Guide to using OTTT

From a channel (public, private, or direct message), type /ottt 30 to start a 30 minute session, or /ottt 60 for a 60 minute session, or however many minutes you would like.

You can start a session in a public channel, a private channel, and in a direct message channel. If there are members of the channel who have not joined a session in the channel yet, OTTT will include a Join button in the session message.

Anyone in the channel can repeat a past session of the same duration by clicking on the Repeat button or end it for everyone by clicking the End button.

Channel members who want to stay in a channel, but do not want to participate in the OTTT sessions can use the command /ottt leave to not be included. Once all members have either clicked Join or used the leave command, the Join button will disappear.

If a team member wants to end a session just for themselves, they can change their personal DND status manually.

If you belong to more than one Slack workspace, then you likely want to synchronize your DND status across all of them to limit your interruptions. You can do this with any paid subscription to OTTT for unlimited workspaces.

From the workspace connected to your paid subscription, enter the link command into any channel or direct message like, /ottt link. OTTT will return a code unique to you that you can copy and paste into each of your other workspaces.

To remove a linked workspace so that it is no longer synchronized, use the command /ottt link remove in any channel or direct message of the linked workspace.

Any paid subscription to OTTT includes the ability to schedule OTTT sessions to start at the same time and for the same duration. OTTT uses a format called "Cron" that allows you to make highly flexible schedules, but that does come at the price of being a little confusing to learn at first. Luckily, with a few examples you will be able to pick it up quickly.

Scheduled sessions work just like normal sessions that are started with /ottt 30, except with scheduled sessions OTTT does not post a channel message when the session starts. Scheduled sessions free you from manually starting every session, but there are still limits on the number of concurrent sessions you can have, which is based on your plan.

First, you will need to select a timezone. OTTT will work with timezones that support Day Light Savings Time (DST) or not. If you do not know what timezone you are in, you can reference this timezone map.

Next, you can enter the cron schedules, one per line, for a channel. Each line is made up of several parts, each separated by a space.
  • min: The minute of the hour to start on. 0 would be on-the-hour, as would the wildcard character * and 30 would be half-past the hour.
  • hr: The hour, in 24-hour style, to start on. 8 would be 8 am, 20 would be 8 pm. You can use the wildcard character * here to start every hour of the day. You can also use combination of hours separated by commas, like: 8,10,13,15 or spans like: 8-10,13-15
  • dayOfMonth: Normally you will use the wildcard character * here. Otherwise, you can use a number from 1 to 31 for which day of the month this schedule is valid.
  • month: Like dayOfMonth, you will likely use the wildcard character * here. Otherwise, you can specify the months this schedule will be active separated with commas and hyphens like: 1-6,8-12. You can also use three-letter month names like Jan-Aug.
  • dayOfWeek: A typical value for dayOfWeek might be Mon-Fri (or 1-5 with numbers). You can use the wildcard character * for every day of the week, and use commas and spans like: Mon,Wed,Thu-Sat.
  • session mins: Here you enter the number of minutes for the session, like 30 or 60.
You can set the schedule to Active to have it start, or Inactive to have it paused until you would like to start it again.

You can also delete the schedule by clearing out the Cron input and clicking Submit.

Here are some examples:

Schedule
[min] [hr] [dayOfMonth] [month] [dayOfWeek] [mins] 		Description
0 8 * * Mon-Fri 120 At 08:00 AM, Monday through Friday for 120 minutes
* 8-11,13-17 * * Mon-Fri 50 At 08:00 AM through 11:59 AM and 01:00 PM through 05:59 PM, Monday through Friday for 50 minutes
* * * * * 45 Every hour for 45 minutes
30 13 6-12 Aug-Sep Mon-Fri 45 At 01:30 PM, between day 6 and 12 of the month, Monday through Friday, August through September for 45 minutes
30 8,9,13,14 * * Mon,Tue,Thu 30
45 8-10,14-16 * * Wed,Fri 45 		At 08:30 AM, 09:30 AM, 01:30 PM and 02:30 PM, only on Monday, Tuesday, and Thursday for 30 minutes

At 45 minutes past the hour, at 08:00 AM through 10:59 AM and 02:00 PM through 04:59 PM, only on Wednesday and Friday for 45 minutes
0 7-11,13-16 * * Mon-Fri 45
0 22 * * * 480
0 18 * * Wed 60 		At 07:00 AM through 11:59 AM and 01:00 PM through 04:59 PM, Monday through Friday for 45 minutes

At 10:00 PM for 480 minutes (8 hours)

At 06:00 PM, only on Wednesday for 60 minutes

If you didn't see the answer you were looking for in this guide, please contact us and let us know!

Thanks for using OTTT!