The way the ROTSE-III system plans observations is through defining a ``trigger'' type, which is a protocol for a sequence of images to be taken, and then any number of ``schedule'' items can call on a given trigger protocol in a highly configurable set of circumstances. A trigger type might say ``take six images at 20 seconds each'', but the schedule item tells where to point the telescope, how often, and under what conditions to take those six images. There are a number of standard ROTSE triggers that are stored in the file astrod_rtrig.conf and standard schedule items are stored in astrod_rsched.conf. The rest of this section uses the contents of astrod_rtrig.conf and astrod_rsched.conf to explain how triggers and schedules work, as well as show the command syntax. Guest users should be familar with these formats, but should never modify the system files. Guest user triggers and schedules are defined in the file astrod_lsched.conf, and this file can be modified with a Perl script, as explained in Section 4.6.