Troubleshoot Missing Appointment Confirmations and Reminders
Check how the appointment was created, its SMS number, applied template and reminder timing, then trace delivery without sending duplicate messages.
Begin with one appointment and one expected notification. Write down the calendar, appointment date/time and zone, recipient, expected send time and whether it was created manually, through a booking link or through an integration. This helps distinguish a message that was never scheduled from one that was sent but not delivered.
Identify what should have happened
- Confirmed in Appointments: the appointment's confirmation status. It does not prove an SMS arrived.
- Instant Notification / Now: an immediate appointment SMS when notifications are applied to the booking.
- Appointment reminder: a message intended to run a selected number of hours or days before the visit.
- Confirmation message on a booking link: text displayed after the customer books; this is separate from an SMS.
- Notification email: the custom link's configured email recipient, separate from its reminder template.
- Appointment checker: an AI follow-up with its own calendars, channel, timing and enabled state.
For example, seeing “Confirmed” in the appointment list does not answer whether a reminder scheduled for tomorrow has been sent. First identify the actual message and its due time.
Check the calendar's SMS sending number
- Open Settings → Calendars Config, confirm the location and open the intended calendar.
- In General, review Default SMS Phone Number. A missing destination can disable Notify Client in the appointment form.
- If you intend to enable notifications, select the appropriate available business number and use Save General Settings.
- Return to the appointment workflow and review its notification options. Saving the calendar setting is not proof that an earlier appointment's messages were scheduled.
The sending number for a separately scheduled SMS is chosen in that message's Send From field. Do not assume changing one selection changes the other.
Check how the template was applied
For a manual appointment, review Notify Client, Appointment Notifications Template and Load Template. Choosing a template is followed by reviewing the loaded confirmation and reminders. Inspect the actual text, time units and Skip controls. Save only after confirming the recipient; a Now confirmation can be sent on saving.
For a custom booking link, open Booking Pages, the relevant link and Advanced (limits, branding). Review Reminder template and save the intended link settings with Save hours. A template's calendar scope and a template selected on a link are different settings.
For an imported event, first verify that it exists in Zonitel. Google import, classifying an event as an appointment, and sending a notification are separate steps. For an AI checker, review its enabled state, watched calendars, sending channel and timing. See Appointment Checker.
Check recipient, text and timing
- Compare the appointment's phone number with the intended recipient. Correct contact information does not establish that an already scheduled message was updated.
- Check the full appointment date, start time and time zone. Review each reminder's Hours or Days setting.
- Check whether the reminder time was already past when the visit was booked. For example, a reminder 24 hours before a visit cannot have a future send time if the visit was created two hours beforehand. Review the actual pending messages rather than assuming a catch-up message will be sent.
- Review the final wording and inserted values such as client, company and appointment time. Use the form's current counter and validation; variable substitutions can lengthen the message.
- After a template change, reschedule or deletion, inspect the appointment and pending notifications again. Do not assume old messages were rewritten automatically.
Trace the message result
Open the contact's conversation and the relevant messaging report for the expected period. Compare recipient, sender, time and text. If a delivery attempt failed, use Analytics → Undelivered Messages and the error details; follow SMS and MMS delivery troubleshooting.
An absent record is not the same as a failed delivery. First check whether the notification was due and scheduled. A queued or scheduled item is not a delivered message. Before retrying, check whether another reminder, template or checker already contacted the customer.
Test the correction and document the result
For a controlled test, use a recipient you control, a future appointment and a reminder time that has not already passed. Verify the immediate message and later reminder separately, then remove the test appointment and review pending messages. Avoid using a real customer's booking merely to test delivery.
If the issue continues, send Support the calendar and location, notification type, appointment and expected send times with zone, sender/recipient references, template used, observed status and error. Hide unrelated data and never include integration tokens. State whether the message is missing, pending or failed so the investigation starts at the right step.