A critical part of the Appointment scheduling process is notifying individuals of the new (or updated) Appointment. Individuals associated with the Appointment can be the Customer receiving the Service, the Staff Member providing the Service, or another individual associated with your business operations for the Appointment process. Since no two businesses are alike, the needs and details in Appointment notifications aren’t normally cookie-cutter, either.
Before reading the article, watch this quick introduction video to learn more about the editing options and how you can customize your own notifications.
Now, let's continue to learn more about the notifications types and the ability to customize each message template to suit your specific needs.
Contents
Types of Email Notifications
Today, the system offers two major types of email notifications: Customer Notifications and Staff Member (or business) Notifications.
Depending on your business need and configuration, your Appointment calendars may not represent actual employee calendars, but physical spaces within your business at which the availability is defined. For example, if you operate a vehicle maintenance business, your calendars may be the bays in which the Services are performed, rather than Joe, the mechanic, since he probably floats or works in all the bays at some point. Or, maybe your business is a counseling practice and the calendars represent therapists that will see patients in your facility based on their individual availability and schedule.
Customer Notifications
You can configure the system to automatically send emails based on specific Customer actions. Additionally, your account can be set up to notify Customers of updates or changes to their Appointment that your employees initiate. Whether it is an update to the date or time, status, notes, or other fields, the system takes the guesswork out of when to notify your Customer of new details. Your employees will not need to worry about direct contact or reminders, as the system takes care of that for you! Read on to find out how you can choose and set up the information you need to give your Customers to prepare for their Appointment.
Staff Member / Business Notifications
Similar to the Customer notifications, you can configure specific email messages to be sent to your employees for Appointments that have been scheduled with them. What is great about these separate emails is that you can include different information in the Staff Member notification than what is sent to the Customer. You may need to include notes about your Customer or other factors of the Appointment to ensure the Staff Member is prepared to connect with and deliver the Service at the appointed time. Read on for the details of how to customize the message details.
Editing Notification Templates
The DaySmart Appointments scheduling system has a basic template for all email notifications. You can choose to use the system default message, select from a few template designs, or completely customize any specific message that will be sent from the system on behalf of your business.
To get started with reviewing the default message templates:
- Log in to your DaySmart Appointments account as a Headquarters or Location Administrator.
- Click Settings.
- Click Notifications.
To edit a specific notification, click the notification title link. For this example:
- Click on Appointment Confirmation Email under the Customer section
On this page, you will see two sections, one each for Customers and Staff Members. For the purpose of this tutorial, we will use one message as an example, but the editing and customization options for any message are the same.
NOTE: The following notifications are not currently offering advanced levels of customization. To modify these messages, click into any of them, select the data to include change the information in Paragraph 1 and/or 2, and click Update to save your changes:
- Gift Certificates
- Package Purchase
- Repeat Customer Reminder (offered with a plugin)
Setting the Notification Status
At the top of the page, you’ll see the status of the message. If you want the email to be sent any time an Appointment is scheduled for a Customer (either by the Customer or by a Staff Member), set this email notification to Active. If an email notification is Inactive, it will not be sent when a trigger action occurs in the system.
If you are editing an email notification and need help, you can easily get back to this article from within the account. Next to the status setting, click Get Help Creating Email Templates.
Set the Email Sending Details
The next step is to set up the sending instructions. You should review and set:
- The name (likely your business name) that will be used in the From address of the email.
- The reply-to email address, which is a required field.
- Optionally, you can also add any addresses which should receive a blind carbon copy (BCC) of the specific email notification.
- The subject.
Modifying the Notification Templates
In this section of the page, you will find the area where you will view the current message template configured to send to the recipient(s). First, let’s look at the tools you have at your fingertips:
- Start with a Pre-Defined Email Template
- Inserting Additional Appointment Details
- Using the Message Editor
Start with a Pre-Defined Email Template
The Email Template Options section displays a set of pre-configured templates that you can insert into the email body field below. Customer notifications have five template options while Staff Members have three template options.
Customer Template Options
Staff Member Template Options
You can Preview or Use any of the available templates. Here is an example of one of the Previews.
If you choose a pre-configured template, you can still change it in the Message Editor window. You can change font, colors, spacing, tables, or any other advanced editing tool we’ve provided.
Inserting Additional Appointment Details
The Appointment Data Lists provide the fields configured in your account. This is a set of drop-down fields grouped by the types of data: Appointment Details, Staff Member Details, Service Details, Location Details, Customer Details, and if enabled in your account, Room Details.
There are two types of Data:
- Individual data fields
- Single fields that display either the customized field label in your account or a specific piece of data from the Appointment or Customer’s profile.
- Data Blocks
- A collection of data that cannot be
- When inserted, the system will merge in the appropriate information based on the specific configuration in the account or the Appointment.
To insert any of the data items:
- Click the appropriate drop-down field
- Click on the specific data item
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Check out some examples of how you can use these advanced options when you are writing your messages! |
Wherever your cursor is inside the Message Editor is where the new data item will be inserted.
Using the Message Editor
The Message Editor is the area of the page where you can customize the design, add further text, or choose more data to send to the recipient(s). You will use the Appointment Data List to add other data into the final email. When you have completed all changes, click Update to save your current message template.
Similar to tools you will find in word processing or email programs, you can use the Message Editor toolbar to stylize and format your email content. From simple style changes, like B (bold) or I (italics) to more advanced formatting like paragraph tags, images, or tables, you can make the outgoing email as fancy as you want.
Some basic points about editing the message template:
- To insert a new item from the Appointment Data list, place your cursor at the desired spot within the email content and choose the data from the drop-down field. This action will insert the data item at the point where your cursor exists.
- To move data around, highlight each specific Appointment data item from the {{ to the }}, and use the toolbar items for Copy or Cut and Paste (or applicable keyboard shortcuts for the same actions).
- To include an Appointment Data item inside a sentence, simply enter text before and after the brackets as desired.
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Check out some examples of how you can use these advanced options when you are writing your messages! |
Additional Editing Options
Here is an overview of all the editor toolbar buttons so that you can be sure to click the right one based on the style or formatting change you wish to make in the email.
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Editor Buttons |
Definition |
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Formatting rules: Bold, Italic, Underline, Strikethrough. |
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Cut, Copy, Paste, and Paste as Text: Move, remove, or insert text from the body of the email message. If you are pasting information from another document, like Microsoft (C) Word (R), we recommend you use the Paste as Text option so that it removes any special Word formatting that could interfere with the final formatting of your email message. |
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Pre-defined Heading Levels: Pick from standard heading levels in order to apply font styling to specific sections of your content. |
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Manage Font Face, Size and Style: Use the drop-down menus to select different fonts or sizes. |
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Subscript: A character that is set slightly below the normal line of type. |
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Superscript: A character that is set slightly above the normal line of type. |
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Alignment: Alignment determines the appearance and orientation of the edges of the paragraph: left-aligned text, right-aligned text, centered text, or justified text, which is aligned evenly along the left and right margins. |
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Bulleted or Numbered List: Create a list of items that are related or in sequence. |
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Decrease Indent: Moves your indent towards the margin. Increase Indent: Similar to Tab, increases you indent. |
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Block Quote: Quotation that is set off from the main text as a paragraph, or block of text, and typically distinguished visually using indentation and a different typeface or smaller size font. |
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Insert/Edit link and Remove Link: The Link feature of CKEditor is an option that lets you add clickable URLs. To remove it, select the text currently linked and the remove link icon will darken to select. |
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Inserting an Image: Your email body can include image files. In order to insert an image, you will first need to host it on the internet. Then, in the Message Editor, place your cursor where you want the image and click the image editor button. On the following popup insert the full URL of the hosted image, a brief description of the image, set the size dimensions (width/height), choose to unlock/lock the dimensions (if locked, the image can’t be resized in the editor), and then Save. Note: If you are including your company logo in your email, you can visit your website, use your mouse to right-click on your company logo, and Copy Link Address. That is the full URL that you will want to use to insert an image into your emails. |
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Find and Replace: Type your text into the “Find” textbox and the replacement values. Once fields are filled out, please select the “Find” button first in order to Replace. |
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Insert a table: Admins will be able to decide the number of Rows, Columns. Formatting can be completed within the table. |
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Clear Formatting: Highlight the text, select the icon, and the format will be cleared to revert back to the system-defined format. |
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Special Characters and Emojis: Insert or add special characters to your message. |
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Insert Media: Ability to insert Media Source and Embedded Code for Media. Similar to inserting an image, your media will need to be hosted on the internet. |
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Show Invisible Characters: Once selected, whitespace characters will be highlighted. This tool is great for troubleshooting spacing and line breaks if you happen to receive an email that appears to have too much white space. |
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Non-Breaking Space: Required space, hard space, or fixed space, is a space character that prevents an automatic line break at its position. |
Frequently Asked Questions
How do I use the Service Block in my emails?
The Service Block will insert the details of the Service(s) assigned to the Appointment. This includes date and time information, Staff Members, Add-on Services, and Room (where enabled).
The information inside a block cannot be edited or removed. The block will format according to your template’s font style information of the full {{AppointmentServiceSection}}{{AppointmentServiceBlock}}{{/AppointmentServiceSection}} merge field.
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Check out some examples of how you can use these advanced options when you are writing your messages! |
How do I set and style the header of my message?
At the top of your message (or any of the Email Template Options), you can insert your Location’s name or a logo image. Simply insert your cursor at the top of your message or select the title information in an existing template. Modify it using the style tools in the Editor or upload a logo image to replace the text.
If I am copying content from a draft email, Microsoft (C) Word, or another content editor, how do I paste it into the email editor?
It is recommended to use the Paste as Text (
) button of the editor toolbar if you have copied information from another source. Other applications, like Word, may insert hidden coding that will impact how the content is handled in the final email. Using Paste as Text will bring in just the text characters and then you can refine your styling to fit your needs by using the other editor toolbar buttons.
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