Notifications: editing messages and choosing recipients

MakePlans sends messages to your customers (verification, confirmation, reminders) and notifications to you and your staff. Everything can be customized: content, sender, timing and recipients. Note: editing outgoing messages is not available on trial accounts and is unlocked when you subscribe.

Standard messages

Depending on your settings, MakePlans sends these standard messages to customers:

Verification: SMS code or email link, depending on the verification method set under Setup > Booking site.
Confirmation: sent when the booking is confirmed. By default it matches the verification method.
Reminder: optional SMS before the appointment.
Cancellation or modification: sent when a booking is cancelled or changed.

Which of these are sent is controlled under Setup > Customer notifications.

Editing message content

Go to Setup > Communication to edit the texts. For each message there is a text field, for example "Text in confirmation SMS". By default, whatever you write here is added to the standard message, so the standard content (booking time, service name, verification code) is kept and you don't have to worry about missing anything.

There is also a setting to completely override the SMS or email with your own content. We recommend leaving it disabled. If you enable it, our standard text is not used and you are responsible for including all dynamic values yourself, such as the booking time. For verification messages this is enforced: you must include the verification link variable in the verification email and the verification code variable in the verification SMS, otherwise the settings cannot be saved.

Dynamic values (booking time, customer name, resource name, custom fields) can be inserted with variables. See the documentation linked on the Communication page.

Two content tips:

Don't put "your booking is confirmed" text in the verification message, because at that point the booking is not yet confirmed. Put it in the confirmation message instead.
One SMS is 160 characters. Longer messages are charged as multiple SMS, so keep custom SMS text short, or send the full details by email instead.

Reminder timing

SMS reminders are enabled under Setup > Customer notifications. By default the reminder is sent at noon the day before the appointment. You can change this to any time relative to the booking start, written in English, for example "2 hours before" or "24 hours before". If a booking is made after the reminder time has passed, the reminder is sent shortly after the booking is confirmed. Reminders only apply to bookings made after the setting is enabled.

Message templates: more messages, more control

For anything beyond the standard messages, use Setup > Message templates. A message template sends an email or SMS automatically for each booking, with full control over content and timing:

Confirmation: sent in real time when the booking is confirmed. Use this to send both an email and an SMS, or an SMS confirmation when using email verification.
Reminder: sent relative to the booking start, for example "one week before". This is also how you set up email reminders and multiple reminders.
Follow-up: sent after the booking ends, for example "2 days after". Useful for review requests or aftercare info.

Templates can be limited to specific services or event types. Note that reminder and follow-up messages are processed in batches roughly every 10 minutes, so timing is approximate, and templates only apply to bookings created after the template exists. See the Message templates article for details.

Changing the SMS sender name

The default SMS sender is "MakePlans", with your account name added at the end so customers know who it is from. You can get your own sender name instead. Restrictions:

Maximum 11 characters.
Valid characters: A-Z, a-z, 0-9, space and dash. No Norwegian characters.
It must be a brand or business name.
One sender name per account, and custom senders are not supported in all countries.

A custom SMS sender requires manual setup and verification with our SMS provider, and has an extra cost (see the pricing page). Contact us to set it up. It is also possible to use a phone number as sender so customers can reply directly to your phone.

Changing the email sender

Emails are sent from robot@booking.makeplans.com with your account name as display name, and your account email as reply-to. You can instead send from your own domain (for example booking@yourcompany.com); this requires DNS changes on your domain and has an extra cost. You can activate it under Setup > Addons. We recommend using a subdomain for security.

Notifications to you and your staff

Account-wide: under Setup > User notifications you set which email addresses receive a notification for every new booking, and you can edit the notification texts. These texts go to you, not to the customer.
Per staff member, resource or location: notifications can be set individually on each resource. Go to Setup > Resources, click the resource, then Edit, and add the recipients. You can add multiple email addresses separated by semicolons, but only one phone number for SMS per resource.
The content of resource notifications is the same for all resources; only messages to customers can differ per service.

See also the User notifications article.