Sending outside court hours

Notificado sends at any hour and on any day. When you confirm a send after the reference court hours, or on a day that is not a business day, the Notify wizard shows you two dates instead of one. This guide explains what they are, what you can choose and what is recorded.

What the wizard shows

In the last step, Review and send, the wizard first states a fact: "If you confirm now, the message leaves today, [date], at [time] (Colombia time)".

If that time is after the reference hours, or if today is not a business day, it also shows two dates:

• Counted from the day it is sent. The date on which the notification would be deemed made if the two business days are counted from the day the message leaves. It is the reading Notificado uses in Deadlines, in the memorial and in the calendar.
• If the court counts the send from the next business day. The same count, starting one business day later. We call it the conservative reading.

Inside the reference hours, on a business day, both readings agree and the wizard shows one.

Where the two dates come from

The reference hours are 8:00 AM to 4:00 PM, Colombia time, on business days: those that are not a Saturday, a Sunday, a public holiday or a day the court is closed (the vacancia judicial, Semana Santa and the closures you record under Deadlines). They are versioned (co-2026.1), like the holiday calendar, so that anyone can repeat the count.

Those hours are our own reference for reading dates more cautiously. They are not a legal rule. Courts across the country do not all close at the same time; we took the earliest closing time we found, so a send this reading treats as inside the hours is inside them in every district.

Which day counts as "the send" when the message leaves after the court has closed is a question that has no uniform answer, and the judge of each case decides it. That is why Notificado does not choose for you: it shows both dates and does not state that an hour is or is not allowed.

Scheduling the send

When scheduling is available for your account and the two dates differ, the wizard offers two actions:

• Send now. The send begins at once, as always.
• Schedule for [date] at 8:00 AM. The send begins at the next opening of a business day.

Each asks for confirmation before it acts. If you schedule:

• Nothing is sent now. The message is not deemed sent until it leaves: terms are counted from that date.
• Credits are charged when the message leaves, not when you schedule.
• The content is fixed. The subject, the text, the recipients and the files do not change while the notification is scheduled. To edit it, cancel the schedule.
• The case cannot be archived while it has a scheduled send.

Scheduling is only for the next opening of a business day; there is no free choice of time. If that opening is several days away (during the vacancia judicial, for example), the wizard tells you how many before you choose.

What scheduling does not do

• It does not bring any date forward. The message leaves later, and the count starts that day.
• It does not guarantee how the court will count. The dates are still an estimate.
• It does not stop other time limits. If a time limit to notify is running, waiting uses days of it.

Cancelling or sending earlier

Open the notification under Notifications. While it is scheduled, the page says for when and that it has not been sent yet, and offers:

• Cancel schedule. The notification goes back to draft and nothing is sent. Any lawyer of the account who may send can do it.
• Send now. The send begins at once, without waiting for the scheduled time. Only the person who scheduled the send can do it, because the sworn statement for each address is theirs. Another lawyer can cancel the schedule and send it under their own sworn statement.

Both actions are available until the send begins. When it begins, the message is frozen, timestamped and handed to the mail transport; the page says Prepared and then Sending while that happens and Sent only once the send is on record. The page updates by itself when the status changes.

If the send cannot leave at the scheduled time

At the scheduled time the send goes through the same checks as an immediate one: enough credits, an account that is not suspended, a case that is not archived, and that the person who scheduled it may still send for the account. If one fails, nothing is sent and no credits are charged: the notification goes back to draft, its page states the reason, and we write once by email to the person who scheduled it (or to the owners of the account, if that person can no longer send for it).

What the evidence records

A scheduled send leaves three facts on the event chain: the schedule (who confirmed it, when and for when, with the reference hours and the calendar used), its cancellation, if there was one, and the release for sending. The release is not the send: the send to each recipient is what its transport event records, and the delivery, what the answer of the receiving server records. The constancia shows them in a block titled "Programación del envío". While it was scheduled, the message was not frozen, not timestamped and not handed to the mail transport: all of that happens when it leaves.

A send that was never scheduled adds nothing to its constancia, whatever the hour it left at. The constancia records facts and prints no date of legal effect. The detail is in the evidence method.

Approvals and agents

Someone who requests a send without being able to send it (a paralegal, or an agent over the API or MCP) can propose that it leaves now or at the next opening. The proposal arrives preselected under Approvals or on the confirmation page, and the lawyer who approves or confirms can change it. No proposal sends or schedules anything.

Where else the conservative reading appears

• Under Deadlines and on the case page, beside the date on which the notification is deemed made, as "Conservative reading: [date]"; opening it also shows the end of the term that would follow.
• On the notification's page, once sent, with both readings per recipient.
• In the Excel export, as a "Conservative reading" column, and in the deadline calendar, as an additional data field of each event. The event and its text stay on the date counted from the day it is sent.

The memorial and the deadline reminder email state the date counted from the day it is sent.