A practical mental model for the three places Timely sends messages on your behalf:
- Publish = "this is your schedule for the week" — fired manually, once-per-week.
- Pre-shift reminder = "your next shift starts in 30 min" — fired automatically, once per shift.
- Time-off response = "your request was approved/denied" — fired automatically when you click approve/deny.
All three use SMS + email where applicable, all three respect sms_opt_in, and all three are tracked in the manager-side /admin/communications log so you can verify what actually went out.