Looking for a dedicated walkthrough of setup and sending appointment reminders (including Plus/Premium notes)? See Appointment Reminders.
Scheduler communications include staff alerts about new bookings and client messages before and after appointments.
At least one active staff user should subscribe to New Online Booking notifications. Choose the appropriate in-app, email, or text channels.
Without a subscriber, appointments may still be created, but no one is actively alerted to the new booking.
To protect client confidentiality, the SMS and email version of this notification does not include the client's name, since text and email are not guaranteed private or secure channels. Instead the title shows the appointment type, the center, and the date and time, for example: "New Online Booking - Pregnancy Test at Mission Viejo on Saturday, July 11, 2026 at 2:30 PM". Open the appointment in Scheduler (or the CoolFocus mobile app) to see the client's name and other details.
Appointments that staff create by phone or in person can receive the same immediate booking confirmation and automatic reminder schedule as appointments a client books online. This is controlled per appointment type (or on the organization-wide default policy), so existing tenants are not surprised by new client-facing messages after this change ships.
Open Settings > Schedule > Reminders and look for two related controls:
Immediate booking confirmations: choose whether the confirmation message (email and optional SMS) sends for Online bookings only, Staff-created appointments only, or Online and staff-created. This defaults to Online bookings only, so appointments staff enter directly do not start sending confirmations until you turn this on.
Applies to on each automatic reminder rule: choose whether that specific rule fires for Online and staff-created bookings, Online bookings only, or Staff-created only. Automatic reminders for staff-created appointments still require the rule itself to be active and the client to have a reachable phone number or email on file.
The immediate booking confirmation follows the confirmation source filter regardless of whether automatic reminders are turned on for that appointment type. The two settings are independent, so you can send a one-time confirmation without enrolling the appointment in the full reminder schedule, or the reverse.
When a staff member books a new appointment directly in Scheduler (from the calendar's quick create, the full booking panel, or staff booking mode), a Client notifications section appears with two checkboxes:
Send confirmation email
Send confirmation text
Both are unchecked by default. Nothing is sent, and the appointment is not enrolled in scheduled reminders, unless staff explicitly check one or both boxes for that appointment. This replaces the earlier behavior of automatically opting an appointment in based on whether the client had an email address on file or had agreed to be texted.
Each checkbox can be disabled, with an explanation, when it is not usable yet:
The email checkbox is disabled if the client does not have a valid email address on file.
The text checkbox is disabled if the client has no valid phone number on file, is not marked OK to text, or your organization has not connected a text messaging number yet. See Purchasing Your Text Number.
While the client's contact information is still loading, both checkboxes remain unchecked.
If your organization has not enabled automatic reminders, the section also shows a notice that scheduled reminders are not available yet. Scheduled reminders wait until automatic reminders are turned on for the organization, but the immediate confirmation checkboxes above still work: an email and/or text confirmation for this specific appointment can send right away if checked, a valid contact method exists, the client is OK to text (for SMS), and your organization has a texting number configured.
Open Settings > Schedule > Reminders.
Automatic reminders use one organization-wide policy by default. Create timed rules for when messages should be sent and customize the message for each supported language.
Common rules include:
Immediately after an online booking
A set number of days or hours before the appointment
Follow-up messages after a completed appointment
Each rule has an Applies to setting that controls which bookings trigger it:
Online bookings only: the appointment was booked through the client-facing booking widget.
Staff-created only: the appointment was booked directly by staff in Scheduler.
Online and staff-created: the rule fires regardless of who booked the appointment.
If a staff-created appointment leaves both notification checkboxes blank (for example, an appointment created through an older integration or API call that does not specify a preference), CoolFocus only auto-enables SMS reminders for that appointment when automatic reminders are already turned on for the organization and the client is marked OK to text. If automatic reminders are not enabled yet, an omitted SMS preference is left off rather than being auto-enabled, so clients are not texted unexpectedly.
Appointment text reminders are only sent to clients who have agreed to receive text messages from your organization. CoolFocus does not send reminder texts to clients who have not given that permission.
Before a scheduled or immediate SMS reminder can go out, the client generally needs all of the following:
A valid mobile number on the appointment or on the linked client record
Permission to text recorded for that client — in CoolFocus this is usually the OK to text setting on the client's phone information, along with your organization's SMS consent requirements for that number
SMS reminders enabled for that appointment (chosen when staff book the visit, or enrolled by your automatic reminder rules when your settings allow)
If consent or permission is missing, CoolFocus skips the text instead of sending it. That protects clients who have not opted in and helps your center stay aligned with texting rules.
On the appointment detail panel, open Messaging to see whether SMS reminders are on for that visit and whether a queued text was Skipped or Failed. Common skip reasons include the client is not OK to text, there is no phone number, or SMS reminders are disabled for that appointment.
What your team can do: If a client wants reminder texts, record consent on their record (or send your SMS consent link) before you rely on automatic reminders. When booking, staff will not be able to check Send confirmation text until the client is OK to text and your texting number is connected.
For more on delivery and consent warnings in the Inbox, see Understanding Text Message Delivery Warnings.
Scheduler Settings > Overview includes an Automatic reminders item in its readiness checklist. It now shows one of two different messages depending on what is actually wrong:
If you have not yet activated a reminder policy or added at least one active rule, it tells you to enable automatic scheduler reminders and configure at least one active reminder policy rule. This is something you need to fix.
If your policy and rules are already active and configured correctly, but the message instead says automatic reminders are paused system-wide by CoolFocus while the feature finishes rollout, there is nothing to fix on your end. This is a temporary, organization-wide hold controlled by CoolFocus, not a problem with your setup. Contact support if you want a status update.
The Manual Send tab controls the template staff use when sending reminders from the calendar or Send Reminders workflow. It is separate from automatic reminder rules.
Manual text reminders follow the same consent rules as automatic ones: CoolFocus only texts clients who are OK to text (and who meet your organization's SMS consent requirements). Clients without permission are not included when staff use filters such as OK to text only on the Send Reminders workflow.
Clients can reply to a text reminder to confirm or cancel. Configure the confirmation reply sent after a recognized confirmation. An appointment type can override the organization-wide reply when it needs different instructions.
Unrecognized replies remain in the conversation for staff follow-up.
When CoolFocus sends an appointment reminder text (automatic rules or the manual Send Reminders workflow), that message is also recorded in Inbox. That way your team can see that the reminder went out, and any client reply lands in the same conversation for follow-up.
CoolFocus does not automatically assign a reminder conversation to the person who sent it.
That is intentional:
Batch and scheduled reminders are often sent by a receptionist, volunteer, or coordinator who is not the person who should own the client's next reply
The person who presses send may not even have access to Inbox
Assigned to should mean someone is responsible for the next reply or follow-up — not that they bulk-sent reminders for the day
What stays unassigned: Texts that go out as appointment reminders (automatic or batch/manual Send Reminders).
What you still control: One-to-one texts you send as part of a real conversation can be assigned the usual way. For a reminder conversation, open it and assign it yourself when a specific person should own replies — for example the client's advocate. If any available staff member can pick up the reply, leave it in Unassigned.
Seeing the sent reminder in Inbox (instead of only on the appointment) is new in CoolFocus 5. Leaving those conversations unassigned matches how ownership works for bulk reminder sends, and keeps volunteers who only send reminders from being treated as the conversation owner.
For day-to-day assignment habits, see Getting Started in the Inbox and Managing Conversations.
Open an appointment to see a Messaging section in the detail panel. It shows two badges, whether email reminders and SMS reminders are enabled for that appointment, followed by a history of every confirmation and reminder message tied to it, including:
The channel (SMS or email) and where it came from (for example, an automatic reminder rule or a manual send)
Its delivery status: Scheduled, Sending, Sent, Skipped, Cancelled, or Failed
The scheduled send time, or the actual sent time once it has gone out
A failure reason when a reminder could not be sent — including when a text was skipped because the client is not OK to text or SMS reminders are off for that visit
This gives staff a quick way to confirm which messages are queued or were sent for an appointment and whether any failed or were skipped for consent or contact reasons, without leaving the appointment detail panel.
Open Settings > Intake & documents > Intake Message to customize the text and email introduction used when forms and consents are sent before an appointment.
Review:
SMS introduction
Email introduction
Email subject
Supported language translations
Use the reminder preview with a real appointment type, location, date, and language. Test both automatic and manual messages. Confirm the appointment's local time zone is shown correctly and that replies appear in Inbox.
