Postpone delivery waves based on time restrictions

[LAR1985]

Hello community,

We have limited the time frame for sending emails to between 21:00 and 8:00. To do this, in the deliveries section, under the scheduling option, in ‘Contact date calculation’, we have included the following formula that allows the sending to be postponed to the enabled hours Iif(Hour(GetDate())>=21,AddHours(ToDate(AddDays(GetDate(),1)),8),Iif(Hour(GetDate())<8,AddHours(ToDate(GetDate()),8),GetDate()))

On the other hand, we use the waves feature to send emails in several batches, with the ‘send using multiple waves’ delivery option.

The problem we have is that the time restriction is applied to the first wave but not to the following ones. How can we manage this so that all waves are sent within the enabled time range and if one of them falls within the range we do not want, that wave is postponed and the following ones are executed accordingly?

Thanks

[Rch_]

Hey @LAR1985,

You're doing the right thing by restricting sends to between 21:00 and 08:00 using the contact date formula. The issue you're hitting makes sense though — Adobe Campaign evaluates that formula only for the "First wave", and then the system handles the rest of the waves based on fixed intervals, without re-checking your logic.

So unfortunately, the later waves won’t follow your time rule unless the timings just happen to fall within your allowed window.

What you can do instead not use the built-in waves and instead handle the batching yourself in a workflow. For example:

- Use a Split activity to divide your audience into smaller groups.
- For each group, apply your date/time logic (same formula) to push the send into the allowed time frame.
- Then trigger separate deliveries per group — this way, each group respects the time rule, not just the first.

This gives you more control and avoids unexpected behavior with the built-in waves.

Thanks,

[LAR1985]

Thank you very much for your reply.

If there is no other option, we will split them in the workflow into different deliveries, but business users do not like this solution very much for reporting reasons.

Is there no way to manage this at the typology rules level or including code in personalization tag?

Thanks

[Rch_]

Yeah, I totally get why you’d want to handle this in typology rules — it’d be super convenient. But the tricky part is typology rules only come into play after the delivery is already put together, so they’re mostly just there to catch issues or block sends if something’s off.

They don’t really let us split deliveries or control how they’re built. At best, we can use them to throw an error if, for example, the wave start time isn’t in your allowed window.

If you’re looking to adjust timing or structure, that kind of logic has to happen earlier — like in the workflow, maybe with a quick JS step before the delivery gets analyzed.

Thanks,