Configuring “Rules” for your Appointment Auto Messages helps you control exactly what messages (voice calls, texts, and emails) will be sent to which events. You can apply a default message sequence if you wish for all your participants to receive the same messages, or you can create as many unique rules as you want.
Rules are incredibly helpful for customizing and personalizing your messages. You can make unique rules and customize the messaging each receives based on things like appointment type, provider/person they will be meeting with, and so much more.
Walk step-by-step through setting up rules for an example appointment type, “Initial Consultation,” or follow along with your own appointment type you want to create.
Setting Up Rules for Appointment Auto Messaging
1. In this exercise, we’ll tell Apptoto to only send Auto Messages to appointments that have “Initial consultation” in the event.
2. Click on “Messaging” and then “Appointment Auto Messages”
3. Under “Rules,” you can preview all the standard or default messages that will be sent to appointments that do not include your rule/filtered keyword in the title or body of the event. Navigate back to the Appointment Auto Messages tab. 
4. Scroll to the bottom of the Appointment Auto Messages tab, and click “+Add Rule”
5. In the Rule Editor screen that appears, enter the keyword that you want Apptoto to look for in your event’s title or body. You can use a basic, advanced, or custom rule to filter events with the keyword you set. 
6. Type “Initial Consultation” (if you’re following along with our demo) or the keyword you wish to filter by for this message sequence.
7. Click “Done.”
8. Now, you’ve created an Auto Messages sequence that will only be sent to appointments that include “Initial consultation.” in the title or body of the event.
9. Under the “Initial Consultation” rule you created, click “+Add Message or Sub-Rule” to add messages to your sequence. Learn more about customizing your messages in our the Auto Messages section of our knowledge base.
10. For this example, we’ve created and enabled an SMS text, email, and voice call reminder for any appointment events that include the words “Initial Consultation.”
11. After making all the changes you want to, click “Save” in the upper right-hand corner of the “Appointment Autgo Messages” screen. 
12. Now, to confirm that appointments with “Initial consultation” will receive the messages you just configured, click on the “Appointments” tab.
13. Click on one of the participants whose event includes the words “Initial Consultation.”
14. Notice that “Initial Consultation” messages are listed.
15. Now click on a different appointment that doesn’t contain the words you put in the Auto Message rule.
16. Notice that auto messages match those appointments that do not include “Initial consultation” in the event information. The messages utilize the “Default” (aka “For All Appointments”) rule because “Initial Consultation” is not included in the event title or body.
