Is there a way to be notified by text or email when someone makes an appointment?

[Greg]

Is there a way to be notified by text or email when someone makes an appointment?  The only notification I am getting is on the dashboard.  I have a lot of appointments and some of them are weeks in advance so I am not likely to see a new appt. on the calendar.

[Ashtin_BBB]

Hey Sqaure Up! I have roughly 40 "mobile employees" that could use the appointment reminder feature for our services. I see you asked the other client on how he could use this, so I figured I'd give my two cents. I have babysitters who go out to different locations and for the sake of both client and sitter, I'd like for them to both recieve a reminder a few hours prior. Since my employees do travel to different locations at various times, this would be helpful for them not forget about a service they picked up a week/month/day prior (which has happened!)

[oknext]

I too need REMINDERS for my staff. The fact that Square Appointments doesn't offer staff reminders for upcoming appointments is troublesome. I have a partial workaround using iPhone Calendars, but TEXT REMINDERS would be far better for our staff.

Since clearly, I am not the first person asking for this ... I am curious as to why Square is dragging their heels with this request. It wouldn't take much programming to add an option to also send text reminders to the account admin (at a minimum) and hopefully to the specific staff person for the appointment. 

Hopefully, Square will add this function soon or we'll be forced to look for other another system that can send reminders to both our clients & our staff.

[Lynn_K]

I love Square, truly, but I see this was brought up a year ago and nothing was done.  PLEASE can a feature be added so the business owner and staff can receive text reminders of upcoming appointments?  I'm a dog trainer with a sporadic schedule throughout the day.  Nothing worse than having a client call and ask where I am because I forgot to check my calendar.  It happened again yesterday.  Thank you!

[Helen]

I'm sorry that text message reminders still aren't available for staff members @oknext @Lynn_K.

I do understand how this is important to your business. I would encourage anyone else interested in this to post in this thread letting us know about your business and how reminders will help (thanks @Lynn_K!). Your posts will help the Appointments team to prioritize work on this.

We can't share timelines in the Community but as soon as there's an update we'll let everyone in this thread know.

[Lynn_K]

Thank you. This happened to me yet again this last week.  I'm not sure how to go about garnering support for this from other members though.

[radam76]

I'm throwing my hat in the ring here too. Our business would like to have the capability to have text reminders for our service providers letting them know (a reminder) that they have an upcoming meet with a client in an hour...for example. 

[Lynn_K]

Thank you for the support.  Can we get some more?  Come on, business owners!

[jenjonestherapy]

Same. I missed an appointment yesterday in which I lost over $500. PLEASE add this feature. Thank you!

[hocusphocus]

I'll bring this into 2019.

This has become a must for me. I just started using an Appointment keeper so Square is my first. I have had three appointments come in from my website so far. I noticed right on the first time, considering I didn't have time to accept and write a message to the client, I had to put my phone away. When I went to check it again I had to search for it. I couldn't remember the clients' name off hand from the three seconds that I looked at it. So I had to go through every client, luckily I only had a couple in there so far. I could see this as an issue as I grow. The notification should stay active until I approve, or something along those lines. A quick way to get back to pending appointments. Maybe a menu item in the main menu, 'Pending Appointments'.

To join in with reminder notifications...

Yes, please. I'm a photographer that also does Ridesharing. So if I forget to check, I'm not out driving while I have someone waiting at the studio. This sort of happened to me yesterday but it was an initial scheduling that I didn't see the notification from the app, as I was driving, it was scheduled for later that day. The person showed up and luckily there were other people here that called me. (This is on me for allowing people to schedule so close, I have since changed this) I would have gotten the text but I set that number up for the office mobile and didn't have that on me. (So there is another feature, more than one number for staff, at least for the owner, admins.)

Also, totally off topic, the website embeds are ugly and could use a little customizability on our end, when we don't know CSS too.

What we do have though is a solid foundation with Square. 

[Helen]

Thanks for your post @hocusphocus! Text message reminders are still a feature request but I just wanted to clarify that you can choose to receive an initial text notification when a new appointment is booked or when an existing appointment is changed. To enable this setting:

1. Open the Appointments app on your iPhone. 
2. Tap Settings.
3. Tap Notifications > toggle the switch next to Text Message on.

Thank you again for your detailed post, we really appreciate it while we work to improve Square Appointments.

[hocusphocus]

Thank you. 

I do have the initial text set up and on but it was on the office phone that stays at the office. I try to separate my business and personal phone but realized I should have this on my personal phone so I don't miss anything while I'm out. I would like to be able to receive texts on my office phone still as well. This way while I am at the office, I can use the office phone, and if I am out I will be able to get it on my personal phone. I am aware I would always get the notification on both. As I see it now, I can only add one phone number.

[RxRD-Nutrition]

Thank you for keeping the thread going. I WOULD LOVE to have the capability to have text reminders for me and my staff to be reminded about upcoming scheduled consultations. CAN WE PLEASE get this feature. This would help us TREMENDOUSLY!!

[LeftyB]

Yes please add this option! I’m an artist, and keeping track of who I’m working with, on what day, and time is a huge chore. Adding this option would make my schedule significantly easier to manage.

[Cheesecake2]

Being able to remind your customers of appointments is great but I would like to get a reminder for myself that I have an appointment coming up. I have a horrible memory and have a habit of forgetting appointments. Is it possible to set that up?

[nika]

Hi @Cheesecake2 - I moved your question over to this thread so that we can continue to track the popularity of this feature request. If anything changes, we'll be sure to update here!

[Clearblue2009]

How is this still not a thing almost two years later with every digital calendar out there having this option? What good is it to remind the customer about your appointment if you yourself don’t show because you forgot, busy running your business? This feature is a must first and foremost for business owners (not clients), who have million of things, meetings, contracts to remember. There is a reason Apple and google calendars have this feature, it’s been a lifesaver for so many and is a must have with our busy lifestyles. If I don’t have a reminder, there is a 90% chance I will forget to check my calendar. And I wouldn’t mind setting the reminder on the synced google or Apple calendars for square appointments, but if my receptionist schedules the appointment for me on my square calendar, I don’t even get notified about a new appointment. Unless the customer goes to my schedule and requests the appointment, I don’t get notified about any new appointments scheduled by my staff. So what good is that? I don’t know about my appointments, unless I constantly check my calendar. This is such a huge flaw and not even being worked on for almost two years now.

[groomedbyang]

This reply created from merging an existing thread: "Alerts for new or cancelled appointments??" The author has been notified via email.

Hi!

 Is there a way to set a text/email alert when a client books or cancels?? 

[AllProTint]

Hello, I would like a text message when an appointment cancels....Client said he cancelled through text but I never received message.

[puka]

Hey @AllProTint - Do you have email and text notifications already set up? You can check by going to your Staff profile and making sure there is a check mark next to Email and Text. If those are already checked off, you should already be receiving cancellation notification settings.

My next suggestion would be to check in with the customer about whether they cancelled through the link they were texted or if they just replied directly to the text. If they replied directly to the text message, then you would not have received it as any replies to that SMS number go to an unattended inbox. If they cancelled through the link and your settings were set up correctly, you should have gotten an email and/or text about it depending on your settings.

[mmcallister]

I'd like to know if somehow we can also have text message reminders sent to me/employees for appointments. I know the client receives reminders, but how about the vendors? 

[Chad]

Hello @mmcallister! 

We have the ability to notify you when a staff member books an appointment! On your Square Dashboard head to the Appointments tab and click Staff. Once you select a staff member a new menu should pop up on the right side of your screen. Scroll down to notifications and toggle on Notify Owner of Appointment Activity. 

Now you'll receive an email or SMS message each time a staff member books an appointment! 

If this isn't what you were looking for, feel free to reach out to me! 😀