The Send Notification step explained

The Send Notification step sends one message to one recipient on one channel. To reach someone on several channels, add one step per channel. Click the step in the editor to open its settings.

Settings

Recipient

Click Insert Variable next to Recipient to pick one. The picker only offers values that fit the channel:

• Email: an email address, like {{ $event.data.object.client.emailAddress }}.
• SMS and WhatsApp: a phone number, like {{ $event.data.object.client.phoneNumber }}.
• Push: the ID of a client or a team member, like {{ $event.data.object.client.id }}. Push goes to the devices where that client or member allowed notifications. A team member needs a Softalon account to get push.

You can also type a fixed address, for example your front desk email.

WhatsApp templates

WhatsApp messages must use a template approved by WhatsApp, so there's no free text field. Pick a Template, then fill in each numbered slot with text or variables. A preview shows the message with your values. Templates that aren't available are grayed out.

When a message is skipped

The step doesn't send, and the run moves on to the next step, when:

• the recipient is empty after variables are filled in, for example the client has no email address,
• the content is empty, or no WhatsApp template is selected,
• an SMS goes to the trigger's client and that client hasn't given consent for transactional messages. See Client consent explained.
• the person turned off that channel in their notification preferences,
• the address can't receive messages,
• the person has reached the limit of messages they can get from your salon in a short time,
• your salon doesn't have enough credits for an SMS or WhatsApp message. See Credits explained.

In the workflow's History, a skipped step shows a short note starting with Notification not sent.

One message per address

Until a run reaches a Wait/Delay step, a person gets at most one message per address. Email is one address, the phone is one address for both SMS and WhatsApp, and push is one more. If a step would reach the same person on an address that already got a message in this run, it's skipped.

This makes fallbacks easy. Put a WhatsApp step first and an SMS step to the same client right after it. If the WhatsApp message is sent, the SMS is skipped. If it isn't, the SMS goes out.

Use the result in the next steps

After the step runs, its result is available as $previousNode until another step that sends something replaces it:

• {{ $previousNode.sent }} is true when the message was sent.
• {{ $previousNode.channel }} and {{ $previousNode.recipient }} show where it went.
• {{ $previousNode.message }} holds the result text, including why it was skipped.

For example, a Conditional Split with {{ !$previousNode.sent }} can send a push to a team member when a client couldn't be reached. Steps from connected integrations report {{ $previousNode.success }} instead of sent.

Time zones and formats

Dates and times in messages use your salon's time zone and formats. When the recipient is the trigger's client and the client booked from another time zone, times in that message use the client's time zone.

SMS characters

SMS messages are sent with the basic SMS character set when possible, so some special or accented letters are replaced with plain ones. Long messages are split into several parts, and each part uses credits.