datetime_scheduled_date

Scheduling a message is a small decision with several shapes: tomorrow morning, next Monday, a specific moment. A raw datetime picker asks the user to translate their intention into a date and a time, which is more work than the decision deserves.

Odoo answers that with a dialog offering sensible presets and a custom option, and this widget is the button that opens it. The current value is rendered compactly, clicking opens the dialog, and choosing writes the result back to the record.

There are two variants in the same file because the same idea is stored two ways: as text in the message composer, and as a real datetime on a scheduled message record. This page is about the datetime one.

Send-time scheduling is one of those features that only gets used if choosing a time is faster than not bothering. Presets are what make that true, and they are the reason this is a dialog rather than a picker.

The difference between the two variants is worth understanding when customizing. On a composer, scheduling is optional, so clearing the date has to be possible. On a scheduled message record, the date is the whole point, so this variant removes that affordance. Copying the wrong one into a custom view produces either a message that cannot be unscheduled or one that can be left without a time.

The core usage

<field name="scheduled_date"
       widget="datetime_scheduled_date"/>

The field name matters: the widget writes that name literally when the dialog is confirmed.

The text variant

<field name="scheduled_date"
       widget="text_scheduled_date"/>

Same dialog, but it serializes to text and allows the date to be cleared, which suits the composer.

The plain alternative

<field name="scheduled_date" widget="datetime"/>

A standard picker: full control, no presets, and no idea that this is a send time.

A shared base holds everything both variants have in common: the dialog service, a compact date format, and a click handler that opens the scheduling dialog with a save callback, the current value and a removable flag. The handler also blurs the button afterwards, with a comment explaining that it otherwise keeps a focused appearance once the dialog closes.

Each variant then supplies three things: whether the dialog offers removal, how to read the current value from the record, and how to write it back. The text variant deserializes and serializes, and passes an empty string when cleared. This one reads the datetime directly and writes it directly, and sets the removable flag to false.

The detail to watch when reusing either is that the write targets a hardcoded field name rather than the widget's own field. On the core usages the two coincide, so it is invisible; on a differently named field the widget renders the value it was given and then writes somewhere else.

Neither variant declares supported types, so nothing prevents putting the datetime one on a text field or the other way round. The result would be a value the getter cannot interpret, so match the variant to the field's type deliberately.

Odoo 20 is expected at Odoo Experience in Brussels, 24 to 26 September 2026. The development branch is unstable and this may still change; we re-verify the page after release.

No behavior change. The pairing, the removable flag and the hardcoded write are identical on the development branch. The props move to the new schema syntax, which affects code that patches the widget rather than views.