Schedule periods

  • Release version: Washingtondc
  • Updated February 1, 2024
  • 2 minutes to read
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    Summary of Schedule periods Extend ServiceNow AI Platform capabilities

    The Schedule Periods feature in ServiceNow allows you to define how often a survey can be sent to users. The available options include Only Once, No Limit, Daily, Weekly, Monthly, and Yearly, with No Limit set as the default. Selecting a frequency other than Only Once or No Limit triggers the creation of a scheduled job that manages survey instances for users.

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    Key Features

    • Survey Instance Management: Ensures users can only complete one survey instance per schedule period.
    • New Instance Generation: Automatically generates new survey instances at the start of each schedule period for users who completed the previous instance.
    • Expiration Dates: The expiration date of survey instances is set based on the chosen schedule period, preventing users from receiving new instances until the old ones expire.
    • Dynamic Updates: Changing the schedule period automatically updates the scheduled job, but existing survey instances will still need to expire before new ones can be sent.

    Key Outcomes

    By effectively using schedule periods, ServiceNow customers can ensure timely and organized survey distribution, enhance user engagement through controlled survey frequency, and maintain accurate records of survey completion. This functionality ultimately helps in gathering reliable feedback while respecting the users' response capabilities.

    The available schedule periods are Only Once, No Limit, Daily, Weekly, Monthly, and Yearly.

    The default schedule period is No Limit. When you set the schedule period to anything except Only Once or No Limit, the system creates a corresponding scheduled job. The scheduled job performs the following actions.
    • Ensures that a user can take one survey instance of the same survey per schedule period.
    • Generates a new survey instance for each survey user at the beginning of the new schedule period, as long as the survey user does not have an incomplete instance of that survey. A survey instance is incomplete if the state is not Complete.

    For example, if you set the schedule period to Monthly and someone attempts to send survey invitations twice in the same day, the system generates survey instances for the survey users the first time only. At the beginning of the next schedule period, the system generates another survey instance for each survey user who completed the previous one.

    Schedule periods are enforced by the Expiration date field on the survey instance. As long as the survey instance expiration date has not passed, the assigned user cannot receive a new survey instance. When the system generates a survey instance and the schedule period is anything except No Limit, the Expiration date field is automatically set to the appropriate date. For example, if the schedule period is Weekly, the expiration date is a week after the survey instance is generated.

    If you change the schedule period, the scheduled job updates automatically to the correct schedule. However, users who have survey instances for the survey cannot receive new survey instances until their existing survey instances expire, regardless of the new schedule period.

    Consider the following example: Sal Pindell receives a survey instance when the schedule period is Weekly. The next day, a survey administrator changes the schedule period to No Limit. Sal cannot receive another survey instance until one of the following actions occurs.
    • Seven days pass from the time Sal's survey instance was generated.
    • A survey administrator deletes Sal's survey instance.

    After one of these actions occurs, Sal can receive a new survey instance anytime, as long as he has no incomplete instances of the survey.

    Note:
    If you use a trigger condition for a survey, ensure the schedule period is set to No Limit. Trigger conditions use a different method to regulate how often users can receive survey instances.