Appointment Follow-up Emails

What It Does

Common uses:

• Intake form link for new-patient appointments (especially paediatric ones)
• "What to bring" instructions (current script, insurance card, prescription sunglasses)
• Pre-visit prep ("fast before the exam", "bring contacts out for last hour", etc.)
• Any transactional information that's cleaner as a separate email than packed into the confirmation

Follow-up emails are part of the core admin feature set — they don't require the Recalls & Reminders module. Email is sent from your practice's email account (or our shared sender if you haven't set up your own).

How It Works

Automatic send (online booking): When a patient books an appointment online, YourBooking sends the confirmation email, your practice notification email, and then the follow-up email — one after the other, in the background. The patient typically sees the confirmation and the follow-up arrive within a minute of each other. Reschedules do not re-trigger the follow-up — only first booking.

Manual send (any appointment): From the staff dashboard's Appointments panel, the Follow-up column shows a Send button for any appointment whose type has a follow-up configured. Click to send the email on demand. This covers walk-ins and phone bookings that staff entered directly into Optomate, which don't trigger the automatic path.

Setup

Step 1: Create the follow-up template

1. In the admin, open the Templates tab
2. Click New Template
3. Pick Follow-up for Scope and Email for Channel
4. Give it a name (e.g. "Child Intake Form"), a subject line, and the body
5. Use placeholders like {PATIENT_FIRST_NAME}, {APPOINTMENT_DATE}, {APPOINTMENT_TIME}, {APPOINTMENT_TYPE}, {OPTOMETRIST_NAME}, {PRACTICE_NAME}, {PRACTICE_PHONE}, {BRANCH_NAME}, {BRANCH_ADDRESS}. Full placeholder reference is shown in the template editor.
6. Save

Step 2: Attach the template to an appointment type

1. Open the Appointment Types tab
2. Click the pencil icon on the appointment type you want to link
3. In the Follow-up Email dropdown at the bottom, pick the template you just created
4. Save

The type now shows a small mail icon next to its name indicating a follow-up is configured.

Step 3 (optional): Test it

• Book a patient online for that appointment type and check that the follow-up email arrives.
• Or, in the staff dashboard's Appointments panel, click the Send button in the Follow-up column for any existing booking of that type.

Notes and Constraints

"Available Online" in Optomate

Follow-up configuration lives on the appointment type, same as reminder template overrides and feedback filters. This means the appointment type must be marked Available Online in Optomate — otherwise YourBooking can't see it. Types flagged as staff-only or walk-in-only are invisible to YourBooking.

If you have an appointment type that's deliberately staff-only (e.g. to keep walk-ins separate from online bookings in your workflow) and you still want it to send a follow-up:

1. In Optomate, tick Available Online on the type
2. In YourBooking's Appointment Types tab, turn off all three of the New / Recent / Inactive toggles. The type then disappears from patient-facing booking, but you can still use it for follow-up emails, reminder overrides, feedback filters, and so on.

The type can still be picked by staff in Optomate, and the follow-up will send via the staff dashboard's manual button.

Archived types still work

If an appointment type is deactivated (Active toggle off), it's archived — patients can't book it, but existing appointments of that type still exist in Optomate. The staff dashboard's Send button still appears for those appointments so you can follow up on historical bookings if needed.

Email address is required

The follow-up won't send if the patient has no email on file. The staff dashboard indicates this with "No email" in the Follow-up column.

No SMS follow-ups (yet)

Follow-ups are email-only in this release. If you want to nudge by SMS instead, use the existing Send manage link flow with a custom Manage-link SMS template that includes the booking link placeholder. See the Reminders setup guide for details.

Multi-branch

Follow-up template assignments move with the appointment type when you use the Branch Sync button on the Appointment Types tab. The target branch needs a matching template (same name, channel, scope) for the assignment to carry over — so sync templates first, then sync appointment types. If the target doesn't have the template, the follow-up field at the target is simply left blank rather than pointing at the wrong template.