Scheduled publishing for product launches

Ref: C07 · Track: Knowledge Base Admin · Time to complete: ~2 min

Why this matters

Launches happen at 9am on a specific day. You don't want to be manually publishing a dozen articles while someone is asking you "is the help center ready?". Schedule them in advance and walk away.

The feature

On any article in Ready to publish state:

1. Open the article.
2. In the publish panel, click Schedule publish.
3. Pick a date and time.
4. Save.

At the scheduled moment, the article flips from Ready to Published automatically. No manual intervention.

What you should schedule

• Product launch content — launches at 9am Tuesday, articles publish at 9am Tuesday.
• Announcement articles — embargoed until a specific hour.
• Seasonal / promotional content — "Black Friday policy" article live from midnight on the 29th.
• Regulatory effective dates — "New privacy policy (effective Jan 1)" goes live at midnight.

What not to schedule: - Urgent fixes — just publish now. - Content you haven't had reviewed — schedule only when it's actually ready. Scheduled publishing doesn't bypass review.

What happens at the scheduled time

• Article status flips to Published.
• The article appears in the help center according to its visibility rules.
• Any links already pointing at the article URL start resolving (previously they 404'd).
• The book view shows it as Published, with the scheduled date as the publish timestamp.

Editing a scheduled article

You can edit the article while it's scheduled. The schedule doesn't lock the content:

• Changes save as draft edits on top of the scheduled content.
• At publish time, the latest version is what goes live.

If you want to bump the schedule itself: open the article, change the scheduled time, save. Or click Cancel schedule to go back to Ready-to-publish state.

Timezones

Scheduled time respects the timezone set in Guide settings (or your admin's default). Double-check when scheduling for launches that cross timezones — a US launch at 9am PT is midnight the next day in Sydney. Preview the scheduled time string carefully.

Gotchas

• Scheduled ≠ Published. Until the moment fires, the article is NOT visible on the help center. Don't rely on scheduled articles for "staging" — use sandbox (C19) for that.
• Missed windows. If Zendesk is down at the exact scheduled minute (very rare), the article publishes at the next check. Usually seconds.
• No bulk schedule. Each article is scheduled individually. For a big launch, do it the day before and tick them off.

Quick check — have you got this?

• You have 5 articles to launch Tuesday 9am. What's the setup?
• Can customers see a scheduled article before its publish time?
• You edit a scheduled article two hours before it goes live. What version publishes?

Related articles

• C06 — Review statuses and publishing rules
• C19 — Using your sandbox to experiment safely