Sending appointment notifications to customers

SortScape allows you to send SMS’s (i.e. “text messages”) and email notifications to your customers to let them know about an upcoming visit or work completed on your last visit. Messages are sent using templates which saves you time because you no longer need to type the same message over and over again.

You can send notification messages “manually” from each visit or you can schedule automatic reminders to be sent automatically before each visit.

Visit notifications are sent to the property’s service contact. Invoice messages are separate and use the billing contact. For setup examples (rentals, strata/body corporate, HOA), see Setting up service and billing contacts for rentals, strata, and HOAs.

Manual notifications

You can send SMS and email notifications manually to customers from each visit. To do this, enable Manual customer SMS messages and Manual customer emails in Settings → Messaging → Visit messages.

To change which template appears first in the message dialog, see Template order.

Sending an SMS message

• Click on a visit to open the visit dialog.

• At the top you’ll see a “message” icon in the upper right hand corner.

• If you have already sent a notification for that visit, the icon will have a number badge over it showing how many messages have already been sent for that visit.

  

• Clicking on the button will open the message dialog.

• The message will be addressed to the service contact for that property.

• The mobile field is pre-filled from the contact. If the contact has additional SMS reminder numbers, they appear here separated by commas.

• You can edit the numbers before sending. Separate multiple numbers with a comma. SortScape sends one text to each number; the credit estimate below the message reflects segments × number of recipients.

• If the service contact has no mobile number on file, enter one in the dialog. If you have permission to update contacts, a Remember this mobile number for [contact] checkbox appears below the field. It is checked by default, so the contact’s mobile number is saved when you send. Uncheck it to send without updating the contact. See Saving contact details when you send a message for more detail.

• If the contact has no primary mobile, only the primary can be saved back to the contact when you send. Sending to an additional number alone will not replace the contact’s primary mobile.

  

• Note - SMS messages are sent from a phone number controlled by SortScape and varies depending on the country you are sending from. We make sure that a customer receives their messages from the same phone number each time so that a consistent conversation can be held. If a customer replies to an SMS message, we will immediately notify the original sender and all administrators via email and allow you to reply from within SortScape. In Australia and New Zealand, replies to much older messages may not reach SortScape. See Why didn’t I receive a customer’s SMS reply?.

• When you send to multiple numbers, each person receives their own message and can reply independently. SortScape matches replies to the number that received the message.

Multiple mobile numbers for SMS reminders

You can send visit, quote, and invoice SMS reminders to more than one mobile number on the same contact, for example a spouse, carer, property manager, or second tenant.

On the contact record:

• The primary mobile under Mobile phone is used for click-to-call, integrations, and as the main SMS number.
• + Add another mobile number lets you add up to three extra numbers that receive SMS reminders only.
• You can have up to four SMS reminder numbers in total (primary plus additional).
• Additional numbers must be valid for your country and cannot duplicate the primary mobile.

Important: The primary mobile is required. Additional numbers only receive reminders when a primary mobile is set.

Automatic visit reminders, manual visit texts, bulk texts on a job run, and quote/invoice SMS reminders all send one message per number. Each number uses its own SMS credit(s).

If a customer replies from any of those numbers, SortScape routes the reply using that number (same as today). Replies are linked to the contact and visit as usual.

For labels and editing numbers on the contact, see Mobile phone and extra numbers.

Sending an email message

• At the top of the visit dialog you’ll see an “email” icon in the upper right hand corner.

• If you have already sent an email for that visit, the icon will have a number badge over it showing how many emails have already been sent for that visit.

  

• Clicking on the button will open the message dialog. The message will be addressed to the service contact for that property.

• If the service contact has no email address on file, enter one in the To field. If you have permission to update contacts, a Remember this email address for [contact] checkbox appears below. It is checked by default, so the contact’s email is saved when you send. Uncheck it to send without updating the contact. See Saving contact details when you send a message for more detail.

  

• If there are attachments on the visit, you can also select which attachments you want to email to the customer. For example, you can show them before and after photos of their property.

• You can send email notifications to more than one email at once by adding multiple emails to the contact, separated by a comma.

• For SMS, add extra numbers on the contact using + Add another mobile number, or enter comma-separated numbers when sending a manual text. Unlike email, each SMS number receives a separate message and uses separate credits. See Multiple mobile numbers for SMS reminders for details.

One-off bulk notifications for a job run

Sometimes you need to message all customers on a single job run in one go, for example to send a weather or a short reminder before the run.

In that case you can send a bulk notification using the following steps:

1. Go to Schedule and open the day that contains the run you want (day or week view).
2. On that run (the row of visits for that day), open the ⋮ (three dots) or dropdown for that run.
3. In the menu, click Email or Text message.
   • Email – send one email to all selected contacts who have an email.
   • Text message – send an SMS to every SMS reminder number on each selected contact’s record (primary mobile plus any additional reminder numbers).
4. A pop-up appears allowing you to select or un-select contacts from that job run.
   • Use the Select all checkbox at the top to select or clear everyone.
   • Uncheck any contact you do not want to include.
   • Contacts who can’t receive (e.g. no email for emails, no phone for texts) are shown with a warning and are not counted as “can receive”; they won’t get the message even if checked.
5. Optionally pick a template. You can choose an existing email or SMS template or write a custom message. You can use the same notification tags as in your templates (e.g. contact name, property address); they are converted for each recipient when the message is sent.
   • A contact with three SMS reminder numbers counts as three messages (three credits) when included in a bulk text.
6. Click Send.
   • A progress screen shows while messages are sent.
   • When it’s done, you’ll see how many were sent and how many failed (if any), and you can click Close to dismiss the pop-up.

Automatic visit reminders

The Automatic visit reminders feature requires a subscription to the SortScape Premium plan

Automatic visit reminders allow you to schedule SMS and email notifications to be sent to customers automatically prior each scheduled visit. This saves you time because you don’t have to manually send the notifications yourself.

Automatic visit reminders are disabled by default. Open Settings → Messaging → Visit messages, then enable them.

Once you enable the feature, notifications will begin to be sent to customers with scheduled visits. Therefore you’ll want to make sure you have your schedule finalised for the next day before enabling the feature.

New contact subscription management

When you enable automatic visit reminders, you also have control over how new contacts are handled:

• Automatically subscribe new contacts to reminders: When enabled (default: ON), newly created contacts will automatically be subscribed to visit reminders. When disabled, new contacts will need to be manually subscribed. This setting allows you to control the default subscription behavior for new contacts while preserving your ability to manually adjust subscriptions for individual contacts as needed.

Bulk contact management

You can also manage existing contact subscriptions in bulk:

• Use “Subscribe all contacts to reminders” to enable reminders for all existing contacts
• Use “Unsubscribe all contacts from reminders” to disable reminders for all existing contacts

Message configuration

By default we have created two reminders for you…one to be sent by sms and the other by email. In the example below, customers will automatically receive both an email and sms at 9:00am from Lawrence Blake the day before their scheduled visit.

Note that you are limited to 2 automatic reminders. You can delete a reminder completely or edit an existing reminder to change the following fields:

• What time to send it
• How many days in advance
• Who it is sent from — this user’s profile details (including mobile) are used for sender tags such as user_mobile, user_first_name, and user_last_name in the template. To show a different callback number in the message, either choose a different sender here, update that user’s mobile on their profile, or type the number directly in the template. See The user_mobile tag for more detail.
• Message type (email or sms)
• Which template to use
• Which visits the reminder applies to (see below) Click on the “Upcoming reminder messages” link to get a preview of upcoming messages scheduled to be sent.

Filtering reminders by visit tags

Each reminder can be limited to specific types of visits using job tags.

When creating or editing a reminder, you can define:

• Only send for visits tagged The reminder will only be sent for visits that include at least one of the selected tags.

• Do not send for visits tagged The reminder will not be sent for visits that include any of the selected tags.

If both filters are used:

• The visit must match at least one included tag
• The visit must not match any excluded tags If both fields are left empty, the reminder will be sent for all eligible visits (default behaviour).

This allows you to send different reminder messages for different types of work. For example:

• Dog waste reminder: Tag visits with Dog and create a reminder using your dog waste template, set to only send for visits tagged Dog.
• Gate access reminder: Tag visits with Gate and create an SMS reminder using your gate access template, set to only send for visits tagged Gate.
• Different services: Tag visits (e.g. Mowing, Spraying) and create separate reminders with different templates, each filtered to its matching tag.
• Avoid duplicate messages: If you have a general reminder for all visits, set it to Do not send for visits tagged (e.g. Dog, Gate) so those visits only receive their specific reminder.

How automatic visit reminders work

• Messages are sent to the service contact for a visit’s property
• Emails are sent to the contact’s email address, and SMS messages to all SMS reminder numbers on the contact (primary mobile plus any additional numbers)
• Each number receives its own SMS; each uses SMS credits.
• On the contact’s Subscriptions section, if multiple numbers are configured, you’ll see a note such as: “Reminders will be sent to 2 mobile numbers (uses 2 SMS credits per reminder).”
• Messages are not sent if the required contact details are missing
• All contacts are set to receive reminders by default
  • You can disable reminders for individual contacts
  • You can contact support if you want to disable reminders for all contacts
• Notifications are sent within 10 minutes of the scheduled time
• If a notification fails, the system will retry until it succeeds or the day ends
• SMS messages are only sent between 7:00am and 9:30pm

Disable automatic reminders for one contact

To stop automatic visit text messages (and emails) for a single customer:

1. Open Customers and find the contact.
2. Click Edit.
3. In the Subscriptions section, uncheck Visit reminders.
4. Click Save.

That contact will no longer receive automatic visit reminders. You can still send manual text messages from a visit if customer text messages are enabled account-wide.

To block all text messages to a number (including manual messages), the customer can reply STOP. See SMS opt-out and resubscribe.

Schedule changes

Automatic reminders respond to schedule changes:

• Late-added visits If a visit is added after the scheduled send time, the reminder will still be sent. For example, say customers are meant to be notified at 9AM the day before a visit. If it’s 12pm and a visit gets added to the schedule for tomorrow, that customer will still receive an automatic notification even though it’s past the 9AM scheduled send time.

• Rescheduled visits If a visit is moved to another day, the customer may receive another reminder for the new date. For example, say customers are meant to be notified at 9AM the day before a visit. It’s now 12pm so all customers with visits scheduled for tomorrow have received their notifications. If you move one of tomorrow’s visits to the next day, they will then get notified again tomorrow at 9am telling them to expect a visit the next day.

Important notes

• Tag filters apply per reminder
• The same tag cannot be used in both include and exclude lists
• If no tags are specified, reminders behave as they did previously

Message history

To review sent email and SMS messages, see Recent messages.

SMS text message credits

SMS usage on your account is measured in text message credits. Most short messages use 1 credit, but longer messages or ones with emojis can use more.

For a plain-language guide to how credits work, see SMS text message credits.

When you edit an SMS template or compose a message, SortScape shows how many credits that message will use before you send it.

When a contact has multiple SMS reminder numbers, each recipient gets the full message, so credits are multiplied. For example, a 1-credit template sent to three numbers on one contact uses 3 credits for that send. The same applies to automatic reminders: a contact with two numbers uses two credits per automatic SMS reminder.