Item scheduling is a special facility in SharePoint 2010 which helps to publish a document/page for a specified period. This feature is available out-of-the-box for publishing sites for the Pages library. It can also be implemented in a Team Site for custom document libraries.

The following sections describe how to set-up item scheduling.

Activate Publishing Timer Job Definitions for the Web Application’s Document Library

Perform the following steps in Central Administration:

  1. On the Quick Launch menu, select Monitoring.
  2. In the Timer Jobs section, click Review Job Definitions.
  3. In the screen, ensure that the highlighted jobs are shown with the specified Web application.
  4. Click Scheduled Approval.
  5. In the screen, ensure that the Disable button is visible. This indicates that the job is enabled for the Web application.
  6. Set a schedule for the job to run; for example, every 5 minutes.
  7. Click Scheduled Unpublish and ensure that it is enabled and that an execution schedule is set.
  8. If the Timer Jobs definition is not displayed in the Timer Jobs Definition list, you can create it by completing the steps in the article here.

Activate the Publishing Site Collection Feature

To display the Scheduling Start Date and Scheduling End Date site columns, enable the SharePoint Server Publishing Infrastructure site collection feature. Perform the following steps:

  1. On the Site Actions menu, click Site Settings, and then click Site Collection Features.
  2. Beside SharePoint Server Publishing Infrastructure, click Active.

Activate the Publishing Site Feature

The Manage Item Scheduling functionality is needed at the document library level. This is critical for the scheduling framework to work. For this, you must enable the SharePoint Server Publishing site feature. Perform the following steps:

  1. On the Site Actions menu, click Site Settings, and then click Manage Site Features.
  2. Beside SharePoint Server Publishing, click Active.

Modify the List Column Settings

  • Using the SharePoint user interface, add the Scheduled Start Date and Scheduled End Date columns to the list settings.

Enable the Version Settings for the List

Versioning must be set for the document library. These will also including enabling content approval for the document library. Perform the following steps:

  1. Select the desired document library from the Quick Launch menu, if visible, or from the View All Site Content menu option.
  2. On the ribbon, click the Library tab and then select the Library Settings menu option.
  3. In General Settings section, select the Version Settings menu option.
  4. In the Content Approval section, click Yes.
  5. In the Document Version History section, select the Create major and minor(draft) versions option.

Enable the Item Scheduling Settings for the List

It is important to enable the scheduling functionality on the document library. Perform the following steps:

  1. Select the desired document library from the Quick Launch menu, if visible, or from the View All Site Content menu option.
  2. On the ribbon, click the Library tab and then click the Library Settings menu option.
  3. In General Settings section, click Manage Item Scheduling, and on the Enable scheduling of items in this list item, click OK.

Set Scheduling Information for the Document

  1. Add or upload a document to the document library.
  2. In the Edit Properties screen, set values for the Scheduled Start Date and Scheduled End Date fields. Ensure that the values are for a future time period from the current time and in the format day/hour/minutes.
  3. The Approval Status column for the document will display the value Draft.

Publish and Approve the Document

  • On the the ribbon, on the page editing toolbar, select the Publish option.

As the document’s scheduled start date is a future value, the Approval Status is changed to Scheduled. When the scheduled start date and time arrives, the Scheduled Approval timer job will set the approval status to Approved. and modify the latest minor version to a major version.