Appointment confirmations and reminders

The one you already have

The first time you create an appointment calendar, Marketli seeds a single automation called Appointment follow-up, switched on. It covers the whole confirm-and-remind sequence for appointments booked online, so most companies never need to build an appointment automation at all.

These automations fire only when someone books online through one of your appointment links. Appointments your team creates by hand do not trigger them. For those, build an Added to an appointment automation (below) and pick it when you create the appointment. See Creating appointments.

Its eight steps, in order:

1. Push to the booked staff member: New appointment: {{visitor_name}}, with the calendar, date and time.
2. Confirmation email to the visitor: subject You're booked: {{calendar_name}} with {{company_name}}, including the reschedule and cancel link.
3. Confirmation SMS to the visitor: the same detail in one line, with the manage link.
4. Wait until 24 hours before the appointment starts.
5. Reminder SMS: Reminder: your {{calendar_name}} with {{company_name}} is tomorrow at {{meeting_time}}.
6. Wait until 15 minutes before the start.
7. Starting-soon SMS: Starting soon: your {{calendar_name}} with {{company_name}} at {{meeting_time}}.
8. Push to the booked staff member: Meeting in 15 minutes.

You can open it, edit any message, remove steps, or switch the whole thing off. It is a normal automation once seeded.

Booked inside the reminder window? Marketli suppresses the reminders rather than firing them all at once. Someone who books ten minutes beforehand gets the confirmation, not a "tomorrow" reminder and a "starting soon" reminder seconds apart. That shows in the run log as Booked too close to the reminder time.

Building your own

Reminders are built as an Appointment booked online automation with Wait steps, not with a dedicated reminder trigger.

To send a text two hours before every appointment:

1. Appointments → Automations → New automation.
2. Name it, choose Appointment booked online, and click Create and add steps.
3. Add a Wait step. Set it to wait until a time before the appointment starts, and set that to 2 hours.
4. Add an SMS step after it and attach one of your Appointments text templates.
5. Save, then switch the automation on.

Anything before the first Wait goes out immediately when the appointment is booked. Anything after it waits.

Automations for appointments your team creates

An Added to an appointment automation never runs on its own. Whoever creates an appointment picks it from the Automation dropdown, and each person on the appointment (apart from your team) gets their own messages.

Companies with the Website + Appointments module start with one called Appointment reminders, switched on. It sends a text 1 day before the appointment and another 15 minutes before, and does nothing until someone picks it. Its two texts are in Appointments → Templates, where you can change the wording.

To remind people the day before and follow up the day after:

1. Appointments → Automations → New automation.
2. Name it, choose Added to an appointment, and click Create and add steps.
3. Add a Wait step: wait until a time before the appointment starts, set to 1 day. Then add an SMS or Email step with your reminder template.
4. Add another Wait step: wait until a time after the appointment ends, set to 1 day. Then add your follow-up.
5. Save, then switch the automation on.

These automations can send emails and texts and wait. Emails come from the appointment organiser's connected inbox. Texts come from the number you pick on the step or, if you leave it on The organiser's own number, from whichever number the organiser sends their own texts from. If that is their own mobile, replies go to their phone and won't appear in Marketli.

Rescheduling the appointment moves the waits that count from its start or end, and cancelling it stops everything still to come. Reminders that already went out are not sent again.

Who the emails come from

Appointment emails are sent by the booked host, the staff member whose calendar the appointment landed in, resolved at send time. You do not pick a sending inbox on an appointment automation's email step, which is why the same automation works for a whole team.

SMS steps let you pick one of your company numbers. If you leave it on The booked host's own number, each text goes from whichever number that team member sends their own texts from: their company line, or their own mobile if they registered it with quick registration. From a mobile, replies go to their phone and won't appear in Marketli, and the text goes without a contact card or GIF.

Awarding points off an appointment

Appointment automations are "client-bearing", so the Award points step is available on them. Add it anywhere in the chain, set the points and the client-facing reason, and anyone who books earns points automatically. See Awarding points.

Things that stop a send

Appointment automations skip rather than fail when something does not apply. In the run log you may see:

• Booked before this automation was switched on: it does not act retrospectively.
• Too long since the appointment to send a confirmation
• Appointment was cancelled
• This person was removed from the appointment
• The client is archived
• No contact card: that appointment isn't assigned to anyone. The text still went; only the attached contact card was left off.