Scheduled Automation - Part One: Regular Scheduling

Real-time automation scheduling is an integral part of business applications. In the TexAu automation platform, there are many different ways to schedule automated actions on social networks.

You can schedule in advance complex workflows to automate your business processes on social networks without any manual intervention. TexAu's ability to schedule platforms is pretty helpful for providing lead generation agencies, human resources recruiters, SEOs, and Social Media Teams a repeatable process to boost their efforts on Social Media Platforms.

This option is available in the cloud scheduler or the desktop app client.

Here are some examples of what you can achieve using TexAu as a social media marketing tool:

• Extract social media content: social posts and articles (Ex: a LinkedIn post, or any posts on social media channels TexAu supports)
• Extract profile social content and activities (ex: number of posts per month)
• Extract Group Members' social profiles (ex: LinkedIn Groups, Facebook Groups,...)
• Extract social networks images and videos from posts
• Extract & watch Instagram Stories, auto-like, auto-comment
• Auto-retweet Twitter posts and auto-dm Twitter accounts
• Measure engagement rate by scraping likes and comments on social media posts
• Extract Google My Business listings
• Extract social media profiles data (personal profile or business profile)
• Outreach to social profiles via direct messaging on LinkedIn and Twitter
• Extract keyword metadata, emails, and phones from your favorite blog posts
• Automate third-party apps and integrations
• Multi-account management: it can automate multiple social accounts

TexAu will require you to connect to your social media accounts using cookies.

TexAu is not a social media management platform. It focuses on data extraction and lead generation as opposed to a social media scheduler that manages your content calendar and tracks social media performance across social media channels.

While it can not schedule posts and do direct publishing like most social media scheduling tools yet, it will in the future. Same for social media analytics.

TexAu Scheduling Tools: Inputs

In single automation, you can use TexAu task scheduler from 3 data input sources:

1. from direct URL
2. from Google sheet
3. from CSV

Also, in each of these methods, you can schedule automation in 3 interval type modes:

1. Daily limit: you run the scheduled task until it hits the daily limit, then it will restart the next day after 24 hours.
2. Daily & Weekly scheduled time: add daily start time, end time, and weekdays.
3. Advanced Scheduling (explained separately in the following article).

These 3 modes will help you to schedule your automation at the best optimal times.

Scheduling depends on your timezone setting. You can set up your timezone from your account

here:

https://app.texau.com/account

I - Automation Schedules In Single Automation

1) From Direct URL Input

Here, you can process results from a unique input URL directly pasted in TexAu input fields.

Ex: Profile URL, group URL, post URL, search filter URL, etc.…

Schedule Types

Here you can schedule any automation at different interval types.

At regular Intervals:

Every "X" minutes:

Once, at a specified date and time:

Every day:

Some days of the week:

A few dates of the month:

At specific dates of the year:

Just hit the blue button "Start Schedule" to start the automation when you are all set and done. It will then schedule tasks at the defined chosen time.

2) Schedule From Google Sheet Data Input

The regular scheduling process from a Google Sheet input is easy.

First, add your Google Sheet URL after setting its sharing permission to "Viewer" (input only) or "Editor" (If you intend to write output data on the sheet):

After creating a local variable, map it to the corresponding column on the sheet containing the data you want to process (ex: a list of profile URLs you wish to comment on their posts).

For this, click the little blue button above the column fields to map each variable to the desired column:

The three dashed lines button on the right of the field is for picking global variables, which is common to store your connection cookies, for instance:

The blue buttons placed above the fields are for mapping google sheet columns:

If you have headers on your sheet, tick the box "Does the sheet have the first row for headers?" option:

Google Sheet Scheduler Screen Options

What Does "Process only new results" Mean?

This setting is familiar to Phantombuster users but is often confusing for most people.

Many people think it's a feature meant to remove identical output results from a Google sheet, but it's NOT.

The purpose of this setting is to prevent any duplicate INPUT URLs from being processed twice in a automation.

It serves the purpose of processing unique URLs:

This setting is necessary for these scenarios:

• sending connection request
• sending messages or dm's
• clicks and reactions: likes, love, thumbs up, skill endorsements, etc.
• comments

Concrete example: prevent sending twice a message or connection request to the same profile when reprocessing a Google sheet or a search filter input when scheduled to run at regular intervals.

That way, when TexAu will reprocess your CSV or Google Sheet from top to bottom, it will skip the profiles (rows) processed the day before and only process new ones.

What Does "Wait for New Entries" Mean?

If you intend to add manually new rows to a running automation (ex: new data added manually to the sheet), also tick the box "Wait for new entries". TexAu will listen and auto-detect any new row added to the sheet and add them to the processing queue:

So what Does "Number Of Rows To Skip From The Sheet" Mean?

Optional: if you have a sheet but only want to process profiles below a specific row index on it, you can use the setting "Number of rows to skip from the sheet" to skip those from processing:

Desktop app only: if you process automation from the cloud on your browser, set your proxy settings too:

Now, if you want to schedule the automation between defined hours of the day and days of the week:

1. Click on the "Advanced Scheduling" accordion.
2. Head over to the bottom section and set up the start time, end time, and days of the week.
3. Hit the green button "Submit Google Sheet" to launch the automation.

3) From CSV Data Input

Scheduling a automation from a CSV file input is similar to Google sheets.

Here you can either drag and drop or upload an input CSV file from your computer:

Once the file is loaded, it will be auto-mapped in TexAu.

Just the required input variable (profile URL in the example below) to the data column.

If you have headers on your CSV, tick the corresponding checkbox too:

Same as with Google Sheets, if you want to schedule the automation between defined hours of the day and days of the week:

1. Click on the "Advanced Scheduling" accordion.
2. Next, head over to the bottom section and set up the start time, end time, and days of the week.
3. Finally, hit the blue button "Execute CSV" to launch the automation.

II - Automation Workflows Schedules In Workflows

Scheduling in workflows is the same process described above for automation. But the way to access it is different. Here, the setting is accessible inside the workflow builder.

1) From Direct Data Input

2) From Google Sheet Data Input

Same as with single automation modules, you can access the four scheduling modes:

1. Daily Limit Scheduling
2. Batch Scheduler (only available in workflows)
3. Daily & Weekly Scheduling
4. Advanced Scheduling (will be covered separately)

1) Default Daily Limits

Here you will add your sheet URL, map the input columns and submit the sheet directly.

In this case, TexAu will apply the default daily limits.

If you have a workflows with many automation with different limits, the workflow will stop for 24 hours until the automation with the lowest daily limit reaches its maximum allowance. Then the automation will continue where it left after a pause of 24 hours.

2) Google Sheets Batch Scheduler

Here, the difference is that you can schedule batch a "maximum number of rows to process every day". TexAu will batch process these rows on the following schedule.

Let's say you input 10 URLs (profiles, or else). Then only 10 URLs will be processed every day.

Note that this setting will still be "capped" by the daily limits of the automation with a minimum allowance.

3) Daily & Weekly Scheduling

Here, the difference with the Batch Scheduler is that you will process a defined number of URLs per day within a time range.

Ex: Every day between 8 am to 8 pm, from Monday to Friday.

Let's say you input 10 URLs (profiles, or else). Then only 10 URLs will be processed every day.

Note that this setting will also be "capped" by the daily limits of the automation with a minimum allowance.

Ex: If you input, let's say, 50 profile URLs and the lowest daily limit is 20, TexAu will only process 20 profiles per day.

Similarly, if you don't reach the daily limit, but the automation didn't complete the defined schedule, it will stop and restart where it left on the following planned schedule.

4) Advanced Scheduling

This mode only processes input URLs individually across ALL the automation modules of a workflow.

So URLs will iterate from start to finish, one by one, instead of iterating in each automation going to the next.

We will describe this particular model and its applications in detail in the following article.

Optional Setting: Number of rows to skip from the sheet

This setting is only applicable if you want to start the execution from another row index than the beginning of your sheet. This setting will skip a data range (number of rows).

Ex: reprocessing an old list of social profiles you already processed in the past. Logically, you would skip those from your campaign. This is what this setting does.

Same as explained above, tick the corresponding checkboxes for:

• Headers: if your sheet has headers.
• New results: active this is you intend to automate likes, comments, endorsements, direct messages, and connection requests.
• New entries: if you intend to manually add new rows at the bottom of your sheet that you want to process while the automation is running.

3) From CSV Data Input

Processing a CSV file as input in workflows is the same process as with Google Sheets above:

The only difference is the way you add your CSV file by uploading it either from drag and drop or file selection on your hard drive:

Scheduling options are the same as Google Sheets, except you don't have the "new entries" options since you upload a file. In the same way, you won't be able to modify this file once the automation is running.

Running Batch Process Automation from Google Sheets or CSV

When using Google Sheets or CSV file input, you should run the automation from the "Submit" (Sheet) or "Execute" (CSV) button at the bottom of the Sheet and CSV modal:



Additional Tips

Editing a running schedule

If you scheduled your workflow to start at a specific time regularly, you could also access and edit the current schedule from the logs, even if your automation is running.

So let's say you have an active automation schedule running between 8 am to 8 pm from Monday to Friday and want to change it. You can do so here and access batch details:

Notifications

You can trigger event notifications to your favorite internal communication software like Slack or Microsoft Teams via webhooks. This will inform you of your automation execution success or failure.

You can also receive a notification email for the same.

Conclusion

Automation tools should be an integral part of your marketing strategy and allow a wide range of applications on social media networks.

Using the TexAu automation software scheduling feature is a great way to streamline your business processes and gain hundreds of hours of productivity by automating the boring tasks.

Social media managers can TexAu social media tools in combination with their Social Media Management Tool to increase their social media presence engagement on social platforms. Business users and Sales alike can use it to increase their outreach campaigns on social channels.

This makes TexAu the ideal companion of a well-executed Social Media Strategy.