What Booked sends, and when
Every automatic message across the life of a booking — and the one thing it does not send.
Booked can send a customer seven different messages, and every one is a reaction to something that has already happened — a booking made, a payment taken, an appointment moved. Nothing goes out on a timer. Here are all seven, where to switch each one on or off, and the order they arrive in.
The seven messages Booked can send
You will find them under Booked › Customisation › Notifications, on the Templates view. The list is fixed — you can rewrite any of them, but you cannot add an eighth. Each one exists twice: once as an email and once as a text.
| Message | What sets it off | Shipped email subject |
|---|---|---|
| Booking pending | Someone books online while auto-approve is off, or you add a booking with the status Pending. | We’ve received your booking — {company_name} |
| Booking approved | Someone books online while auto-approve is on, you set a booking to Confirmed, or an online card payment clears. | Your appointment is confirmed — {company_name} |
| Booking cancelled | A booking’s status is changed to Cancelled. | Your appointment has been cancelled — {company_name} |
| Booking rescheduled | The start time changes and the status does not. | Your appointment has been rescheduled — {company_name} |
| Booking changed | The service, staff member, location or price changes, but not the status or the time. | Your appointment details have changed — {company_name} |
| Booking refunded | Nothing yet. The template is editable and switched on, but no action in Booked triggers it today. | Your refund has been processed — {company_name} |
| Payment received | Nothing yet. Taking a payment sends Booking approved instead. | Payment received — {company_name} |
All seven go to the customer on the booking, and only to them. Group bookings get one email to the person who made the booking, not one each. A multi-visit course or a same-visit bundle also sends one message, covering the first appointment only.
There is no “your appointment is tomorrow” message, and no setting anywhere to send one a day or an hour before. All seven messages above are reactions to something happening now. The closest thing Booked has is the Daily digest — a once-a-day list of a branch’s appointments sent to your own team, not to customers. That has its own article.
Where the templates live
Open Booked › Customisation › Notifications. If you cannot see Notifications, click Customisation to expand the group. The screen opens on Templates with Email and Booking pending already selected.
Emails and texts sent to customers across the booking lifecycle.
Your appointment at {location_name} is booked in.
Notifications › Templates, with the Booking approved email open.
- 1Notifications — sits inside the Customisation group. Collapsed groups hide it, which is why people often cannot find it.
- 2Templates / Daily digest — two separate jobs on one screen. Templates is what customers receive; Daily digest is the run-sheet emailed to your own staff.
- 3Email / SMS — swaps the editor between the email and the text version of the selected event. Each combination is a separate saved template, so fourteen in total.
- 4The event list — the seven moments Booked can message someone, always in this order. Click one to load its template.
Turning a message on or off
Every template has its own switch. Out of the box all seven email templates are on and all seven SMS templates are off, so a fresh site emails customers and texts nobody.
- Pick the channel, then the eventChoose Email or SMS, then click the event in the list — for example Booking cancelled.
- Set the toggleThe switch at the top of the editor reads Send this email to the customer (or Send this SMS to the customer on the SMS side).
- Press Save templateThe toggle is not saved until you do. Switching event or channel first throws the change away without warning.
The editor card for the Booking cancelled email.
- 1Send this email to the customer — off means the message is skipped entirely. The booking still happens and calendar sync still runs; the customer hears nothing.
- 2Subject — email only, and it accepts merge tags. Saved as plain text.
- 3Email body — bold, italic, underline, bullets and Link. The </> button flips to raw HTML, the quickest way to spot the junk that comes with text pasted from Word. On SMS this becomes a plain Message box with no toolbar.
- 4Insert: — click a chip to drop a merge tag at your cursor. Always use the chips: a typo like {customer_firstname} is left in the message exactly as typed, for the customer to read.
- 5Save template — saves one event and one channel at a time. Move away first and your edits are gone.
- 6Send test — emails whatever is in the editor right now, saved or not, using sample data (Alex Sample, a Yellow Fever Vaccination with Priya Sharma at 10:30). A test that arrives does not mean the template is saved. There is no test button for SMS.
When Booked ships a new email design, it rewrites the subject and body of all seven default email templates the next time an admin page loads. Your on/off switches and all your SMS wording survive; rewritten email copy does not. Keep your own copy of anything you have reworded.
What decides which message goes out
For a booking made on your website, one setting does most of the work: Auto-approve new bookings under Settings › Booking rules. Off, and bookings land Pending and get the Booking pending email. On, they land Confirmed and get Booking approved. A booking whose health screening is flagged for review stays Pending regardless.
Settings › Booking rules — the switch that picks which email a new booking gets.
- 1Bookings — third tab in the vertical rail on the Settings screen.
- 2Auto-approve new bookings — off by default. This is the difference between a customer receiving “we’ve received your booking” and “your appointment is confirmed”.
When you edit an existing booking, Booked sends one message per save, chosen in this order: a changed status wins, then a changed start time, then anything else. Move an appointment and mark it Confirmed in the same save and the customer gets Booking approved, never learning the time moved. If they need to know both, change the time, save, then change the status and save again.
Moving an appointment to a new time or a different staff column counts as an edit, so Booking rescheduled goes out immediately. There is no confirmation prompt and no quiet way to tidy the diary. If you are reshuffling a whole day, every drop emails somebody — switch Booking rescheduled off while you work, then back on.
A typical booking, message by message
Here is the whole run for a customer who books a travel vaccination at your Bramhall branch and pays a deposit online, with auto-approve off.
- They book and pay the depositThe booking is created as Pending, so Booking pending goes out. The card payment then clears, the booking flips to Confirmed, and Booking approved follows. Two emails within a minute or two — this is normal and not a fault.
- You move them to a later slotYou drag the appointment on the Calendar. Booking rescheduled is sent the moment you drop it.
- You swap the vaccinating pharmacistNothing else changes, so the customer gets Booking changed.
- They attendYou mark the booking Completed. No message is sent — Completed and No-show map to nothing.
Note what is missing: nobody at the pharmacy is emailed. There is no “new booking” alert, no admin copy, no blind copy. The only email Booked sends your own team is the daily digest.
Things that send nothing at all
- Deleting a booking. Deleting from the Calendar or the Bookings list removes it in silence. To tell the customer, set the status to Cancelled first, let that email go, then delete.
- Marking a booking Completed or No-show. Neither status maps to a message.
- Refunding a booking. The record and the money are handled, but the Booking refunded template is never triggered — tell the customer yourself.
- Texts, for now. SMS templates are written and ready, but texting is not live yet, so switching one on sends nothing today.
- A record in your activity log. Customer emails and texts are not written to Settings › Activity log, so a booking’s history never shows that a confirmation went out.