Today's Appointment Reminders

In this document you can:

Create a Template for SMS Reminders for Today's Appointments

If you need to contact your patients for appointments on the current day, for example when a clinic needs to be cancelled at short notice, you can now send your patient an SMS. To do this:

  1. From Vision+ - Practice Reports, select Appointments:

  2. Select SMS Merge Template SMS Merge Templates.
  3. The Appointment SMS Merge Templates screen displays:

  4. Select SMS .
  5. Add a Name for example 'Today':

  6. Add in the text of your message, and consider the merge fields available in Add Mail Merge Field, which are:
    • Date
    • Time
    • Staff Name
    • Notes Kept At
    • Title
    • Surname
    • Forename
    • DOB
    • Cancel Appointment
  7. Select OK.

Create a Today Appointment Search Filter

To create a filter to search for today's appointments:

  1. From Vision+ - Practice Reports, select Appointments:

  2. Select All.
  3. Find the Days in the Future column, click the filter on the column header.

  4. Select 0 and click Save save filter.
  5. Create a File Name for example "Today" and Save:

    Save as Filter

Run Appointment Reminders for Today

To run appointment reminders for today:

  1. From Vision+Practice Reports, select Appointments:

  2. Select Today:

  3. Select patients (by ticking SMS column) you want to send reminders to:

  4. Select "Today" or similar named template from Please select an SMS message template.
  5. Select SMS Message in the Send SMS message section of the toolbar .
    Note - You can track the SMS reminders that have been sent to patients in Sent SMS Messages. It gives you a full audit of what was sent, the status and type of message and if the patient has replied. See Appointment SMS Text Message Reports for more information.
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