Messaging

Setting Up Your Message Templates

Templates are the wording Woofle suggests every time you message a client — a booking confirmation, a reminder, a thank-you. Set them up once in your own voice and every text you send afterwards starts from the right words.

Templates are starting points, not auto-sends. Editing a template never sends anything. It simply changes the wording Woofle offers you next time. As always, every text is one you choose to send.

Where to find them

Open the Message Templates page from your settings. You'll see every template grouped into three sections:

Appointment Templates — the texts offered as you work your diary: Appointment Booked, Appointment Rescheduled, Appointment Cancellation, Appointment Complete, Appointment Paid, Appointment No Show, plus Appointment Reminder and Appointment Nudge.
Pet Templates — the Pet Thank You message.
Client Templates — Client Message (a general free-text send) and Client Onboarding (the link that invites a client to fill in their own details).

Each one shows a preview of its current wording and a little label underneath: Using default template if it's still the standard wording, or Customised once you've made it your own. Tap any template to open it up and edit.

Editing the wording

Inside a template you'll find a single Message box with the current text. Rewrite it however you like — shorter, friendlier, with your salon's turn of phrase — then Save. That's it: from now on, every message of that type starts from your version.

While a template is still the standard wording, Woofle shows a gentle note reminding you that you're using the system default and that editing and saving will create a custom version for your business. Once you've customised one, a Reset to Default button appears so you can throw your changes away and go back to Woofle's original wording at any time.

Tokens — the square-bracket placeholders

The clever part is tokens: little placeholders written in square brackets that Woofle swaps for the real details the moment a message is sent. So a template like:

"Hi [ClientFirstName], just a reminder that [PetName] is booked in with us on [AppointmentDate] at [AppointmentTime]. See you then! [BusinessName]"

arrives on the client's phone as:

"Hi Sarah, just a reminder that Bella is booked in with us on Monday 1 June at 10:30 AM. See you then! Paws & Claws Grooming"

Every template you open lists its Available Tokens in a small table, each with a plain-English description and an example of what it becomes. Next to each token is a copy button — tap it and the token is on your clipboard, ready to paste into the wording. No need to remember the exact spelling or brackets.

Each type offers only the tokens that fit

Tokens only make sense in some messages. An appointment date means nothing in a general client message, and a service name has no place in an onboarding invite. So Woofle only offers each template the tokens that actually apply to it:

[ClientName], [ClientFirstName] and [BusinessName] — available everywhere, since you always know who you're texting and who it's from.
[PetName] — on pet and appointment messages.
[AppointmentDate], [AppointmentTime], [ServiceName] and [Price] — on appointment messages only.
[PortalLink] — the client's personal portal link, on client and pet messages (handy for onboarding and thank-yous).

If you use a token that doesn't fit

Pop a token into a template where it doesn't belong — say [Price] in a Client Message — and Woofle catches it for you. A clear warning appears listing any invalid tokens, telling you they won't be replaced when the message is sent. Without that nudge, the client would receive your text with the raw "[Price]" still sitting in it, brackets and all. Fix it by removing the token or swapping it for one that's offered, and the warning clears. The copy buttons on the Available Tokens table are the easiest way to be sure you've used a valid one.

The "Send by default" switch

Back on the main Message Templates page, every template has a Send by default switch alongside it. This decides nothing about whether a message is sent — it only sets the starting position of the send switch you see in the compose window.

Off (the standard setting) — the send switch starts unticked every time. You have to deliberately switch it on to send. This keeps sending a conscious choice for messages you only send now and then.
On — the send switch starts ticked, ready to go, for a message you almost always send. An appointment confirmation is the classic example: turn it on, and the moment you book, the confirmation is teed up for you.

Ticked is not sent. Even with "Send by default" on, nothing leaves until you actively send. A pre-ticked switch is just a head start — you can untick it for any individual client, and Woofle still waits for your say-so before anything goes out. There is no background sender.

It's worth knowing this switch is purely about the compose window's starting state. It has no effect on reminders and re-book nudges, which Woofle surfaces on your dashboard for you to send or dismiss one at a time regardless.

A sensible way to set up

Work through each template once

Open them one by one, read Woofle's default wording, and rewrite anything that doesn't sound like you. Save as you go. Keep an eye out for the invalid-token warning if you've added placeholders.
Lean on the token table

Use the copy buttons rather than typing tokens by hand — it's quicker and you can't misspell a bracket. The example column shows you exactly what each one becomes.
Turn on "Send by default" sparingly

Switch it on only for the messages you genuinely send almost every time — a booking confirmation, perhaps. Leave the rest off so those stay a deliberate tap.

Get your templates right once and the day-to-day becomes effortless: every text you send already reads the way you'd write it, with the client's name and the dog's details slotted in automatically. For how templates fit alongside reminders, credits and the rest of messaging, see Understanding Messaging in Woofle over on the guides index.