Visit notices

Each visit can have three notices:

• a confirmation, sent when the visit is booked, if the rule Confirm the booking right away is Yes;
• a reminder, sent the number of hours before the visit set by Remind before the visit (see Booking rules);
• a cancellation, a short "booking cancelled". It is made when the visit is cancelled — by a person, by the staff assistant or a program, unless they said not to write to the client, or by the online admin, and then it goes only if nobody told the client in the chat (see below). A client who did not come ("No-show") is never written to about it.

Talemo sends the confirmation and the reminder itself, by the booking rules of the branch. Those rules do not touch a cancellation: it depends on how the visit was cancelled (see below). The online admin does not write these messages, and it is not paused because of them.

Where a notice goes

Usually it goes to the main contact of the client's card, and only if that contact is confirmed: the client has written to the business from that address. The channel is the one of the visit's branch first, then one of the whole business, then one of another branch, and within them the chat the client wrote in last.

A confirmation or a cancellation that the online admin made goes differently: first into the chat where its turn ran, if that chat's window is open. That is any channel, Messenger too, and a confirmed contact is not needed for it. If the window is closed, the notice goes the usual way.

• While the chat window is open (the client wrote within the last day), a plain text goes with the words of the channel's template.
• In WhatsApp with the window closed, the approved template of that notice goes (confirmation, reminder or cancellation), in the client's language or else the first service language.
• In Instagram with the window closed, nothing is sent.
• A client who writes only in Messenger gets no notices the usual way: Messenger gives no address that can be the main contact. A confirmation and a cancellation from an online admin turn still reach them while the window is open.
• A cancellation has its own template, Booking cancellation, with three fields: the name, the services, the day and time. The master and the place are not in it: the cancelled visit has let them go. Talemo writes its text in Russian and English only; for another service language the business writes the text itself (see Channel window and WhatsApp templates). Until Meta approves the template, a cancellation outside the window does not go.

The text names the client, the services, the master, the day and time in the branch's time zone, and the branch address or name. The day and time are written the way the country of the branch writes them: "Saturday, 3 October, 15:00" for a branch in Britain, "Saturday, October 3, 3:00 PM" for one in the United States. A cancellation names the client, the services, the day and time: "Hi Anna, your booking is cancelled: manicure on Saturday, 3 October, 15:00. If you want another time, reply to this message. If you don't want reminders and confirmations, reply STOP."

What happens when a visit changes

• Moved by a person — the confirmation is made again for the new time, a waiting reminder is recalculated from the new time, and a reminder that already went is followed by a second one for the new time.
• Moved by the online admin — the confirmation is made again for the new time and waits until the online admin finishes replying, by the same rule as for a booking (below).
• Cancelled or took place — waiting notices are cancelled, and those already in the sending queue are withdrawn. What a cancellation writes to the client depends on who cancelled (below).
• Cancelled by a person, the staff assistant or a program — on the screen, in a conversation with the assistant or with the tool talemo_cancel_visit — Talemo writes "booking cancelled" to the client itself, unless the person said not to. In the Cancel the visit window the box Message the client about the cancellation is ticked; clearing it means the person tells the client themselves. When Talemo would not write anyway — the client replied STOP, the card says not to write, or the card has no WhatsApp number or Instagram account the client wrote from — the window says so instead of the box, and adds "Let them know yourself." If the client's main contact is in Instagram or Messenger, the window warns that these channels take a message only within a day after the client's last message. The assistant of the staff passes tell_client of talemo_cancel_visit: true unless the person said not to write to the client or that they will tell the client themselves, and then false; it is always set, and the call without it is refused. "No-show" is the exception: Talemo never writes to a client about it, tell_client can only be false. For a visit whose time has passed the message is not made either. The cancellation does not wait for any chat: it goes within a minute, the way a reminder does, and under it the visit says "sending" until it has gone.
• Cancelled by the online admin (itself, or on a request a person approved) — the cancellation waits until the online admin finishes replying in that chat (any turn of it). If after the cancellation a person wrote to the client, or the online admin did in the same reply in which it cancelled, it is skipped: the client already knows. If not, Talemo sends "booking cancelled" itself, within a minute after the reply ends. What was said before the cancellation does not count: "I'll cancel it now" has not told the client anything yet. Nor does the online admin's next reply to another message of the client: if it mentions the cancellation too, the client gets two messages. If the visit has already started, or the client replied STOP, no cancellation message goes.
• Booked by the online admin — the confirmation waits until the online admin finishes replying. If after the booking a person wrote to the client from Talemo, or the online admin did in the same reply in which it booked, the confirmation is skipped: the booking was confirmed in the chat. If the online admin finished without a message to the client, for example because it broke off, Talemo sends the confirmation itself, within a minute after that. A reply the team wrote on the business phone outside Talemo does not count, and the client may get both.
• Booked close to the visit — a reminder whose time has already passed is not sent: "booked less than N hours before the visit".
• A visit without booking gets no notices.

What the visit shows

Under What happened, each notice shows as "Confirmation sent", "Confirmation scheduled", "Confirmation not sent" or "Confirmation cancelled", and the same for the reminder. A cancellation shows as "Cancellation notice sent", "Cancellation notice scheduled", "Cancellation notice not sent" or "Cancellation notice withdrawn"; under a waiting one made by a person it says "sending", and under one made by the online admin "when the online admin finishes — unless it tells the client itself". A sent one adds the way (text or WhatsApp template), the channel and whether it was delivered or read, or "Not delivered".

A scheduled notice that, by the client's card, will not go now says so outright: "The reminder won’t go" or "Reminder won’t go: the client opted out of messages" (the same for the confirmation and the cancellation). The first is for a card that has no contact Talemo writes to on its own: a WhatsApp number or an Instagram account the client has already written to the business from. A number is confirmed only by the client's own message from it, and it cannot be confirmed by hand; a message from Messenger gives the card no contact. This is also the case of a client who booked herself on the booking page of the branch: the number from the form is not confirmed, so the confirmation and the reminder go to her only after she writes to the business on WhatsApp from it. The notice keeps waiting and goes if the client writes from there or the opt-out is lifted. This is a forecast from the card: the rest (the chat window, the channel, the balance) is decided at the hour of sending.

Under a waiting reminder the visit gives the reason and what to do: "We only message a client ourselves on the WhatsApp number or Instagram account they’ve already written to you from — this card has neither. Remind them yourself — or make sure the card has the client’s WhatsApp number and ask them to message the salon from it. Then we’ll remind them." The request is only about WhatsApp, and only when the business has it connected: a message in Instagram or Messenger gives the card no number. The number is to be checked rather than just "write to us": an incoming message finds the card by number, so a message from another number starts a new card and this visit still gets no reminder. When WhatsApp is not connected, or the person may not see the channels, only "Remind them yourself." is left. Under a waiting confirmation or cancellation the reason stays alone, with no action.

A waiting reminder of a client whose main contact is an Instagram account keeps the title "Reminder scheduled", and its second line says what to expect: "October 15, 12:00 · goes only if the client writes to you in Instagram within the day before. If they don’t, remind them yourself". Instagram has no message templates, so a business can write there only within a day after the client’s last message, and this reminder goes only if the client writes in that last day. The line comes from the card alone, not from the chat window: Talemo does not read the window ahead of the hour. A WhatsApp client has no such line, because a template goes there with the window closed too. A cancellation made by a person for such a client carries the same mark: it goes only if the chat window is open at that moment, and if not, the visit says so and asks to tell the client by phone.

A notice that was not sent states the reason: the card has no WhatsApp number or Instagram account the client has already written to the business from, and we only write there; the channel doesn’t let a business write more than a day after the client’s last message; Meta has not approved the WhatsApp template; the channel is disconnected; WhatsApp has no payment method at Meta; Talemo is stopped because the balance ran out; the contact is in Spam; the visit had already started; the client was already told in the chat (by the online admin or by a person); the visit was cancelled, took place or was moved. When a cancellation message did not go because the window has closed (Instagram or Messenger; WhatsApp sends the template), the client does not know about the cancellation, and the visit adds what to do: "Tell the client about the cancellation yourself, for example by phone."

Turning notices off for a client

A client who replies STOP, or whom the team turns off, gets none of them on any channel: no confirmation, no reminder, no cancellation message. Queued ones are withdrawn (see Turning off reminders, confirmations and cancellation notices). Until the hour of a waiting notice comes, the visit says "Reminder won’t go: the client opted out of messages", and after it "Not sent: the client replied STOP" or "Not sent: turned off by staff at the client's request". If the visit is cancelled after that, Talemo will not write about it: the client has to be told in the chat.

Tools and refusals

• talemo_get_visit shows the notices of a visit in notices: the confirmation, the reminder and the cancellation, each sent, waiting, or with the reason it did not go. A notice that did not go says why in code, like channel.template_unavailable when Meta has not approved the template. A waiting one that will not go by the client's card says why in expected_skip: no_confirmed_contact (the card has no WhatsApp number or Instagram account the client has already written to the business from), opted_out_word or opted_out_person; it keeps waiting and goes if the client writes on WhatsApp from the number of the card or the opt-out is lifted. A waiting reminder, or a cancellation made by a person, whose main contact is an Instagram account says window_only: instagram: Instagram has no templates, so it goes only if the client writes to the business there in the day before it is due; if the client does not, the person reminds the client themselves. It reads the card, not the chat window, and a reminder with expected_skip has no window_only. A cancellation that did not go with the reason window_closed (Instagram or Messenger) means the client has not been told: the person tells the client about the cancellation themselves, for example by phone. The online admin does not get notices.
• Whether a confirmation goes at once and how many hours before the visit the reminder goes are the booking rules of the branch: talemo_get_booking_rules shows them and talemo_set_booking_rules changes them (see Booking rules). Changing them sends nothing by itself.
• A move recounts the waiting notices, and a cancelled or done visit drops them, except a cancellation that is to be told to the client (by the online admin, or by a person who did not say tell_client: false): that makes the cancellation message. talemo_cancel_visit takes tell_client: required from a person, the assistant and a program, not offered to the online admin, and only false with the reason no_show. A visit of the past that is still booked or confirmed is unclosed; see Visits.
• A client who wrote STOP gets no notices on any channel; see Turning off reminders, confirmations and cancellation notices. The visit then says so in notices.
• To tell a client something about a visit that notices do not cover, write in the conversation with talemo_send_message, which follows the channel window (see Channel window and templates).