Scheduled Appointment Email

Common uses:

• A "your appointment is coming up" note with parking, access or arrival instructions
• Seasonal or practice-wide information everyone with an appointment should see
• A friendly touchpoint a week out, separate from the reminder that asks for a reply

This is part of the core admin feature set — it does not require the Recalls & Reminders module, and there is no SMS cost because it is email only.

What it is, and what it isn't

Three different emails can reach a patient before their visit. They do different jobs:

Email	When it sends	What it's for
Scheduled appointment email	A set number of days before the appointment	Information. No reply expected.
Appointment reminder	A set number of days before, for patients who haven't confirmed	Asks the patient to confirm, reschedule or cancel. Replies update your practice system.
Pre-visit email	Immediately after booking	Intake forms and "what to bring", tied to one appointment type.

The scheduled appointment email deliberately does not ask for a reply, does not update appointment statuses, and does not appear in your reminder summary. It also carries no reschedule or cancel link — every patient already has one from their booking confirmation.

It can run alongside reminders. A patient with both configured may receive both; they read differently, so that is usually fine, but check the days-before settings so they don't land on the same morning.

Setup

1. Create the template

1. In the admin, open Messaging > Templates.
2. Click New Template.
3. Pick Scheduled email for Scope and Email for Channel.
4. Give it a name, a subject line and the body.
5. Save.

Tip — draft it with AI: Click Draft with AI, describe the message in a sentence, and Your Booking writes it for you. See Draft a template with AI.

2. Configure the schedule

1. Open Messaging > Scheduled Email.
2. Set Days before — how far ahead of the appointment the email goes out.
3. Set the send time and the run days (the days of the week the send is allowed to happen).
4. Choose the default template you just created.
5. Turn it on.

Each day at the send time, everyone whose appointment falls that many days ahead receives the email.

3. Narrow who receives it (optional)

Three optional filters, all off by default:

• Appointment types — an exclusion list. Everything is included unless you exclude it, so a new appointment type added in your practice system is covered from day one rather than being missed silently.
• Appointment status — limit to Confirmed and/or Unconfirmed appointments. Leave both unticked to email everyone whose appointment isn't cancelled. Attended isn't offered, because an appointment days in the future can't already have been attended.
• Per-appointment-type templates — use different wording for particular appointment types, falling back to the default for everything else.

What patients receive

One email per patient, not one per appointment. If someone has two appointments on the day, or a family shares an email address, they get a single email listing them. The earliest appointment's type decides which template is used.

Dispensing and collection appointments are skipped automatically, so a patient collecting glasses doesn't get an email written for an eye examination.

Multi-branch practices

Set the schedule up at one branch, then use Sync on the card to copy it to your other branches — the same push and copy-from controls the feedback and recall settings use.

Troubleshooting

Nothing has sent

• Check the strip at the top of the Messaging tab. The Scheduled email chip shows when the next send is due, or Automation off if it isn't switched on.
• Confirm today is one of the selected run days.
• Confirm a default template is set — without one there is nothing to send.

Fewer patients than expected

• Check the appointment status filter. If it's narrowed to Confirmed only, unconfirmed patients are skipped.
• Check the appointment-type exclusions.
• Remember it is one email per patient, so two appointments for the same person count once.

A patient got this and a reminder

Expected if both are configured with similar days-before values. Adjust one so they arrive on different days, or narrow this email's appointment types.