The wording Your Booking sends. Write it once — each patient's own details fill in automatically.
Templates live under Messaging > Templates.
Your practice is set up with a working set of templates already in place. Open one, change the wording, save. That is usually the whole job.
If you have a recall letter in your practice system, or a reminder in a Word document, you don't have to retype it or work anything out. There are two routes, and the first is better whenever the wording lives in a file.
Importing beats copying and pasting for one reason worth knowing: your practice system's editor shows you the filled-in blanks, so copying gives you the words "Patient Given" as if they were part of the sentence. The file itself remembers they were blanks, so importing puts the right placeholder in. It also keeps your bold, and it takes the address block off the top, because Your Booking prints that itself.
Sunix templates are Word documents, which Your Booking can't read directly. Open the file in Word, choose File > Save As and pick Rich Text Format (.rtf), then import that. If you upload the Word file by mistake it tells you the same thing.
Anything with no Your Booking equivalent — a clinical measurement, a referring doctor — is left in place looking like «Field Name», so you can see it and either delete it or type the value. Nothing is silently dropped.
For wording that isn't in a file — a text someone typed into a spreadsheet, or a letter you're reading off a screen:
It works out the blanks for you, and knows your practice name, address, logo, today's date, the patient's postal address and the opt-out line are added automatically, so it leaves them out.
Two things worth knowing:
Read the preview either way.
Same screen. Either type it yourself, or click Draft with AI and describe the message in a sentence — "Remind them of their appointment and to bring their current glasses" — then edit what comes back.
A placeholder is a blank that fills in per patient. {PATIENT_FIRST_NAME} arrives as Sarah.
Don't memorise them. Underneath the message box, the editor lists every placeholder available for the template you're writing, each with a description and an example. Click one and it drops in at your cursor. The list changes with the Scope and Channel, so anything you see there will work.
Always click Preview before saving. It shows the message filled in with sample patient details and your branding — a misspelled blank stands out immediately, because it will still be sitting there in curly brackets.
{PATIENT_SALUTATION} is the whole greeting — what you want after "Dear". Your practice system decides per patient whether that reads Graham or Mr Anderson, and Your Booking uses whatever it says.
So write Dear {PATIENT_SALUTATION}, on its own. Following it with the surname — Dear {PATIENT_SALUTATION} {PATIENT_LAST_NAME}, — can print the surname twice. If you want the title by itself, that is {PATIENT_TITLE}.
Save stays greyed out until:
{PRACTICE_NAME} placeholder or your name typed into the wording. A text arrives on a phone with no sender name attached, so the message itself has to say who it's from. Emails are exempt; your name is already in the branded header.You may also see amber Tips — a reminder with no date in it, a recall with no way to respond. Worth reading, but they don't stop you saving.
Scope is what the message is for: Reminder, Recall, Feedback, Pre-visit, Manage Link, Bulk-billing Link, Spectacle Collection, Scheduled Appointment Email.
Channel is how it goes out: SMS, Email, Letter or Telephone.
You pick both when you create the template, and they can't be changed afterwards — they decide which blanks are available. If you pick wrong, create a new template and use Copy from existing template to bring the wording across.
Recall is the only scope that uses Letter and Telephone. A Letter template feeds the print queue on the staff dashboard; a Telephone template becomes a script on the call queue. Everything else goes out by text or email — and Pre-visit and the Scheduled Appointment Email are email only.
Texts are billed per part. One part is 160 characters, and the estimate under the message box shows the parts and the cost as you type. Avoid emoji and curly quotes — one of them cuts a part from 160 characters down to 70, which can turn a one-part message into three.
Emails need a subject and the plain wording. Don't add a logo, address, footer or unsubscribe line — every email is already wrapped in your practice's branding. Click Create HTML version to turn your wording into a designed email with a button in your colours; that step keeps your words exactly as written.
Letters (recalls only) print the patient's name, postal address and today's date above your text automatically, so start at "Dear...". If you want a QR code, set Add personal QR code before you draft — the wording is written to match it.
A patient received {PATIENT_FIRST_NAME} as text. It was misspelled, or it doesn't exist for that Scope and Channel. Delete it and click it in again from the list under the message box. Preview to confirm.
Save is greyed out. The reason is in red under the message box — usually a text message that doesn't name your practice.
Draft with AI came back with an error. The pasted text is almost always too long. Keep it to about 1,000 characters.
You can't switch a template off, or delete it. A rule is still using it, including a paused rule. Point the rule at a different template first.