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Automation - trigger event based on "booking an appointment"

  • May 18, 2026
  • 2 replies
  • 23 views
BCDC2023
Crowned Member
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Hi

 

I have mentioned this to support before but nothing has come of it.  When setting up an automation rule,  espcially for emails or sms, the trigger event seems to be based solely on the start or finish time of an appointment time.

Whilst this might be useful to some, it fails in some areas.  What would be more logical and extremely helpful to practices is if an email an automation rule can be setup to send an email or sms a certain number of minutes or hours AFTER an appointment has been BOOKED.

The rationale behind this is quite simple.  We might book an emergency appointment in 30 minutes time where we have a gap.  At present the automation rule will send an email a certain amount of time before the actual appointment but there is no consistency in when it will be sent because the time is soon approaching for the appointment OR it could be in 1 month time.  The downside of this is that the patient wont receive e.g. the confirmation of appointment email until several weeks later (if the automation rule is set to send x hours or minutes before the appointment.

 

Having a “booking event” as a trigger means that we dont need to manually send email confirmations after an appointment is booked (right click on calendar and send email) but instead we can rely on the automation to work and do actions based on the booking event rather than the actual appointment date which cannot control when the event happens as the appointment is variable but the booking date is not.

 

Thanks.

2 replies

BCDC2023
Crowned Member
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  • BCDC2023Crowned Member
  • Author
  • Crowned Member
  • May 20, 2026

Just wanted to update this with further context.

We received an email from a patient saying that they did not receive an automated email from us with some pre-operative instructions before their oral surgery tooth extraction tomorrow 21 May.  The appointment was booked this morning, 20th May.


We have an automated rule set up so that a “Pre-operative instructions -48 hours” email is sent, 48 hours before the appointment.  We used to also have a “Pre-operative instructions -24 hours​​​​​​​” email also sent with the exact instructions, but these two emails together with other reminder dentally emails and text messages, started to well, let say **ss of patients with information overload, so we deleted the “Pre-operative instructions -24 hours​​​​​​​” automation email rule.

 

To over come this we cant rely on the automation to work if we book an appointment today and the appointment is less than 24 hours because the 48 hour email rule will not work as the appointment was not booked between 24-48 hours (it will only work for appointments booked days or weeks in advance).

 

By deleting the 48 hour rule email and relying only on a  “Pre-operative instructions -24 hours​​​​​​​”, it relies heavily on patients to read an important message when the appointment might have been booked ages ago so the vital medical warning messages etc might be too late.

 

For this and other reasons, it is crucial we have a trigger event when automation and emails can be sent based on the when the appointment was BOOKED rather than just when the appointment actually is.

Hebe Lowen
Community Manager
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  • Hebe LowenCommunity Manager
  • Community Manager
  • May 21, 2026

Thanks ​@BCDC2023 for your feedback and for going into so much detail, this is really useful insight to have into the need for this function! This is already on the product team's radar, I have passed the insight you have shared onto them

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