Appointment reminders help your team send confirmation and reminder texts (and optional emails) about upcoming visits. You can set messages to go out on a schedule, or send them yourself from Scheduler when you are ready.
This article covers setup first, then how to send reminders to clients day to day.
Texting fee: Appointment reminder text messages (automatic and manual) and booking confirmation text messages will add a text messaging usage fee on your monthly CoolFocus invoice when CoolFocus sends or receives an actual text message. Turning a setting on alone does not bill you, but each message that goes out or comes in can. Full list: What Counts as a Text Message & What are the Text Usage Fees?.
Package note: Automatic appointment text reminders are available on Plus and Premium. Core organizations can still configure reminder message wording and use the manual Send Reminders workflow. Extra client-facing languages beyond English and Spanish also require Plus or Premium. Check Settings → Plan & Billing for your package.
Looking for staff new online booking alerts? See Staff Booking Alerts.
Looking for the intake message that goes with forms and consents? See Customize Intake Messages.
Complete these items so reminder texts can actually deliver:
• On Settings → Phone → Numbers, the number you use for reminders has SMS routing / Use for Reminders turned on (status should say Enabled for reminders).
• Clients who should receive texts must have a valid mobile number and are marked OK to text in CoolFocus (with your organization's SMS consent requirements completed when applicable).
• You have permission to open Scheduler and Scheduler Settings (ask a system administrator if you do not see these areas).
CoolFocus does not send appointment reminder texts to clients who have not agreed to receive texts. Missing permission means the text is skipped, not sent.
Administrators configure reminder wording and automatic rules here:
1. Open Settings (gear).
2. Open Scheduler Settings.
3. Under Schedule, choose Reminders.
You can also open Scheduler → Reminders → Rules for the same configuration while you are already in Scheduler.
At the top of Settings → Schedule → Reminders, use Client-facing languages.
1. Add or remove languages with the language chips. English stays required.
2. Select Save Languages.
This list is organization-wide (same list as Client Portal supported languages). Adding a language unlocks translation editors on each reminder tab. It does not auto-translate your wording—you still enter (or generate) each translation.
Package note: Core includes English and Spanish reminder templates. Turning on additional languages beyond English and Spanish requires Plus or Premium subscriptions. Full details: How to select the languages your organization supports.
Open the Automatic Reminders tab.
1. Turn Automatic reminders on when you want CoolFocus to queue timed messages for you.
2. Keep Use one automatic reminder policy — by default one policy applies across appointment types. Client replies still land in Inbox.
3. Add rules for when messages should send. Common timings include:
• Right after a booking (or a separate immediate confirmation setting—see below)
• A set number of days or hours before the appointment
• Follow-up after a completed visit (when your workflow needs it)
4. For each rule, write the message text and any translations for your supported languages.
5. Set Applies to on each rule:
• Online bookings only — client booked through the public booking widget
• Staff-created only — staff booked the visit in Scheduler
• Online and staff-created — both
6. Select Save Automatic Reminders.
Package note: The Automatic reminders feature (scheduled texts that fire without staff clicking Send) is a Plus and Premium capability. If automatic reminders are not available or not turned on for your organization, staff can still send one-time confirmations when booking and use manual Send Reminders (below).
On the same Automatic Reminders area, set Immediate booking confirmations:
• Online bookings only (default)
• Staff-created appointments only
• Online and staff-created
This controls the confirmation email (and optional SMS) that can go out when the appointment is created. It is independent of whether full automatic reminder rules are on—you can send a one-time confirmation without enrolling the visit in every timed rule, or the reverse.
There is no separate text editor for this message. Unlike the Manual Send template or the Confirmation Reply below, the immediate booking confirmation has no wording field of its own. CoolFocus builds it automatically from the appointment's details, including the appointment's duration, and that duration cannot be removed or edited from the confirmation itself. If you need a different duration to show, change the appointment type's Duration on its Rules tab instead (see Appointment Types and Booking Rules). Keep in mind that changes the appointment's actual length, not just the wording of the confirmation.
If a staff-created appointment leaves both notification checkboxes blank (for example, an older integration that does not send a preference), CoolFocus only auto-enables SMS reminders when automatic reminders are already on for the organization and the client is marked OK to text. If automatic reminders are not enabled yet, an omitted SMS preference stays off so clients are not texted unexpectedly.
Scheduler Settings → Overview includes an Automatic reminders readiness item. It can mean two different things:
• You still need to set things up — enable automatic reminders and add at least one active rule.
• Paused system-wide by CoolFocus — your policy and rules look fine, but CoolFocus has temporarily paused automatic reminders organization-wide (for example during a feature rollout). There is nothing to fix in your settings; contact support if you need a status update.
Open the Manual Send tab.
This template is what staff use when they send reminders from the calendar or the Send Reminders page. It is separate from automatic reminder rules.
1. Edit the SMS (text message) body (and translations for each supported language).
2. Select Save Manual Send Reminder.
Inbox message templates under Settings → Phone → Templates are not used for appointment reminders. Appointment reminder wording lives only under Schedule → Reminders.
Open the Confirmation Reply tab.
Clients can reply to a reminder text. CoolFocus recognizes common confirm, cancel, and reschedule-style replies:
• Yes / Y / 1 / confirm / ok / si (and similar) → appointment status can become Confirmed, and CoolFocus can send the confirmation reply message you configure here
• No / N / cancel / can't / cannot (and similar) → appointment status can become Canceled
• Reschedule (and similar) → CoolFocus checks the appointment type's Allow Client Self-Rescheduling setting (see Appointment Types and Booking Rules) to decide how to respond
1. Customize the confirmation reply SMS (and translations) sent after a recognized confirmation.
2. Select Save Confirmation Reply.
Package note (Premium only): If an individual appointment type needs different instructions, you can override this organization-wide reply with a more customized appointment type reminder instead. (You can set the specific appointment type reminder in Scheduler Settings > Appointment Type.) This appointment-type override is available on Premium only.
Reply window closes at the appointment's start time. CoolFocus only matches an incoming text back to a reminder while the appointment is still upcoming, using the location's local time. Once the appointment's start time passes, a later reply from that client no longer confirms, cancels, or changes that appointment's reminder status, even if the wording is a recognized Yes or No. The message still lands in the Inbox conversation for staff to read and follow up on by hand.
When a client texts back a reschedule-style word, what happens depends on the appointment type's Allow Client Self-Rescheduling setting:
• Allowed, and a client or schedule portal is set up — CoolFocus texts the client a link to pick a new time online. Once the client confirms a new time, the appointment status updates automatically.
• Not allowed, or no portal configured — the appointment status does not change. CoolFocus notifies staff and replies to the client asking them to call your office to reschedule.
Use the merge field {RescheduleUrl} in a custom reschedule auto-reply template to include the client's personal reschedule link. If a template contains {RescheduleUrl} but self-service rescheduling is not available for that appointment, CoolFocus sends the standard "please call" reply instead of a broken link.
Other replies that CoolFocus does not recognize stay in the Inbox conversation for staff follow-up. Reminder threads often stay Unassigned even when the appointment status changes—assign the conversation when someone should own the next reply.
Open the Preview tab.
1. Pick a realistic appointment type, location, date/time, and language.
2. Confirm the local time zone looks correct for that location.
3. Review how automatic and manual wording will read to a client.
Then run a small real-world test (one staff-created appointment or a known online booking) and confirm the message appears on the appointment Messaging section and in Inbox.
When staff book from Scheduler (quick create, full booking panel, or staff booking mode), a Client notifications section appears:
• Send confirmation email
• Send confirmation text
Both default as unchecked. Nothing is sent, and the appointment is not enrolled in scheduled reminders, unless staff check one or both boxes for that visit.
A checkbox may be disabled when it cannot be used yet:
• Email — client has no valid email on file
• Text — no valid mobile number, client is not OK to text, or your organization has no texting number ready
If automatic reminders are not enabled for the organization, staff still see that scheduled reminders will not run—but the immediate confirmation checkboxes can still send right away when eligibility is met.
Use this option when you want to text a list of upcoming appointment reminders yourself (common for front desk activity each morning or week).
1. Open Scheduler from the main navigation.
2. Open the Reminders tab.
3. Stay on Send (other tabs are Rules for setup and History for past sends).
Use the filter bar:
• Date — Selected Day, Today, Tomorrow, This Week, Next Week, or Custom
• Status categories such as:
• All — upcoming appointments in the date range
• To Send — have not received a reminder yet
• Pending — reminder sent; still waiting on a reply
• Confirmed / Rescheduled / Canceled — as labeled
• History — past appointments
• Has phone — only rows with a phone number
• Ok to text — only clients marked OK to receive texts
Location, resource, and appointment-type filters from Scheduler also narrow the list when you have them set.
1. Review the grid (who is on the list, phone, OK-to-text indicators).
2. Check individual appointments, or select all currently listed.
3. Select Send Reminders (shows the selected count).
4. In Confirm Send Reminders, review the preview:
• One appointment — edit that exact message if needed
• Several appointments — review the template (or per-recipient previewed text)
5. Confirm Send Reminders.
6. Read the result summary (queued, skipped, failed). Open any failed or skipped row on the appointment Messaging section if you need the reason.
Before an SMS reminder goes out, the client generally needs:
• A valid mobile number on the appointment or linked client
• Permission to text (OK to text / SMS consent as your organization requires)
• For automatic/scheduled enrollment, SMS reminders enabled on that appointment when your rules and booking choices require it
If permission or contact info is missing, CoolFocus skips the text instead of sending it. Manual sends that use Ok to text filtering keep non-consented clients off the list.
For delivery warnings after a send attempt, see Understanding Text Message Delivery Warnings.
Open any appointment's detail panel and find Messaging.
You will see:
• Two badges labeled Automatic email reminders on/off and Automatic SMS reminders on/off
• A history of confirmation and reminder messages (automatic or manual)
• Channel (SMS or email)
• Status: Scheduled, Sending, Sent, Skipped, Cancelled, or Failed
• Scheduled or actual send time
• Failure or skip reason (for example not OK to text, no phone number, or SMS reminders disabled)
An appointment that is waiting on a reply shows as Pending only until its scheduled start time. After that time passes, the row no longer shows Pending for that reminder, whether or not a reply ever came in.
These two badges describe automatic reminders only. They show whether that appointment is enrolled in the scheduled, rule-driven reminders set up under Automatic Reminders. They do not describe a one-time reminder a staff member sends by hand from Send Reminders. A manual send goes out and shows as Queued in the message history even when the automatic badge for that channel reads off, because a manual send does not check that toggle. Seeing "Queued" right after "Automatic SMS reminders off" is expected, not a conflict.
When staff move an appointment to a new date or time in Scheduler, or a client reschedules through the portal, any automatic reminder still queued for that appointment moves with it. CoolFocus recalculates the send time from the rule's offset (for example, "24 hours before") against the new appointment time, so the reminder still goes out at the right point before the visit. You do not need to resend or re-enable anything for a rule that already applies to that appointment.
A reminder that already sent before the reschedule stays in the message history as sent; it is not recalled or replaced. If a later rule still applies before the new time, that rule queues normally.
Check the appointment's Messaging section after a reschedule to confirm this happened:
• A queued reminder should show a Scheduled status with a send time based on the new appointment time.
• If a reminder instead shows Cancelled right after a reschedule, and you did not cancel or unenroll it yourself, that is not expected behavior. Contact support so the account can be checked.
When CoolFocus sends an appointment reminder text (automatic rules or manual Send Reminders), the outbound message is also recorded in Inbox so staff can see it went out and handle replies in one place.
When a client texts back a recognized confirmation (Yes, Y, confirm, and similar), the reply appears in that person's regular Inbox conversation, the same as any other text. To review confirmations across clients without opening each conversation one at a time, open Inbox → Confirmed Appointments. This view lists conversations where the client's reply confirmed their appointment.
You can also check a single appointment's own history: open the appointment's detail panel and look at Messaging for the confirmation reply and its status.
Staff replies sent from the old texting screen do not show up in the new Inbox. If your organization still has staff using the older, legacy texting screen alongside the new Inbox, replies sent from that older screen are not added to the Inbox conversation thread for that client. This means a reply a teammate sent from the old screen can look "missing" when another teammate checks the same conversation in Inbox. Until a planned update bridges old-screen messages into the Inbox thread, send any new replies from Inbox so the whole team sees the same conversation history.
CoolFocus does not auto-assign a reminder conversation to whoever pressed Send.
• Batch and scheduled reminders are often sent by a receptionist, volunteer, or coordinator who should not own every reply
• The sender may not have Inbox access
• Assigned to should mean who owns the next reply, not who bulk-sent reminders
You can still open the conversation and assign it (for example to the client's advocate) when someone should own follow-up. Leave it Unassigned when any available staff member can pick it up.
Day-to-day Inbox habits: Getting Started in the Inbox and Managing Conversations & Sending Messages in Inbox.
• No reminder texts go out at all — Confirm texting number is purchased, compliance is complete, and Use for Reminders is on. See Purchasing Your Text Number.
• Automatic rules never fire — Confirm your package includes automatic reminders (Plus / Premium), Automatic reminders is on, at least one active rule exists, and Applies to matches how the appointment was booked (online vs staff). Also check the Overview readiness item (setup incomplete vs system-wide pause).
• Staff checked Send confirmation text but nothing sent — Client needs mobile + OK to text, and your org needs a ready texting number.
• Row shows Skipped — Open appointment Messaging for the reason; fix consent or phone, then resend manually if appropriate.
• Wrong language — Confirm the language is on Client-facing languages, saved, and the rule/manual template has a translation for that language. Extra languages need Plus / Premium.
• Client replied CANCEL and stopped texts — STOP is the standard opt-out keyword. Cancel-style words on a reminder can set the appointment to Canceled; full opt-out from texts follows your texting rules. See Texting Compliance Requirements and delivery warnings guidance.
• Client texted back asking to reschedule — Check the appointment type's Allow Client Self-Rescheduling setting. When it's on and a client or schedule portal is set up, the client gets a link to pick a new time and the status updates once they use it. When it's off, or no portal is set up, CoolFocus notifies staff and tells the client to call; rebook the appointment for them in Scheduler.
• Client replied Yes or No but the appointment status did not change — Check when the reply arrived. CoolFocus only applies a confirm or cancel reply while the appointment is still upcoming (before its local start time). A reply sent after the appointment was set to start stays visible in Inbox but does not update the appointment.
• An appointment was rescheduled and its reminder shows Cancelled instead of a new Scheduled time — This is not expected. A reschedule should re-time the reminder to the new date, not cancel it. Check the Messaging section for the exact status and send time, then contact support with the appointment details if the reminder was cancelled rather than re-timed.
• A "Automatic SMS reminders off" badge shows on an appointment that just got a manual reminder — This is expected. The badge only tracks automatic, rule-driven enrollment. A manual send from Send Reminders works independently of it; check the message history entry's own status (Queued, Sent, Skipped, Failed) instead.
• Looking to reword the immediate booking confirmation clients get right after they book online — There is no separate wording editor for it, and the duration it shows cannot be edited on its own. See Immediate booking confirmations above.
• A staff reply looks missing from a conversation — Check whether that reply was sent from the older, legacy texting screen rather than Inbox. Old-screen replies do not sync into the Inbox thread yet, so ask the teammate to resend from Inbox if the client still needs a response.
• What Counts as a Text Message & What are the Text Usage Fees?
• Staff Booking Alerts
• How to select the languages your organization supports
• Sending Text Messages
• Understanding Text Message Delivery Warnings
• Appointment Types and Booking Rules
• Scheduler Settings: Complete Setup Guide
• Getting Started in the Inbox
