Booking Links can be sent to patients via SMS to allow them to book, check and reschedule their Appointments. These can be sent either individually via the SMS Window, or in bulk via the Bookings Tab in the Appointments Window
This is a chargeable feature. To register your interest, please fill in our Contact Form
What are you looking for?
To send SMS booking links to multiple patients in one go, navigate to the Bookings Tab in the Appointments Window. The configuration of these messages is managed in the New Message Tab
Uploading the Patient List
Patient details can be uploaded as the recipients in bulk under the Add Patient List
You will need to create a CSV file with the NHS number of the patients you wish to send an SMS to. Once you have extracted this data from your clinical system and saved it as a CSV, click the Upload button and select the file you have created
Please note: there is a limit of 10k patients per upload
Once there has been an upload attempt, the amount of successful and unsuccessful attempts will be listed
By Clicking on Unsuccessful uploads, you can download a CSV file of the entries that have not been uploaded, which will also display the reason that they were unsuccessful
This will automatically download once clicked, so you can view these errors and re-upload
Sending Appointment Booking Links
To configure the message that you send to these patients, either select a pre-existing message template, or free type into the Message Body
For more information on SMS messages and Message Templates see our Help Guide here
You will also need to select:
Appointment Slot Type: these are populated from your active slot types in the clinical system
Appointment Type: either Face-to-face or Telephone
Booking Link Expiry: how long the booking link is active for. This defaults to 48 hours, but you can choose from the below options
Allow patients to decline: whether a patient can decline to book an appointment once the SMS has been received
Decline SNOMED Code: the SNOMED Code written to the clinical record if a patient declines the invitation (this is only applicable if the decline box has been ticked)
Please note: Surgery Connect does not check whether there are available appointment slots within the selected slot type. You will need to check that your clinical system has the available slots before sending the booking link
If there are no appointment available when the link is accessed by a patient, they will be informed of this when trying to book
Clicking the Save Message to Record box allows you to choose whether the SMS will be written to the clinical record. This will either be automatically ticked or unticked, depending on your File SMS by Default settings
When the box is ticked, you can choose to assign a SNOMED Code to the message by clicking in the dropdown and typing the code you wish to select
Clicking Reset will clear any content in the Message Body
Once you are happy with your message content and booking link configuration, select Send SMS to send it
Sending Bulk SMS with no Booking Link
You can use this screen to send bulk SMS to patients without offering the ability to book an appointment
Follow the Upload process outlines above to add the recipients of the desired message
Once this is done use the Message Body area to configure your SMS, either by free typing or by using a pre-defined template
Once you are happy with the message content, click Send SMS
Viewing Sent Messages
Via the Sent Messages tab, you can view any previously sent singular or bulk Appointment booking links
This tab will display the following information:
Date and Time the message(s) were sent
The Status of the message(s)
The amount of messages Sent and Failed
Slot Type
Appointment Type
Expiry
Whether the option to Decline was enabled
Message Body
You can also filter by Date, Slot Types and Appointment types in order to locate specific messages sent
For more information on Self Appointment Booking, explore our collection of Help Centre guides or take our Academy Course
If you do not have Self-Appointment booking enabled on your service, you will see the following message when accessing the Bookings tab in the Appointments Window
