Shepherd automatically sends appointment reminders by email and SMS to reduce no-shows. You control the timing and content with customizable templates, and you can set preferences for each client to handle opt-outs.
Navigate to:
Admin > Client Communication > Communication Preferences to turn on the feature.
Admin > Client Communication > Appointment Notifications to create templates.
What You Need to Know
Appointment notifications depend on three layers working together. If any one is off, reminders won't send as expected:
Clinic-wide settings — Email and/or SMS must be enabled for the practice under Admin > Client Communication > Communication Preferences. Nothing sends until these are on.
Templates and triggers — Managed under Admin > Client Communication > Appointment Notifications. Each template controls its own timing, content, and appointment types, and must be active and matched to the appointment type to send.
Per-client preferences — Set in the individual client's profile. A client who has opted out (or replied STOP) won't receive reminders even when everything else is set correctly.
Commonly overlooked details:
Confirmation replies must match an accepted format. Only specific replies are recognized. Extra punctuation, or a word reply when multiple appointments are pending, will fail. See How Clients Confirm Appointments by SMS.
Some template edits delete existing reminders. Changing a template's timing, deleting it, or deactivating it removes already-scheduled reminders. See How Template Changes Affect Existing Reminders.
Appointment Status
Appointments move through three statuses to give your team visibility into who has been notified and who has responded:
Upcoming — The appointment's starting status when it's created.
Pending Confirmation — Set automatically once an email or SMS reminder is sent. This flags appointments that are awaiting a client response.
Confirmed — Set when the client responds with an accepted confirmation (such as a number, "Confirm," "C," or "Confirmed"), or when your team marks it confirmed manually.
Enable Appointment Reminders
To turn on reminders for your practice:
Go to Admin > Client Communication > Communication Preferences.
Under Appointment Reminders & Notifications, toggle on Send Email and/or Send SMS.
Click Save.
If you can't activate SMS, contact your Account Manager to confirm your clinic's SMS number is registered.
Email Appointment Notifications
Email reminders are fully customizable and send automatically at four points by default:
When the appointment is scheduled
When the appointment is rescheduled
1 day before the appointment
2 hours before the appointment
Create a new email template
Go to the Appointment Notifications tab > Email Notifications.
Click Add New.
Set the title, assign appointment types, add a subject, and write the message.
Click Save.
Update an existing email template
Go to the Appointment Notifications tab > Email Notifications.
Click the Edit icon on the far right in line with the template.
Make your changes and click Save.
SMS Appointment Notifications
Active sending window: SMS reminders are only sent between 6:00 AM and 8:00 PM local time.
Text reminders send at three points by default:
48 hours before the appointment (the confirmation text)
1 day before the appointment
2 hours before the appointment
If the Messaging Center is disabled, clients still receive the 1-day and 2-hour reminders, but the 48-hour confirmation text is turned off. (And if an appointment is confirmed before the 1-day reminder sends, only the 2-hour reminder goes out.)
Create a new SMS template
Go to the Appointment Notifications tab > SMS Notifications.
Click Add New.
Set the title, assign appointment types, and write the message.
Click Save.
Update an existing SMS template
Go to the Appointment Notifications tab > SMS Notifications.
Click the Edit icon on the far right in line with the template.
Make your changes and click Save.
Using the patient variable in SMS templates
When you use the patient variable {PATIENT} in an SMS template, it populates with all active patients for that client — not only the patient attached to the specific appointment. For a client with more than one active pet, the message will list every active patient rather than just the one being seen.
It may be helpful to keep templates more generic “How is your pet feeling today” to avoid mentioning all the client’s pets when using a template.
How Clients Confirm Appointments by SMS
This is the part clients and front-desk teams most often get wrong, so it's worth reading carefully. When automatic SMS confirmation is enabled, clients confirm by replying to the 48-hour confirmation text. Shepherd only accepts specific reply formats, and anything else triggers an error message asking the client to respond with a valid selection.
Enable automatic SMS confirmation
Go to Admin > Client Communication > Communication Preferences.
Toggle on Enable Automatic Appointment 'Confirmation' by SMS.
Update your custom SMS templates to instruct clients to reply with "Confirm," "C," or "Confirmed."
Automatic SMS confirmation requires SMS messaging and appointment SMS notifications to be enabled, and clients must have approved messaging permissions.
Two things to know when enabling this:
Enable it before reminders go out. If you turn on auto-confirmation after a reminder has already been sent, confirmations for those existing reminders won't process automatically. It applies to reminders sent afterward.
Watch for opt-out keyword collisions. Certain reply words automatically unsubscribe a client from all texts (see SMS Opt-Out and Resubscribe below). Notably, CANCEL is an opt-out word, so a client trying to cancel an appointment by replying "cancel" will instead stop receiving texts entirely. Word your SMS templates to direct clients to reply with "Confirm," "C," or "Confirmed," and to call the clinic to cancel or reschedule rather than reply.
Which replies confirm an appointment
When a client has one appointment awaiting confirmation, they can reply with a confirmation word or the appointment number. When a client has multiple appointments awaiting confirmation, they must reply with the specific number(s), because a word alone is ambiguous. Replies are not case sensitive.
The table below shows exactly how each reply is interpreted:
Client reply | Result |
1 | Confirms appointment #1 |
2,3 | Confirms appointments #2 and #3 |
1-3 | Confirms appointments #1 through #3 |
Confirm 1 | Confirms appointment #1 |
Confirm 2,3 | Confirms appointments #2 and #3 |
Confirm / Confirmed / C (word alone) | Confirms the appointment only if there is exactly one appointment awaiting confirmation. If more than one is waiting, this triggers the "please respond with a valid numerical selection" message instead. |
Replies that will NOT confirm an appointment
A confirmation can silently fail if the reply:
Includes extra punctuation — for example, "Confirm." with a period won't be recognized.
Uses a confirmation word alone ("Confirm," "C," "Confirmed") while the client has more than one appointment awaiting confirmation. The client must reply with the appointment number instead.
Is anything other than a valid number, range, or accepted confirmation word.
When a reply isn't recognized and multiple appointments are waiting, Shepherd asks the client to reply with a valid numerical selection. The most common fix is to have them reply with just the appointment number (for example, 1).
If you don't have automatic confirmation enabled, you can still view replies and manually mark appointments as Confirmed from the Message Center.
Per-Client Preferences
After enabling clinic-wide notifications, set each client's preferences individually.
Adjust client-level settings
Open the client's profile.
Click Edit in the client information box.
Toggle email and SMS reminders on or off.
Click Save.
Resubscribe a client
In the client profile, click Edit, then Resubscribe (if available).
If a client opted out by replying with a STOP-type keyword, they must text a resubscribe keyword themselves to opt back in. This cannot be done from within Shepherd.
SMS Opt-Out and Resubscribe
By industry standard, replying to a text with any of these keywords automatically opts the client out of all SMS:
STOP · UNSUBSCRIBE · END · CANCEL · QUIT · STOPALL · ARRETT · ARRET · ARRETE
Because CANCEL is on this list, remind clients to call the clinic to cancel or reschedule rather than texting "cancel," which would unsubscribe them.
To opt back in, the client must reply with one of these keywords themselves:
START · YES · UNSTOP
Disable Reminders for Specific Appointment Types
You can turn off reminders for specific appointment types — helpful if you use a third-party reminder service.
Go to Admin > Scheduling > Appointment Types.
Click the Edit icon on the far right in line with the template.
Toggle Send Appointment Notifications on or off.
Click Save.
How Template Changes Affect Existing Reminders
Most edits to SMS templates are safe and won't affect already-scheduled reminders. Only specific actions remove them.
Changes that remove existing reminders:
Changing the timing of the template that generated the reminder (for example, "24 Hour(s) Before" to "1 Day(s) Before").
Deleting the template that generated the reminder.
Making the template inactive.
Changes that do NOT remove existing reminders:
Changing the template title
Adding new notification templates
Changing related patient settings
Adding or removing appointment types
Toggling Send Notifications to Confirmed Status Appointments
Editing the notification message content or signature
If an appointment is rescheduled or edited after a change that removed its reminders, saving the appointment runs a new validation and reapplies any newly matching notifications automatically.
Frequently Asked Questions
Why didn't my client's confirmation reply work?
Usually it's formatting. A reply fails if it contains extra punctuation ("Confirm." with a period), or if the client used a word alone ("Confirm," "C," "Confirmed") while they had more than one appointment awaiting confirmation. Ask them to reply with just the appointment number, for example 1, or a range like 1-3.
Why does an appointment stay in "Pending Confirmation"?
The client's reply didn't match an accepted format, so the status never advanced to Confirmed. Have them resend a valid reply (a number, range, or accepted keyword). If the status still doesn't update after a valid reply, do a hard refresh (Ctrl + Shift + R on Windows, Cmd + Shift + R on Mac) to load the latest data, then check the Message Center to confirm the reply was received.
A client has several pets due. How do they confirm all of them?
Using numbers in one reply: 2,3 confirms appointments #2 and #3, and 1-3 confirms #1 through #3. A single confirmation word won't work when more than one appointment is waiting.
Why didn't an appointment reminder send at all?
Check all three layers: notifications enabled clinic-wide (Admin > Client Communication > Communication Preferences), reminders enabled in the client's profile with no opt-out, and Send Appointment Notifications turned on for that appointment type.
Can I see whether a reminder was actually sent?
Yes — SMS reminder sends and client replies are visible in the Message Center, where you can also manually mark an appointment as Confirmed.
Email reminders can be confirmed through the Client History Log and when running the Client Communication Report.
Does the client get a "thank you for confirming" text after they confirm?
No. When a client confirms, the appointment status updates to Confirmed, but Shepherd does not send an auto-acknowledgment text in return. This is intentional — a reply text would consume an additional SMS credit for every confirmation. To verify a confirmation went through, check the appointment status or the Message Center rather than expecting a return text.
Do I have to edit each notification template individually?
Yes. Each email and SMS notification template is configured on its own — there's no single global edit that updates them all at once. If you want the same change across multiple templates (for example, adding confirmation instructions), apply it to each template individually.