Booking messages

Booking messages go out for every booking — a lead or a regular patient — and are anchored to the booking itself, so a move recalculates any delivery that is still pending and a cancellation stops it. They sit under Booking messages on the booking and visit steps of the automations timeline:

Each message shows when it sends — 1 day before, When moved — then the message it sends, its channel and the first line of the text. A message whose channel has nothing connected, or whose WhatsApp template is not approved yet, says so. Use its switch to turn it on or off; click anywhere else on it to change its timing, channel or message underneath, then Save. Automated SMS and WhatsApp reminders respect the practice send window; a reminder that comes due overnight goes out when the window opens. A WhatsApp reminder outside the 24-hour window is sent as the template's approved Meta template, with each placeholder filled from the body's merge tags in order; if a tag has no value for that patient, the reminder is skipped (Meta rejects an empty placeholder) and the skip is recorded rather than sent as a failing message. A WhatsApp reminder can be saved with a template WhatsApp hasn't approved yet — the picker warns you — but until it is approved it reaches only patients inside the 24-hour window and skips the rest; it starts sending to everyone once approved, with nothing to re-save.

Messages that talk about an appointment still to come — the pre-visit reminder, the booking confirmation and the appointment-moved message — are not sent once that appointment has started. A confirmation arriving after the visit tells the patient something untrue, so a reminder delayed past the appointment is marked as not sent rather than delivered late. The post-visit follow-up is unaffected by the clock: it describes something that has already happened. The missed-appointment follow-up and the cancellation message now also require the appointment to still be in the state they describe — if a no-show is corrected to attended, or a cancellation is undone, before the message goes out, it is not sent. An appointment-moved message also requires the appointment to remain both upcoming and non-terminal.

The manage link

The {{appointment.manageUrl}} merge tag puts the booking's manage link in a message, so the patient can reschedule or cancel online (how it works). Each message gets the link when it is sent, not when it is written, so the message history never holds it, and every message about the same appointment carries the same link. A patient who mistypes their date of birth five times locks the link; the next booking message brings a new one. Appointments owned by a connected practice management system have no manage link.

The patient portal link

The {{patient.portalLink}} merge tag (Patient portal link in the merge-tag list) puts the patient's own patient portal link in a booking or recall message. Like the manage link, it is added when the message is sent, so the message history never holds it. It is the same link Send portal link on the patient's record gives: a message to the same mobile number or email carries the patient's current link and keeps it working for another 30 days, while a message to a different number or email, or a link more than 90 days old, brings a new link and the old one stops working. A WhatsApp message and a text to the same mobile share one link. If a message is retried, it carries the link it was first given; if that link was replaced or locked in the meantime, the message fails and is shown as not sent.

The tag is empty when the portal can't open for the patient: the portal is off, there is no date of birth on file, the patient is too young to hold their own portal, or their link was locked after five wrong dates of birth (once you have checked who is asking, send a new one with Send portal link). An email or text still goes out without the link, so word it so the message makes sense either way. A WhatsApp message sent as a Meta template is skipped and the skip is recorded, because Meta rejects an empty placeholder. Other automations, campaigns and letters don't offer the tag.

Bookings typed on Today

When your diary lives in a system Smileline can't book into, the booked step on Today takes the date and time you booked there (see Outcomes and undo). Booking messages follow those bookings too, counted from the date you typed:

• Booking confirmation and Pre-visit reminder go out as for any appointment.
• Appointment moved goes out when the consultation's date changes on Smileline.
• Post-visit follow-up waits for They attended on the attendance question, then goes out at its usual time after the visit — or straight away if that time has already passed. A patient who didn't turn up never gets it.
• Missed appointment follow-up goes out when you answer They didn't turn up.
• Undoing the booking, booking again, or closing the lead as not proceeding stops what hasn't gone out yet, without a cancellation message.

These bookings have no online page, so {{appointment.manageUrl}} is empty for them: if your booking messages say "reschedule or cancel online", change that line to something like "call us on {{location.phone}} to change it". While any of your locations books this way, the timeline and the step's page mark a booking message that uses the link Online link empty. A WhatsApp reminder that uses the link is skipped for these bookings, and the skip is recorded. When the practice later books the same visit into its diary, or a connected system brings it in, the diary appointment takes over and each message is sent once.

Bookings typed on Today before this change get their pre-visit reminders but no late confirmation.

Messages for one treatment

Set For to a treatment on the step's page and the booking messages you add there go only to that treatment's bookings — the appointment's treatment, else the lead's — replacing the standard messages of the same kind for them. A kind the treatment has none of switched on uses the standard ones: a treatment with its own Pre-visit reminder but no confirmation of its own gets its own reminders and the standard confirmation. While it uses the standard ones, the section says so, and Customise for the treatment copies them to start from. Deleting a treatment's last message of a kind returns it to the standard ones for that kind.

A booking keeps the booking messages chosen when it was made; changing its treatment later doesn't change them — new bookings use the treatment's own messages. Adding or changing a treatment's messages applies to bookings made from then on.

Add and remove booking messages

The dashed row under a kind adds a message of that kind (Add reminder once it has one). Pre-visit reminders and post-visit follow-ups can run several at once — two pre-visit reminders (48 hours by email, 24 hours by SMS) is the usual setup. The event-driven kinds — confirmation, moved, cancelled, missed — hold one each, so their dashed row shows only while there is none: a second would mean two messages for the same event. To delete a message, open it and choose Delete.

One practice can keep at most 100 booking messages switched on at once, treatment versions included. At the limit, switch off an existing message or save the new one switched off; deleted and switched-off messages do not consume the active allowance.

The channel picker shows the connection the message will send from — SMS · +44 7700 900123, Email · Dental By Design — read from Settings → Channels. Email always uses the practice's built-in sender; SMS and WhatsApp use the number assigned to the appointment's location when there is one, otherwise the All locations number, otherwise the oldest active one. A channel with nothing connected reads Not connected with a link to Settings → Channels, and the message is skipped until a connection exists. See Follow-ups for the full rule.

Timing takes minutes, hours or days, and shows whichever unit represents the stored value exactly — a message set to 90 minutes reads as 90 minutes, not as an hour and a half rounded off. Changes apply when you click Save, which stays unavailable until something has changed. Switching to a channel the current message can't be sent on clears the message, so you pick one for the new channel before saving.

The event-driven messages — appointment moved, missed appointment, cancellation — send as soon as the event happens (a timing of 0). Enter a delay if you would rather wait first, for example to give a no-show an hour before you chase them. Setting the delay back to 0 returns them to sending immediately.

Edits apply to bookings made from then on. A message already scheduled keeps the timing, channel and template content captured when it was scheduled. Switching a message off cancels deliveries that have not started.

Deleting a booking message archives it and cancels only deliveries that have not started. Existing send-history and idempotency records are retained, so an old delivery remains auditable and cannot be recreated by deleting its rule.

When a reminder keeps failing

Smileline does not retry a technically broken reminder forever. After ten failed or interrupted attempts in a row, or once its automatic retries run out, that reminder is paused for review. The patient's activity shows Reminder paused for review with the reason in one sentence, for example Smileline paused this reminder because it failed with an error several times in a row., and an Automation step item appears under Couldn't be processed in the review queue. Other reminders keep their own independent delivery state.

Changes to the booking never count against a reminder: however often your team or a connected practice management system moves an appointment, its reminders follow every change. The one limit is on texting-hours holds — a text or WhatsApp reminder that falls due outside your texting hours waits for them to open, and after 50 such holds it is paused for review: Smileline paused this reminder because texting-hours holds moved it too many times.

Try again on the review item sends the reminder now, or at its usual time if that is later — a post-visit follow-up still waits for the visit to end. Reminder resumed on the timeline names who pressed it, and a reminder that hit the texting-hours limit starts with a fresh allowance. It is sent only if:

• its booking message is switched on — switch it back on first, then press Try again. A deleted message's reminder can't be tried again, so mark the item as handled;
• the appointment still qualifies — still upcoming for a confirmation or pre-visit reminder, not cancelled or missed for a follow-up, still a no-show or still cancelled for those messages.

Otherwise nothing is sent and the item stays until you mark it as handled. Rescheduling the appointment also re-arms a reminder paused after its retries ran out, but not one that hit the texting-hours limit.

Reschedules and cancellations

Booking messages follow the appointment record:

• Rescheduled — reminders recompute against the new time. This includes a reminder whose send time had already passed: booking an appointment for tomorrow does not permanently lose its 48-hour reminder, and moving that appointment further out arms it again. A reminder that genuinely reached the patient stays in the history and is not sent again; one that never made it out to a provider is re-armed for the new time, including one paused for review after its retries ran out. The Appointment moved message, if it is on, tells the patient the new time — every time the appointment moves, not just the first.
• Moved into the past — a reminder recomputed against a time that has already passed is not sent. Recompute follows the live appointment, so the check is made against the new time rather than the one the reminder was written for.
• Cancelled — pending reminders are cancelled and the cancellation message (if enabled) goes out.
• No-show — remaining reminders are cancelled and the missed-appointment follow-up goes out.
• PMS correction waiting — if the PMS contradicts a backwards or terminal appointment fact, a reminder that comes due stops at the final provider boundary and is marked as not sent until an appointment editor resolves the correction. Keeping Smileline's fact re-arms every interrupted reminder that is still relevant. Accepting the PMS fact recomputes time-anchored reminders, but does not create a retrospective booking, move, cancellation or no-show announcement.

A live PMS update that resolves the contradiction follows the same relevance rules. A historical backfill is different: importing history never sends a patient message. It records the interrupted occurrence as Not sent — historical PMS reconciliation, while leaving the reminder eligible for a later live reschedule. That old message cannot be retried from the Inbox; a future live change creates a fresh occurrence with current appointment content.

Practice management systems

Appointments that arrive from the PMS get the same booking messages as ones booked in Smileline — they make no distinction once they're on. An appointment that first arrives already attended or missed gets its post-visit follow-up or missed-appointment message, never a late booking confirmation. When someone on your team answers the attendance question on Today for a PMS appointment, that answer decides which of those two messages goes out, even if the PMS later reports otherwise; Smileline never changes the appointment in the PMS.

See PMS integrations for the correction review workflow. A reminder stopped by that review remains recoverable. If it is still relevant, resolving the correction re-arms it with a new delivery generation. If it has become irrelevant while staff review the correction, the failed ledger remains eligible for a later appointment reschedule instead of being made permanently terminal.