Introduction

Simply Schedule Appointments uses the Twilio API for handling SMS Notifications.

Twilio is a service that lets you send SMS messages (at a very low price per message). This means you’re 100% in control of your customers’ data & privacy.

Your SMS reminders won’t pass through our servers and you can keep your site independent.

You’ll need to first setup an account with Twilio so that you can send SMS through SSA.

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Set up your Twilio account and phone number

Create an account on Twilio. Head over to their site and click the Sign Up button. (If you’ve already got an account, skip this and just log in).

You’ll want to be sure to purchase a phone number from Twilio, under All Products and Services > Phone Numbers. This is the number you’ll use to send SMS reminders to yourself or your customers.

You’ll need three bits of info from your Twilio account, all of which should be visible on your Twilio Dashboard:

• Account SID
• Auth Token
• and your Twilio phone number

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Click on Edit Settings, and here you can enter the information from the Twilio Dashboard.

Send a Test Message

To confirm that your Twilio account information is correct, you can send yourself a test message. Under the Send a test message section, type in your phone number, and click Send.

Note: If your Twilio account is still in trial mode, you’ll only be able to send texts to numbers that you’ve verified in your Twilio account.

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Update the Admin Phone in General Settings

If you’d like to send yourself text reminders and notifications about appointments, you’ll need to enter an admin phone number. Go to Settings > General to enter your own phone number.

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Add the Phone Number Field to Appointment Types

To send SMS notifications, reminders, and follow-ups to your customers, you’ll need to ask them for a phone number in the booking form.

Edit your appointment types, and in the Customer Information section, be sure to add a field with the type Phone number.

Remember, you can bulk edit your appointment types to make things faster.

Note: We’re automatically checking for phone number fields and upgrading those from single line text fields to phone number fields where we can. So you might find that some of your appointment types already have phone number type fields.

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Setup an SMS Notification

Setting up an SMS notification is a similar to an Email Notification. Except some fields will vary.

In SSA, go to Settings > Notifications and +Add a New Notification.

Name Field for Organizing Notifications

This is to help admins keep track of the notifications.

If you plan to create a lot of customized notifications, we recommend creating a naming system to help you edit them in the future. Keep these things in mind while naming:

• Include a quick note about who is receiving the notification (Admin, Customer or someone else?)
• The appointment type connected to the notification (All or a only one?)

Choose the Type

After setting up your SSA with Twilio, a new option to choose a type of notification will appear.

There are two buttons for selecting a Type – Email or SMS. Choose SMS.

Send To Either Admin or Customer

Next, select who this SMS notification is going to send to – Admin or Customer.

Note: If you haven’t setup an admin phone number in the General Settings, you’ll only see the Customer phone number option here.

Triggers to Send Notifications at Specific Times or Events

Each notification has a trigger for sending. You can set up different notifications for different events. The triggers are:

• Booked: Sent when a customer finishes booking
• Edited: Sent when an admin or customer edits the information from the Booking Form (name, email address, etc)
• Canceled: Sent when the admin or customer cancels the appointment.
• Time of Appointment: Send at a specific time before or after the time of appointment.

Tie Notifications to Appointment Types

The list here only shows Appointment Types that have a Phone Number field.

If you don’t see any, make sure to go back to your Appointment Types and add in a Phone Number field in the Customer Information tab.

Check off the Appointment Types that you want tied to this notification.

Message to Send Through SMS

The message field uses Twig Code Templates. 

Here’s a guide to help you write personalized messages using the Twig Code Templates: Writing Your Own Notification Subject and Message

Or, easily start with one of our default Messages: Default Notification Messages

Click the Tt (text) icon at the top-right corner of the Message field to insert Twig Code Tokens automatically. Or, just type {{ to open the list of options right where you’re typing. 

And use the eye icon in the top-right corner next to the Tt icon to preview your message before you save. This should also tell you if your message has an error.

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Booking Appointments with SMS Field

Customers will be able to opt-in to receiving text messages.

If there’s an SMS notification tied to their selected appointment type, they’ll see a checkbox under the phone number field.

They’ll need to check to opt-in to receiving text message reminders.

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Related Guides

• Professional Edition Guide

• Reminders and Follow-Up Messages

• Conversion Tracking for Beginners

• Manage Payments for Bookings

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