Automatically notify customers and store admins via SMS for every booking event — appointment booked, approved, cancelled, rejected, marked no-show, rescheduled — plus event bookings, package purchases, and scheduled 24-hour and same-day reminders — using the Amelia booking plugin together with SMS for WooCommerce.
Requirements
Requires Amelia and SMS for WooCommerce to both be installed and active on your site.
Setup Instructions
- Ensure Amelia is installed and active.
- Go to WooCommerce → SMS Settings → Settings and configure your SMS gateway (Twilio, Nexmo, MSG91, Lox24 or any of the supported providers).
- Save the Admin Phone Number and Sender Phone Number — admin events require the admin phone to be set.
- Make sure each customer enters a phone number on the Amelia booking form. The integration uses the customer phone captured by Amelia.
- Go to WooCommerce → SMS Settings → SMS Notifications → Amelia Booking.
- Enable the toggles for the customer and admin events you want to send SMS for.
- Edit the SMS message template for each event. Use placeholders like {customer_first}, {service_name}, {booking_start_date} and {booking_start_time} to personalise the message.
- For the 24-hour and same-day reminders, make sure Amelia’s built-in notification cron is enabled at Amelia → Notifications → Settings. The reminders piggy-back on Amelia’s scheduler so they fire at the same time as Amelia’s email reminders.
- Click Save & Close to save your changes.
Available SMS events for Amelia Booking
The integration supports 11 booking-lifecycle events plus two scheduled reminders, grouped by the booking journey.
Booking lifecycle
- Appointment Booked (Customer) – Customer completes a service booking. Confirmation SMS is sent instantly.
- Appointment Booked (Admin) – Admin alert when a new booking arrives.
- Appointment Approved (Customer) – Booking transitions to the approved status (either auto-approved or approved by an admin).
- Appointment Cancelled (Customer) – Booking is cancelled (by the customer or by an admin).
- Appointment Cancelled (Admin) – Admin alert when a booking is cancelled.
- Appointment Rejected (Customer) – Admin rejects a pending booking. Polite re-book message goes out.
- Appointment No-Show (Customer) – Admin marks the customer as a no-show. Re-book invitation SMS fires.
- Appointment Rescheduled (Customer) – Booking time is moved by an admin. Customer is texted the new date and time.
- Appointment Rescheduled (Admin) – Admin alert when a booking is rescheduled.
Events & packages
- Event Booked (Customer) – Customer signs up for a group event (workshop, class, retreat). Confirmation SMS goes out.
- Package Purchased (Customer) – Customer buys a session package. Thank-you SMS is sent.
Scheduled reminders
- 24-Hour Reminder (Customer) – Reminder SMS sent 24 hours before the appointment start time. Fires from Amelia’s notification cron.
- Same-Day Reminder (Customer) – Reminder SMS sent the morning of the appointment (or a configurable number of hours before, matching Amelia’s same-day reminder).
Available placeholders for Amelia Booking SMS
Use the following variables in your SMS message templates to include dynamic information. The settings page sidebar shows only the placeholders that resolve for the specific event being edited.
Common (every event)
- {customer_name} – Customer’s full name
- {customer_first} – Customer’s first name
- {customer_last} – Customer’s last name
- {customer_email} – Customer’s email address
- {shop_name} – Your store name
- {shop_url} – Your store URL
- {email} – Recipient’s email
Booking core
- {booking_id} – Amelia booking ID
- {booking_start_date} – Booking start date (site format)
- {booking_start_time} – Booking start time
- {booking_end_time} – Booking end time
- {booking_status} – Booking status (approved / pending / cancelled / no-show)
- {persons_count} – Number of people in the booking
- {price} – Booking price (formatted in your store currency)
Service & staff
- {service_name} – Name of the booked service
- {service_duration} – Service duration (e.g. “60 min” or “1h 30m”)
- {employee_name} – Service provider / staff member name
- {location_name} – Location / room name
Events & packages
- {event_name} – Name of the group event (event bookings only)
- {package_name} – Name of the package (package bookings only)