You can send customised SMS reminders to your patients by creating unique templates for your providers. These templates can be used for your automatic appointment reminders, as well as SMS messages sent directly from the appointment book.
When creating a template message it is important to remember that there is a 160-character limit per credit. See our credit limits article for further information on this.
Creating the template
- Navigate to Appts > SMS Reminders > SMS Setup.
- Right-click on a practitioner in the SMS setup window and choose New Template from the list that appears.
- Give your new template a name.
- A default message will appear which you can edit or delete the text from and start afresh if preferred. You can also use the following fields to automatically input appointment information if required.
<name> This is the provider's name <patientname> This is the patient's Known as or First Name <date> This is the date of the appointment <time> This is the time of the appointment <room> This is the room that has been selected for the appointment <clinic> This is the name of the practice that you are logged into <clinicphone> This is the phone number listed in File > Practice Preferences - Once you are happy with your message content you can change the Name Format and Date Format using the drop-downs above the message.
- Click OK to save the template.
Applying the template to a user
To apply this template to your provider, right-click on their name within the SMS Setup window and select the new template from the list.
Click OK to close the window and save your changes. Any future SMS reminders will now use the new template until otherwise changed.