If your clinic doesn't send reminders for all appointments or if you just want more control over the reminders, you can choose to send them manually.
Before you begin
You will need to configure your SMS reminder templates for each provider through Appts > SMS Reminders > Setup.
If you have specific doctors that do not want SMS reminders sent for their appointments, this will need to be confirmed by ticking the "Don't send SMS reminders for my appointments" checkbox in File > All User Preferences > General.
Sending the reminders
You can choose to send reminders individually to patients, or to an entire day of patients in one go.
For individual patients
Right-click on a patient's appointment in the appointment book and choose the SMS Patient option.
The text that populates in the Message field will be based on the provider's SMS template in Appts > SMS Reminders > Setup. You can edit the message at this stage, however, this will only apply for the chosen patient.
For the whole day's appointments
Navigate to the day in the appointment book you wish to send reminders for, then go to Appts > SMS Reminders.
In the window that appears, you will see a list of your providers on the left, and a list of patients going down the page.
If you have opened this window from the All tab in the appointment book, all providers will be automatically highlighted, otherwise it will look at a single provider view.
The patients with a tick in the middle column are the only patients that meet the criteria to send the reminder. Any patient that doesn't have a tick in this column will be highlighted.
What do the different colours mean?
| Don't SMS | This patient has the "No SMS" checkbox ticked in their demographics and will appear in blue text. |
| No mobile recorded | This patient does not have a mobile number recorded in their demographics and will appear in green text. |
| Ready to send | This patient can be sent a reminder and will appear in black text. |
Double-click on any patient in the list to open their demographics and make any required changes (i.e. add a mobile number).
Once you are ready to send the reminders for the patients in the list, choose Send in the bottom-right of the window.