Setting Email/SMS Scheduled Sending times

EXACT can be set up to only allow the sending of Emails/SMS at certain times. You can also set a delay for sending (send X number of messages per minute) and stagger your SMS sending. These options are there to ensure patients receive messages at appropriate times and at a pace that the practice can handle.

SMS Sending times: Our SMS provider/s have overrides in place to stop any SMS sending during unsociable hours. This means that any SMS attempting to send overnight between 8pm-8am will not send straight away and instead wait until 8am to be delivered to your patients.

There are 2 configuration screens which can be found in the Email Parameters section. Go to Configure->Email Parameters

Click Next 3 times to open the Scheduled Send and Receive page:

On this window you can configure the days that messages are checked to be received or sent. To change the dates/times. You can delete a date/time by highlighting it and clicking on the bin (delete the selected Send/Receive session). You can add a new date and time by using the +1 and then ticking the date and time. If you need to add different times for different days then you will need to click +1 for each different time.

Note that changes here will have an effect on any automated messages as they will only send at these times and take these into account when considering when to generate messages. For example, if my appointment reminders are set to send 2 days in advance and I have not included Saturday or Sunday in my sending times the message for Mondays appointments will send on Thursday rather than Saturday.

You can ask EXACT to check every X minutes if messages need to be downloaded or sent by ticking the Perform regular checks every option and set the number of minutes.

A delay can also be added between sending each email to avoid emails being rejected and accounts blacklisted for sending too many messages. Tick the Add a delay between sending each email and then enter the numbers of emails per minute you wish to send.

Click Next 3 times to get to the SMS Messages page. From here you can set SMS messages to stagger to avoid patients overloading reception when messages are sent. To stagger these select Enable staggered SMS sending

Add in the Delivery Times and how many minutes between each message. The text on the bottom will show how many messages can be delivered in 7 days with the chosen settings.

Click Finish to accept the changes.