How to Setup the Notify App
The TIMIFY Notify App is a powerful tool designed to help you automate SMS notifications for booking activities and ensure your customers stay up to date with their appointments.
Good To Know:
This is a private app: contact your Key Account Manager or the TIMIFY Support Team to gain access. You must provide them an access key which you can generate from the Private Apps tab of the Apps Navigation. Once generated, the key is valid for 24 hours.
The Notify App is available for Premium and Enterprise users only.
You can customise your SMS messages (and use your preferred language) for booking confirmations, changes, reminders, and/or cancellations.
It is possible to pay for its usage with credit card or Paypal. Please note that we charge the use of the Notify App in Euro within Europe and in USD outside Europe.
You can limit the usage of the App to a specific budget, in this way, the number of SMS that will be sent will stop after the limit is reached.
Please consider that for repeated appointments set all at once for a specific customer, a SMS will be sent only for the first appointment. Nevertheless, reminders will be sent for every appointment in advance.
Tip: The date format for example YYYY/MM/DD for SMS follows the rules in your account settings. If you want to change the format of how the date is displayed in your SMS to customers, please enter the Tab Settings -> Booking -> Calendar
Structure of this article:
1. Free Trial
After installing the app, a trial will start. We offer you the possibility to test the app with a certain amount of free credits per chargeable entity before committing to paying for its usage. The period will be for 14 days.
Global Billing: We offer a total of 10 free trial SMSes that can be used across all branches.
Local Billing: We offer 10 free trial SMSes per branch.
2. How to install the App
You get access to the app in the main menu bar under Apps. Go to Private Apps and generate the access key.
After activating we offer a free trial with up to 10 free SMSes (see the section "free trial" for more info). Once the free trial units have been used, the app will change to "Pending activation" state. If you would like to continue using the app, click on it and subscribe by defining a payment method.
Click on the button "Add billing details", and a box will open with certain form fields that you need to fill with your billing address. You will also have the option to add or select a specific payment method (i.e.: Paypal, etc).
3. How to create a SMS account
Once you have gone through the steps mentioned here above, an onboarding form will open where you can create your SMS Sender Account.
4. How to set up the notification rules
Before sending SMS messages to customers who had specified a mobile number and an email address in advance, you need to complete the following steps:
From your calendar go to the Menu bar located on the left hand and click on Settings- > System Notifications. Select here the type of notifications you want to send. SMS notifications will be sent when you add an appointment from your calendar select the customer and click on the "Notify Customer" checkbox.
In the TIMIFY Notify App, make sure that you have enabled the same or fewer types of SMS notifications.
Once those steps are set, you can send SMS notifications to customers who have a mobile number and email address defined.
For SMS reminders you can activate the "Customise Timing and Frequency", available within this setting, which overrides the System Notifications setting.
ℹ️ Note: For repeat bookings and in case multiple slots are selected, SMS is sent only for the first instance or slot.
(Optional settings for confirmations, cancellations, changes and reminders)
Automate for all services OR
Restrict to certain services -> you can exclude services, where no notification should be sent
Include ad-hoc bookings added directly in the Calendar
Personalise your message -> see below
Further Settings - Permitted Countries
To specify the countries where you want to send SMS notifications, follow these steps:
You can navigate to the relevant section in the TIMIFY Web App, where you can select the target countries.
Here you can choose the countries where the SMS notifications could be sent to.
Twilio, our SMS provider, offers a list with all the countries currently supported for sending SMS notifications.
ℹ️ If you have not enabled booking reminders in step 2, you should be shown a success message right away to let you know that your onboarding is complete.
5. Spending cap / limit
You can optionally define a spending cap.
When you define a spending threshold for the app, we set a limit that the app can't exceed. If that limit is reached, it will go into a pause state, temporarily blocking any features that generate costs until the next billing period. Alternatively, you can increase the spending threshold in order to remove the limit.
If you want to update your spending limit, there are a few rules to keep in mind:
If you increase the limit from the original setting, the new limit takes effect right away.
If you decrease the limit from the original setting, the new limit won't take effect until the next billing period.
If you disable the threshold from a previously set spending limit, the change takes effect immediately because it's considered as an increase of the limit.
ℹ️ Please note, you will not be notified once the exact limit/cap has been reached. Once the limit has been reached, no further SMS messages will be sent.
ℹ️ Please note that you will be billed separately for SMS usage. In order to ensure that the app works without interruption, the invoice must be paid within a maximum of 30 days. We highly recommend choosing an automatic payment method.
6. Tips and important information
Client or booking tags can be used to send or block SMS notifications (Enterprise only). If you want to learn more about how to use Tags, please feel free to read this article.
You have access from the app to important data related to its usage, for example: SMS status, usage, costs etc.
The detailed configuration is to be done at the level of the respective accounts if you have a Branch Manager and have installed the app at the global level.
If you use the Branch Manager, you can install the app for all your accounts in the Branch Manager and create a subscription locally in each account.
Once a payment method is set for the App globally from the Branch Manager and the app is closed, once it is opened again no frontend will be shown and the following message will be shown "Your App is using only the TIMIFY Developer API".
When creating your SMS sender account, please note that entering umlauts in the sender ID form is not allowed.
If you have selected a payment method such as Paypal or credit card and use the Notify App in all accounts, you will receive one invoice for all accounts.
If you only use the Notify app in individual accounts, you will receive separate invoices for the respective accounts.