Q. Where will the celebration messages appear?
The messages will be sent automatically to the channel you select. Some teams use the #general channel, and others prefer to create a dedicated #celebrations channel.
Q. What happens if the birthday or work anniversary is over the weekend?
Messages will be sent the Friday before the celebration. The Message will adapt its language by default if the celebration falls on a weekend.
E.g., A message that says "Today is @essence's birthday" Will be sent as "Tomorrow is @essence's birthday" if the message falls on a Saturday.
For private manager reminders, a celebration on Monday gets its reminder the Friday before.
Q. What happens when a member leaves the company? Does deactivating their Slack account instantly remove them from birthdays/anniversaries?
If someone leaves the channel you send celebration messages to, their birthday/anniversary won't be celebrated anymore. Since deactivating a Slack account automatically removes this person from all channels, no celebration messages will be sent for this user once the account has been deactivated.
Q. Can I celebrate only anniversaries or only birthdays on a channel?
Yes! You can choose only to celebrate one of these on a channel. Please see Step 4 in the "How to start a Donut Celebrations channel" article for more information.
Q. Can Donut remind managers privately instead of posting in a channel?
Yes! Turn on Send private birthday reminders to managers on the Messages tab, and Donut will DM each manager one workday before their direct report's celebration. You can keep channel posts on or turn them off. See Send private reminders to managers for setup.
Q. What if someone prefers not to have their birthday celebrated?
There are two ways that a person's birthday can become private:
1. Admins can toggle off birthday messages from the Dates tab in the dashboard.
2. This setting can also be managed by any individual in Donut's Home Tab in Slack. You may click the Celebrations Preferences button and remove any channels you wish not to be celebrated in.
Opting out of channel celebrations doesn't remove someone from private manager reminders. If reminders are on, their manager still gets one, with a note that they may prefer not to celebrate publicly. Teammates see a heads-up about this in their Celebration Preferences.
Q. Can I prompt Donut to ask my teammates for their Celebrations Dates in Slack?
Yes! There is an "Ask for Dates" button on the Dates tab that will trigger a message to those who are missing birth dates and/or work start dates. You can select which folks you'd like to receive the message and view a preview of the DM as well.
Q. What days will group messages be sent?
If your celebration messages are set to the weekly cadence, they will be sent on Mondays. If you have set them to be sent Monthly, they will be sent on the first work day of every month. Grouped messages are available on the Standard and Premium plans.
Q. If someone new joins our team, will I have to add their dates manually?
You won't have to add them manually, but you do have the option to! There are 2 ways for you to add dates for new hires:
Once they're added to your Celebrations channel, their name(s) will appear in the dashboard, and you can update birthday + work anniversary dates manually.
When new hires are added to the channel, they'll receive a message from Donut prompting them to add their dates themselves right in Slack.
Q. Why was a Celebrations message missed?
Typically, a Celebrations message will fail to send for any of the following reasons:
The participant's date was never added
The participant choose to opt out of having that date celebrated
The date was added in after the Celebration was scheduled to go out
If your participant's date is added after the Celebration was scheduled to go out, you can reschedule your Celebration for later in the day. Donut will then make another attempt at sending the Celebration out at the updated time.
To reschedule your Celebrations message, visit your dashboard here. Find the Celebrations channel in question and click the ⚙️ gear icon. Click Messages, and you'll find "Message send time." Update the time and click "Save."
If you have any questions or feedback, click the purple Donut button on the bottom right of your screen to open up a chat with our support team!