Configuring Appointment Reminders

You can send your clients appointment reminders to remind them of upcoming appointments. This will help you maximize appointment attendance and reduce no-shows. Appointment reminders can be sent via SMS, email, or using a combination of both. In addition, you can send reminders manually or automatically - depending on the situation. 

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In this article, we’ll show you how to do all this. Let’s get started.

Setting Up Automatic Appointment Reminders

Automatic appointment reminders are turned on by default. But if it is turned off - or if you’d like to change a setting for automatic appointment reminders, here’s what you need to do:

1

Go to  Settings  → Configuration → Reminders.

2

Turn on the switch next to the label Automatically send Appointment Reminders to Clients on the top-left corner of your screen.

3

Click on Save Changes at the bottom of the page.

To enable a reminder, you need to do two things:

1. Select a template for that reminder. 
2. Choose how many days before the appointment you want to send the reminder. 

If you wish to turn off a reminder, simply click on Choose Template when selecting a template from the drop-down menu. 

Once you’ve added the settings you want, simply click on Save Changes at the bottom of the page to activate Automatic Appointment Reminders.

Setting Up Manual Appointment Reminders

In addition to the automatic appointment reminders, you can also manually send appointment reminders whenever you want. 

By default, SMS and Email reminder templates will already be selected, but you can change these if desired.  Here’s how:

1

Go to  Settings  → Configuration → Reminders.

2

Under Client Appointment Reminder Settings, you’ll see a section on the right side labelled When I manually send a reminder, use these templates.

3

In this section, you can choose a template for SMS and email reminders using the drop-down menu

After you set the templates, click on the Save Changes button at the bottom of the page. 

Once this is done, you can send an appointment reminder in two ways, as described in the following article Sending Appointment Reminders Manually.

Setting Up Appointment Reminders For Specific Clients

The instructions for setting up Appointment Reminders discussed above apply system-wide and for all clients. 

But you can also set up custom appointment reminders for a specific client. 

Here’s how:

1

Use the search bar on top of the Power Diary dashboard to search for the client for whom you want to set up appointment reminders.

2

Once you’re in the profile of your client, go to Profile → Appointment Reminders.

3

Here, choose the Appointment Reminder templates for Reminder 1, 2 and 3. Also, choose how many days before the actual appointment each reminder is sent.

4

Once you’ve added these settings, click on the Save Changes button at the bottom-right corner of your screen.

These reminder settings will override the settings you made in  Settings → Configuration → Reminders - and will be used any time you create a new appointment for this specific client.

Adding or Editing Appointment Reminder Templates

By default, your account will have an email and an SMS appointment reminder template setup. 

If you want to change that template - or create a new one altogether, here’s what you do:

1

Go to Tools → Communication → Templates.

2

Here, you will see the + New Template button at the top of the page. Click on it to create a new template from scratch.

3

Start by choosing the Message Type i.e. is this new template an email, SMS or a letter? Then, name the template and describe its purpose in the description box. If you’ve chosen the Message Type as Email, enter your name and email address (or of the person who will be using this email template) and finally type in the email subject i.e. title of the email.

4

Once done, scroll down until you see the content text editor. Here, type in your template and click Save.

After saving your template, go back to Tools → Communication → Templates. Here, you’ll find your newly created template under the Template List.

If you’d like to edit a template, just click on its name. To delete it, click on the gear icon on the right and click Delete.

Setting Up Automatic Appointment Confirmation/Cancellation

If you use SMS appointment reminders, Power Diary will process the replies clients give - and use them to update their appointment status. 

By looking for certain keywords within the client replies, Power Diary automatically sets their appointment status as either confirmed or cancelled. 

Here is the list of keywords Power Diary looks for in a client’s reply after sending them an SMS appointment reminder. 

Status Responses:

Enabling/Disabling Appointment Reminders For Specific Appointments

You enable/disable appointment reminders for specific appointments in Power Diary. 

To do that, go to your Appointments Calendar on the Power Diary dashboard. Here, click on the appointment whose reminder you want to enable/disable. 

Once the Appointment Settings Panel opens up on the right side of your screen, click on the Reminder will be sent or the Reminder will not be sent switch to toggle appointment reminders on or off for that appointment.