Automate the recall process — send SMS, email, letter, or telephone messages to patients who are due.
Recalls automate the recall process by sending SMS, email, letter, or telephone messages to patients who are due for a recall. Optional follow-ups nudge patients who haven't booked yet — the cadence, channels, and number of follow-ups are entirely up to you, from a single send to a multi-step sequence over several months.
First: complete the shared Messaging Setup — it covers SMS configuration, how templates work (including Draft with AI), staff logins, and the API permissions recalls require (Patient Recalls, Recall Types, Patient Notes on Optomate). This guide covers the recall-specific setup only.
This guide applies to both Optomate Touch and Sunix Vision; where they differ, look for the Optomate / Sunix callouts. All four recall channels (SMS, Email, Letter, Telephone) are supported.
The fastest way to get recalls running:
Already running a recall system? Read Matching your existing follow-up sequence before you switch on. Patients partway through your current sequence are carried across automatically, but only onto follow-up steps that match the timings you use today.
You need at least one template per channel you plan to use. Default templates are provided for you. To create new ones, go to the Templates tab → New Template, set Scope to Recall and choose the Channel (SMS, Email, Letter, or Telephone). You can write it yourself or use Draft with AI — see how templates work.
| Placeholder | Description |
|---|---|
{PATIENT_PREFERRED_NAME} | Patient's preferred/given name |
{PATIENT_NAME} | Patient's full name |
{PRACTICE_NAME} | Practice name |
{PRACTICE_PHONE} | Practice phone number |
{RECALL_LINK} | Recall booking link (see Recall Mappings) |
{OPT_OUT_INSTRUCTIONS} | "Reply STOP to opt out" text |
{TIME_SINCE_LAST_EXAM} | e.g. "about 2 years" |
{DATE_DUE} | Recall due date |
{RECALL_DESCRIPTION} | Recall type description (e.g. "12/12") |
Initial recall (SMS):
Hi {PATIENT_PREFERRED_NAME}. You're due for your eye check at {PRACTICE_NAME}. Book here: {RECALL_LINK} or call {PRACTICE_PHONE}.Follow-up recall (SMS):
Hi {PATIENT_PREFERRED_NAME}. You're still due for an
eye appointment at {PRACTICE_NAME}. Book here {RECALL_LINK}
or call {PRACTICE_PHONE}
{OPT_OUT_INSTRUCTIONS}Telephone script:
Hi {PATIENT_PREFERRED_NAME}, this is {PRACTICE_NAME}
calling regarding your eye exam recall ({RECALL_DESCRIPTION}).
You're due around {DATE_DUE}. Would you like me to book
an appointment for you now?Letter templates have one extra setting, Add personal QR code, at the top of the template editor. It puts the patient's own booking link on the printed page as a code they can scan with a phone camera — no typing, no identify step, straight into booking. There are three choices:
The full-width box goes wherever you put {BOOKING_BLOCK} on its own line in the letter body. It prints "Book here", the patient's personal booking link in large type, the scannable code, and "Prefer to talk? Call …" with your phone number. Because it carries the link and the phone number itself, take your own "to book, call us or visit…" sentence out of the letter — the box replaces it rather than adding to it. For the same reason, don't also use {RECALL_LINK} in a letter using this placement; the link would appear twice. The editor warns you about both.
The small code sits in the right-hand margin beside your sign-off and costs no vertical space, so it suits a letter that already fills the page. It prints the code only, not the link in text — at that size a printed web address is too small to be worth typing. If you want a typable link as well, put {RECALL_LINK} in your wording.
The code is always printed. If a letter is too long to leave room for the small column, the code prints over the text rather than silently disappearing — so it's obvious at the printer that the template needs shortening. Print one and look at it before you post a batch.
Different recall types can use different templates. For example, a diabetes recall might use a different message than a standard recall.
Some recall types (e.g. "NR" for no recall) should never be sent.
Most practices send to every recall type and never need this — the section header reads None excluded when that's the case.
Excluded types still appear in the recall preview but are marked as excluded and won't be sent.
Recall mappings link your practice system's recall types to appointment types in the booking system. They drive two patient-facing behaviours:
To set up the mappings:
Nothing is saved until you click Create, and you can change or remove any mapping afterwards. Recall types are usually intervals — "12", "24", "6/12" — which nearly always mean a standard eye examination, so most of the list tends to be right first time. The ones worth checking are your specialty recalls, such as contact lenses or diabetes.
Some recall types are deliberately left unmapped. A spectacle collection or a mailing list isn't something a patient books an appointment for, so those are proposed as Don't map.
The result: patients clicking a 12-month recall link — or landing on the booking page near their 12-month due date — are shown availability for that appointment type.
Several recall types usually point at the same appointment type, so you pick the appointment type first and then tick all of its recall types together:
For example "12", "24" and a diabetes recall might all map to "Comprehensive Eye Exam" — select that appointment type once, click all three, and add them in one go. A practice with thirty recall types is normally done in four or five rounds.
Only recall types that still need mapping are listed, and any you've excluded are left out — a mapping for an excluded type would never be used. Appointment types reserved for new patients aren't offered either, since a patient following a recall has been to you before.
Unmapped recall types still work, so nothing breaks if you skip this. The patient simply sees the standard booking flow and chooses their own appointment type. The Recall Mappings header shows how many of your recall types are mapped — "19 of 33 mapped" — so you can tell at a glance whether it's finished.
Recall types come from your practice system, so use Sync again whenever you add or rename one there. New types arrive unmapped, and Suggest mappings covers just those — anything already mapped is left alone.
All three thresholds below are tunable under Messaging → Recalls → Recall Link & Timing:
Recall links can also be set to expire after a number of days using Recall link expiry days in the same section (default: never expire).
Holidays prevent automated recalls from being sent on public holidays (when the recall automation has Skip public holidays enabled).
Holidays only affect automated recall runs. Reminders are not affected because they are tied to appointment dates, not calendar dates.
Recall rules control when and how recalls are sent. You can have multiple rules with different schedules.
If there are no recall rules yet, the Quick Setup wizard in the Recall Rules section creates a sensible starting rule, the templates it needs, and (optionally) the per-channel default-template mappings, all in one step. Use it as a starting point — everything is editable afterwards, and the manual steps below cover the additional fields it doesn't ask about (start/end dates, custom follow-up steps, etc.).
To create additional rules or edit an existing one manually:
| Setting | Description |
|---|---|
| Name | Rule name (e.g. "Weekly recall") |
| Send time | Time of day to send |
| Schedule | Select Weekly (every N weeks on one or multiple days) or Monthly (once a month on a certain day) |
| Initial channel | The channel the first recall goes out on — SMS, Email, Letter, or Telephone (see the channel note below) |
| Start date | When this rule starts sending (optional) |
| End date | When this rule stops sending new initials (optional, see below) |
The channel you pick is a first choice, not a guarantee. If it can't reach a patient — you chose SMS and they have no mobile on file — Your Booking falls back to another channel rather than skipping them. Which channel it falls back to is the part that differs between the two practice systems.
Optomate: each rule (and each follow-up step) can be set to a specific channel, or to Patient preference — which sends on whichever recall channel each patient prefers in Optomate. Either way, if the channel can't reach the patient, Your Booking tries, in order:
- The channel you picked for the rule or step
- The patient's own recall preference in Optomate
- SMS → Email → Letter → Telephone, whichever works first
Step 2 is the one to know about. A step set to SMS reaches a letter-preferring patient with no mobile as a letter — not as an email, even if they have an email address on file. Their recorded preference is tried before the general order. If that isn't what you want, use Exclude channels on the step.
Sunix: Sunix doesn't store a per-patient recall channel, so there's no "Patient preference" option — you choose the channel for each rule and follow-up step (SMS by default). With nothing recorded per patient, the fallback is a fixed order:
- SMS → Email → Letter → Telephone
- Email → SMS → Letter → Telephone
- Telephone → Letter
On both systems, which channels a recall may fall back to is controlled by the channel switches in Step 7 — Letter and Phone only come into play if you've turned them on (they add printing and call-queue work). A patient with no reachable channel is skipped. Any patient who ends up on a fallback channel is flagged in the recall preview on the staff dashboard, so you can see who didn't get the channel you picked.
Every follow-up step has an Exclude channels row. Pick a channel and any patient that step would reach that way is skipped for that step — they stay eligible for the later steps on their own schedule.
Two things it's for:
A step never offers its own channel — excluding it would leave the step with nobody to send to.
Follow-ups are automatic messages sent to patients who haven't responded to the initial recall. Each step escalates the channel or adjusts the message.
| Setting | Description |
|---|---|
| Days after initial send | Days from when the patient's initial recall went out — not days since the previous step. Each follow-up's timer starts from the same anchor point. |
| Channel | SMS, Email, Letter, or Telephone (Optomate also offers Patient preference). The chosen channel falls back automatically if it can't reach a patient — see Choosing the recall channel. |
| Exclude channels | Skip this step for patients it would reach on the channels you pick — see Excluding a channel from a step. |
| Respect Marketing | Skip patients who have opted out of marketing in your practice system, and add opt-out wording to SMS and email. See Marketing opt-outs — the step then sends nothing on any channel. |
| Templates | Select a template for each channel |
With Respect Marketing on, a step sends the patient nothing on any channel — no SMS, no email, no letter, no phone call. A posted letter isn't marketing under the Spam Act and ringing an existing patient about an overdue check isn't telemarketing, but a patient who asked for no contact and then gets a letter instead reads that as a workaround, so the whole step stops.
The counterweight is the initial recall, which always goes out regardless. An opted-out patient still hears once that their exam is due; only the chasing stops.
Turning it off. "Respect Marketing" is on by default on every new follow-up step, and can be switched off per step, on any channel. Turning it off is your practice asserting that the follow-up is a clinical notice to an existing patient rather than marketing, so the opt-out doesn't apply to it.
Example follow-up sequence:
| Step | Days after initial | Channel | Purpose |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | 14 | SMS | Two-week follow-up |
| 2 | 28 | SMS | One-month follow-up |
| 3 | 56 | Letter | Two-month letter |
| 4 | 364 | Telephone | One-year phone call |
Once a follow-up step has been sent to at least one patient, the editor locks that step to protect patients in flight:
You can still add new steps at the end of the sequence, and edit channel/template/respect-marketing settings on any step (those changes only affect future sends, not patients already in flight).
To change a locked step's timing, use the start/end date approach below.
Use start and end dates when you want to change the follow-up cadence without losing any follow-ups:
When you move recalls across to Your Booking, some patients are already partway through the sequence you run today — sent a first notice a month ago, due their second one next week. Your Booking picks those patients up for you and places each one at the follow-up step matching how long they have been waiting.
Patients are matched on the date your system recorded the recall as sent — on Optomate from its own record of the send, on Sunix from the patient's last recall date. Someone who fell due but was never actually contacted has no send to match, so they come across as a fresh recall instead of a follow-up, which is what you'd want.
Placement only works if your rule has a step at the right point. If you currently follow up at 2 weeks, 6 weeks and 6 months but your rule in Your Booking has only a 2-week step, the patients further along have no step to land on and are left behind. Setting your rule up to mirror the sequence you use today is the safest way to start.
Two ways to do it.
Keep your current sequence and change it later. Build one rule with the same follow-up timings you use now. Everyone carries on exactly as before. When you want to improve the sequence, switch to the new one using the start and end dates described above.
Change straight away. Create two rules:
Either way, nobody is missed and nobody receives the same message twice.
If you used Quick Setup with Enable now ticked, this is already done — automation is enabled and all four channels are allowed.
Sunix: this card is labelled Fallback channels. Each recall rule sets its own channel (Step 6); these switches control which channels a recall is allowed to fall back to when its channel can't reach a patient. Letter and Phone add printing and call-queue work, so they're off by default — turn them on only if you want recalls to fall back to paper or a phone call rather than skip an unreachable patient.
Recalls are now active. The system will process due recalls on the configured schedule.
You don't have to transfer all recall channels at once. You can enable just the channels you want Your Booking to handle (e.g. SMS only) and leave your practice system's built-in recall system handling the others (e.g. letters and phone calls).
For example, a practice might start with:
Once comfortable, enable the remaining channels in Your Booking and disable them in your practice system. The recommendation is to transfer all channels to Your Booking for a unified view of recall status, follow-up tracking, and summary reporting.
When a patient replies to a recall message, the body is stored in your practice system (see Patient Replies) and the reply triggers:
| Reply | Action |
|---|---|
| STOP | Recall marked as opted out. All future recall follow-ups for this patient are suppressed, and the STOP text is saved as a patient note. |
| Any other text | A patient note is created with the reply text. Practice receives an immediate notification email. |
Optomate: a STOP reply sets the patient's Marketing preference to "Exclude" and the Initial Recall preference to "Mobile Phone". The note is labelled
Recall SMS reply (stop); a free-text reply is labelledRecall SMS reply (message).Sunix: a STOP reply updates the patient's recall preference so future newsletters and recalls are suppressed. The reply text is saved to the patient's Patient Notes either way.
After each recall batch finishes sending, the system schedules a summary email to the practice (delay configurable per rule via Summary email delay (hours)). It splits initials from follow-ups so progress through the chain is visible:
The summary includes direct links back to the staff dashboard tabs that need attention (Print Queue, Call Queue, Sent History), and goes to the practice email configured in the practice settings.
For SMS-delivery, duplicate-message, and "no template found" issues, see Messaging Setup → Troubleshooting.