WhatsApp message templates and automatic reminders

FurKisses sends WhatsApp messages in two ways. One-tap buttons open WhatsApp on your phone or computer with the message ready to send. Automatic alerts (confirmations, reminders, live status, report cards, vaccine reminders and more) are queued for you and either send by themselves or wait in the Outbox. Both use your templates.

Automatic alerts are switched on and off, timed and worded in Settings → Alerts for pet parents (/app/settings/alerts). A banner at the top of the Messaging page links there. This article covers the Messaging page itself.

Who can do this: roles with "Integrations & messaging". By default that's Owner and Admin.

Edit a template

1. 1Go to Settings → Messaging (/app/settings/messaging). The Templates tab lists each one.
2. 2Click the pencil icon on a template, or New template to add one.
3. 3Set the Name, choose When and a Channel (WhatsApp, SMS or Email). When lists every automatic alert (Booking confirmed, Reminder the day before, Checked in, Ready for pick-up, Daily report card, Vaccine due in 7 days, Feedback request and so on), plus Invoice sent (manual button), Payment reminder (manual button) and Custom.
4. 4Write the Message (up to 1,000 characters). Click a chip under Insert a variable to add it where your cursor is.
5. 5Check the Preview, which fills in sample details, and click Save template.

The variables are {{customer_name}}, {{pet_name}}, {{service}}, {{date}}, {{time}}, {{business_name}}, {{portal_link}}, {{feedback_link}}, {{summary}}, {{vaccine}}, {{package}}, {{invoice_number}}, {{amount}} and {{link}}. If a variable has no value for a particular message, it's removed rather than left showing as raw text.

• {{portal_link}} becomes the pet parent's private link, and {{feedback_link}} the page for rating a visit.
• In invoice messages, {{pay_link}} (or the older {{link}}) becomes the invoice's pay link while money is due and Razorpay or Stripe is connected. If the template mentions neither, the pay link is added at the end. See send a pay link for an invoice.

An active template replaces the default wording of that automatic alert, so wording saved here and wording saved under Alerts for pet parents are the same thing.

One-tap WhatsApp buttons

On a booking, the WhatsApp panel shows one-tap buttons for your active booking templates, such as the confirmation, the reminder and ready for pick-up. Invoices have Send via WhatsApp and Payment reminder buttons. Clicking one opens WhatsApp (wa.me) with the message filled in, and you press send yourself. These work without any setup, and the message is logged as sent as soon as you click the button.

Automatic alerts

Which alerts go out, when, and what they say is managed in Settings → Alerts for pet parents, not on this page. The full list, with what is on by default, is in automatic alerts: what pet parents receive. To change a switch, a timing or the wording, see change alert wording and timing.

How an alert gets queued:

• Live-status alerts (booking confirmed, checked in, service started, ready for pick-up, checked out) are queued instantly when your team changes a booking, on whichever screen.
• Time-based alerts (reminders, the pre-arrival check-in form, vaccines, daily report cards, feedback requests, come-back nudges, package, membership renewal and payment reminders) are all queued by one hourly job. They can go out up to an hour after the time you set. The same job passes unanswered waitlist offers on to the next person.

For whoever hosts your FurKisses: the hourly job is /api/cron/reminders. A scheduler must call it once an hour using the CRON_SECRET setting. Without it, time-based alerts are never queued. Live-status alerts still work.

Alerts only go to customers who have a phone number and are opted in to WhatsApp, and they're timed in your business's timezone.

How queued alerts are sent

• WhatsApp not connected: every alert waits in the Outbox (/app/outbox). Tap Send on WhatsApp and it opens your own WhatsApp with the message typed. See the Outbox.
• WhatsApp connected: alerts leave by themselves from your own number, within moments of being queued. Connect WhatsApp Business in Integrations with your Phone number ID and Permanent access token. If you haven't connected your own number, FurKisses uses the platform WhatsApp account if your host has set one up (WHATSAPP_CLOUD_API_TOKEN and WHATSAPP_PHONE_NUMBER_ID).

Messages older than 48 hours are never sent automatically. Send those by hand from the Outbox, or skip them.

The 24-hour window: for now, WhatsApp only delivers these messages to people who have messaged your number in the last 24 hours. Outside that window Meta requires a pre-approved message template, which FurKisses doesn't use yet. Alerts to parents who haven't written to you recently land in the Failed tab of the Outbox. Send those by hand with one tap, which always works. See connect WhatsApp and what it costs.

Message log

The Message log tab shows the latest 100 messages, with their status: waiting, sending, sent, delivered, failed or skipped. Failed messages show the reason underneath. To act on waiting or failed messages, use the Outbox.

Good to know

• Automatic alerts only use WhatsApp templates. To stop an alert, switch it off in Settings → Alerts for pet parents. If every template for an alert is switched off here instead, that alert isn't sent until you save new wording or reset it. If you delete all of its templates, the built-in default wording is used.
• Each alert is sent once per booking, vaccine or invoice, so nobody gets the same reminder twice.
• Sending by hand from the Outbox or a one-tap button uses your own WhatsApp and costs nothing. Messages sent automatically are billed by Meta to your WhatsApp Business account.
• The banner "WhatsApp isn't connected yet" goes away once WhatsApp can actually send: the WhatsApp card in Integrations is on with a phone number ID and access token saved. Until then the banner reminds you that automatic alerts wait in the Outbox.