A confirmation that lands in the pocket, not the inbox
The confirmation SMS is the text-message twin of the confirmation email — it fires at the same moment, the instant an appointment is booked or confirmed, but it lands somewhere the patient is far more likely to actually notice: a phone lock screen, usually within seconds of booking. For a lot of patients this text is the confirmation, full stop — they may never open the email at all.
Because it's a text message, the tone and format are necessarily different from the email version — short, scannable, and built around the two or three facts a patient actually needs at a glance: that the booking went through, and when it is. This template page is also where Generate with AI lives for the confirmation workflow, which is not offered on the email side.
- What triggers the confirmation SMS, and how it relates to the email version
- Writing within SMS length limits without losing the essentials
- How Generate with AI drafts the message text, and what to check before you save
- Where a sent confirmation text shows up afterward for a given patient
What actually triggers the send
Like the email, the confirmation SMS sends once, at booking time — not on a delay and not repeated. It fires whether the booking was made by staff on the scheduler or by the patient through your online booking page, so it's worth writing the wording generically enough to make sense either way (avoid phrasing that assumes a staff member was on the phone with them, for instance).
Writing within the space you've got
The editor is a single message-text field with a placeholder-insert toolbar above it, plus a live character count as you type. Placeholders work the same way they do on the email side — patient name, appointment date and time, practitioner, and location are all available to insert — but every character counts differently here, since a longer message can split into multiple SMS segments and use more of your clinic's SMS credit balance. Keep the wording tight: confirm the booking, state the date and time clearly, and stop there.
| Field | Purpose |
|---|---|
| Message text | The SMS body itself, with inline placeholders. |
| Placeholder toolbar | Inserts patient, appointment, and location merge fields without typing them by hand. |
| Character count | Live count so you can see when you're about to spill into a second SMS segment. |
| Generate with AI | Drafts a complete message for you to review, described below. |
Generate with AI on this page
See "Generate with AI" for Messages for the full picture of where this button appears across ClinyPal and the design philosophy behind it, and AI in ClinyPal: Overview for how every AI feature in the product is built to fail soft rather than block your work.
Open the confirmation SMS template
Go to <strong>Settings > Confirmation SMS Template</strong>.
Draft with AI or write it yourself
Click <strong>Generate with AI</strong> for a starting draft, or write the message directly using the placeholder toolbar.
Review the text closely
Confirm the tone fits your clinic and that every placeholder resolves to something sensible before you rely on it.
Save your changes
Click <strong>Save</strong>. The wording applies to confirmations sent from that point forward.
Its email counterpart
The confirmation email carries more room for detail — full address, what to bring, cancellation policy — while this SMS is the fast, glanceable version. Most clinics keep both running rather than picking one, since patients differ in which channel they actually read.