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Apptoto reads your calendar and looks for upcoming appointments that have phone numbers including area code in the title or body. e.g. "Fred 9254111212" or "Wilma (925)-411-1212". If it finds an appointment with a phone number then it will automatically call/sms that person based on the schedule you define (by default it will call the day before the appointment).
Apptoto can also pull phone numbers from your address book.
For information about our various integrations, please see our Integrations page.
We are always working on support for other calendars. If you have one in mind, please email us at sales@apptoto.com. If Microsoft Exchange is what you have in mind please visit this page to tell us which provider you use.
Just like phone numbers, simply include the email address in the title or body of the appointment. e.g. "Fred fred@yahoo.com".
Apptoto can also pull email addresses from your Google Contacts.
We support SMS, Email, and Voice call messages. Voice calls can appear to come from your caller ID and the client can hear your voice.
You can configure which messages are sent by default on the "Messages" tab. You can also control which messages are sent for each appointment.
In Apptoto, "Reminder Messages" are messages that are sent before an appointment takes place. Timing is relative to the start time of the appointment. E.g. a reminder message is a message that is sent 1 day before the appointment. Apptoto reminder messages can optionally prompt the client to confirm, cancel, or request a rescheduling.
In Apptoto, "Booking Confirmations" are messages that are sent shortly after the appointment is booked. They can optionally ask the client to accept or decline the appointment. They can also encourage the client to add the appointment to their calendar with customized event information.
In Apptoto, "Follow-up Messages" are messages sent after an appointment. The timing of the message is relative to the end time of the appointment. E.g. you can configure a follow-up message to be sent 1 hour the end of the appointment asking the client to book their next appointment.
No, the "Auto Messages" feature is turned off.
By turning on "Auto Messages", Apptoto will schedule messages to be sent for appointment that it finds phone numbers and/or email addresses in. Only the messages that are enabled on the "Messages" tab will be automatically scheduled.
For many users... the transition is simple. They just turn on "Auto Messages". Usually this works fine if your calendar only contains appointments that should receive Apptoto messages. But if your configuration is more complex or if you want complete control over what appointments receive reminders, then you can transition gracefully by utilizing our In-Event Commands feature.
The most commonly used In-Event Command is the [APPTOTO] command. If you put "[APPTOTO]" anywhere in the appointment, then Apptoto will automatically schedule messages to be sent for that appointment. (Only the messages that are enabled on the "Messages" tab in your Apptoto account will be scheduled in this case).
Yes, if you don't want to remind everyone, but you do want to remind some clients. You can do this by leaving "Auto Reminders" turned off, and then putting [REMIND] in each appointment that you want reminders sent for.
For voice reminders, your clients can see your number as the Caller ID. To set this up, simply click "Add your number" on the "Settings" > "Account" tab when you are logged into your account. Unfortunately, this feature does not work for SMS reminders in most countries including the US (contact support@apptoto.com to see if it works in your country).
In the US, we can reserve a special number for your account. That number can be in your area code. Once reserved we can send both the SMS and the Voice call messages from that number. If someone calls that number back, we can patch it directly to a number of your choosing.
Yes, Apptoto maintains secure access to your calendar and will never remove data. It will update your calendar entries for you when your clients confirm/cancel appointments, but you can turn this off if you'd prefer. Apptoto will also never share your calendar data with any 3rd parties.
Yes, once you've set up Apptoto, Apptoto will automatically call your clients and remind them of their appointments based on a schedule you define. For example, you can configure Apptoto to call 2 days before an appointment. By default, Apptoto will call 1 day before the appointment once "Auto Reminders" is turned on. If you'd prefer to manually control Apptoto, you can by scheduling reminders individually for each appointment on the "Calendars" tab.
Yes, besides adding [SKIP] to calendar entries, you can also request that certain phone numbers not be called. This is useful if your calendar entries sometimes include email signatures. If you need to have a phone number blacklisted you can do so by adding that number to the "Phone Blacklist" field on the "Account" tab under "Advanced Settings". Another way you can tell Apptoto to ignore a phone number or email address is to put a "!" immediately before the number or email address in the appointment.
You can log into your Apptoto account and check the status of upcoming appointments, or you can simply check your calendar. Apptoto will add "[CONFIRMED]", "[NOT COMING]", "[RESCHEDULE]", or "[REMINDED]" to the title of the appointment in your calendar.
CONFIRMED means the client was reminded and pressed #1 to confirm that he or she is planning on coming. REMINDED means the client was sent a reminder message but did not confirm, cancel, or request a rescheduling.
CONFIRMED means the client was reminded and pressed #1 to confirm that he or she is planning on coming. ACCEPTED means the client was sent a booking confirmation and they accepted the appointment on to their calendar.
Apptoto repeats your message 3 times when a client answers the phone. If it happens to go to voicemail, normally the beginning of the first message is cut off, but then the second and third repetitions will be heard in their entirety. Once the message is left, Apptoto will update your calendar entry to say "[REMINDED]." If you like, you can configure Apptoto to try again later that day using the "retry" feature.
You can include [NOSMS], [NOCALL], or [NOEMAIL] in the appointment.
Alternatively, if you have your address book connected to Apptoto, you can include [NOSMS], [NOCALL], and/or [NOEMAIL] in the notes section of the contact notes. That way any future appointments with that contact will use his/her preferences.
You can also specify the contacts preference on the "Contacts" tab by clicking "Edit" on that contact and setting the preferences at the bottom of the Contact Edit screen.
Yes, if you prefer to keep phone numbers and email addresses in your address book, Apptoto can use that information to perform reminders. See our Integrations page to see which integrations support address book importing.
Apptoto will try to link appointments and contacts. It will do so by assuming that the contact's name is listed in the appointment title. If it finds a contact with a name in the appointment title, then it will use the contact's information (phone numbers and email addresses) when sending messages. It will also consult the appointment's guest list to see if any contact's email address is listed as one of the guests, if so then Apptoto will link that contact to the appointment.
Yes, you can save extracted contact information into your Apptoto address book.
Yes, Apptoto treats each phone number and email address found in the appointment as a different participant. Each participant receives a separate set of messages allowing them to confirm, cancel, or request rescheduling. If you want, you can turn off this feature from the "Advanced Settings" portion of the Account tab. By turning it off, only the first phone number listed will be called.
Each participant that receives messages for an event counts as an Appointment. For example, a typical haircut appointment that only has one client listed counts as 1 appointment. However, a tutoring appointment that has both the parent and the child listed as participants counts as 2 appointments if messages are sent to both the parent and child.
Yes, you can add multiple calendars to one Apptoto account.
Yes, Apptoto does work outside of the US and Canada. Apptoto will call/text any fully qualified number (e.g. +32484231111) you place in your appointments. You can also specify your home country on the "Account" tab. By setting the home country in the account tab, Apptoto will be able to more accurately extract phone numbers with and without your home country's calling code. e.g. if you select "United Kingdom" as your home country then Apptoto will be able to extract a number such as 023 1234 5678 as +442312345678.
Countries currently supported include:
United Kingdom
France
Spain
Germany
Belgium
Norway
Australia
Israel
Ireland
New Zealand
Estonia
Singapore
Italy
Switzerland
India
Please email support@apptoto.com to request that your country be supported. We can usually add it in a couple of days.
Please note that additional charges apply when calling mobile numbers in countries outside of the US, Canada, and Singapore.
Yes, you can find out more about our reseller program here: http://www.apptoto.com/reseller/
Please see this knowledge base article to see which UK numbers cost 4 credits.
Please see this knowledge base article to see which AU numbers cost 4 credits.
If you have the "Update my calendar when customers are reminded" option turned on on the "Settings" > "Notifications" tab, and you still are not seeing [REMINDED] or [CONFIRMED] show up in your calendar... then it is most due to sharing settings.
The Google account that is connected to Apptoto needs to have "Make changes" permissions on the calendar in order to update it properly.
The person that is sharing the calendar with that Google Account, can check that the permissions are set up properly by
Step 1) Navigate to "Calendar Settings" in Google Calendar.
Don't be scared! We won't make any changes to your calendars or contacts unless you ask us to through the process of using Apptoto. We mainly ask for those permissions so that we can read from your calendars and contacts to provide the messaging service as advertised.
Feel free to call us or send an email to support@apptoto.com if you have any questions.
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