Notifications and SMS

Nola sends your customers emails and text messages when they book, before their visit and when something changes. You choose the sender details, the reminder timing and the wording.

#Set sender details and reminder timing

1. Open Settings → Notifications in the sidebar. The Settings tab opens first.
2. Under Email sender, set the From name customers see and a Reply-to address so replies reach you. Emails still come from Nola's sending address, shown under your name.
3. Under SMS sender, set the Sender ID (the name shown instead of a number): 3 to 11 letters, digits or spaces, with at least one letter. Any other sender ID goes out as "Nola".
4. Under Reminder timing, each reminder is a number of hours before the booking. Type a number and press Enter to add one; click the × on a number to remove it. At least one must stay. The default is 24 and 1: a day before and an hour before. You can set up to 5 times, each from 0 to 720 hours (30 days) before.

Fields save when you click out of them; reminder times save as soon as you add or remove one.

A member can choose how their own booking reminders reach them, by email, text message, both or neither, under Notifications in their account. A member who turned a channel off gets no reminder on it, whatever your settings. See How to book.

#Choose who else gets alerts

Under Admin notifications, add up to 10 extra email addresses (for example your front desk) and tick which events they receive: Admin: new booking and Admin: booking cancelled. With the Memberships & passes module on, you can also tick Admin: new member, Admin: member cancelled, Admin: membership payment failed and Admin: door agent offline (see Door access for members). The owner and active staff get alerts in the app based on their own preferences. Alerts in the app show in the language each person uses Nola in. Membership payment alerts only go to staff who can see money.

Turn on Require marketing consent for waitlist offers / extension offers if those messages should only go to clients who agreed to marketing.

#More options on the Settings tab

#Edit message templates

1. Open the Templates tab.
2. Pick the Locale (English, Eesti or Русский). Customers get messages in their own language.
3. Find the event and channel, for example "Booking reminder · SMS".
4. Change the subject or body. Placeholders like {{customerName}} are filled in automatically; each template lists the ones it supports. {{customerName}} is the client's full name; use {{firstName}} to greet them by first name only, for example "Hi {{firstName}},". Every message that names a client has {{firstName}}; when no name is known, the greeting reads "Hi there" instead. Your own earlier templates keep working unchanged. Dates and times such as {{startLabel}} are written in the customer's language and in the time zone of the location where the booking is, for example "Thu, 15 Oct 2026, 10:00".
5. Use Enabled to switch a message off completely.

A new booking gets one of three messages, depending on its status: Booking confirmed, Booking reserved, awaiting payment (with the amount and a link to pay in My bookings, when they can pay online) or Booking awaiting confirmation (when you approve bookings by hand, or customers pay you on site). When a pending booking is paid or you confirm it, the customer gets Booking confirmed. You get one Admin: new booking alert, which opens the bookings list.

A booking you add at the desk gets the same message as one the customer makes. When you change a booking, the customer is told too: Booking cancelled when you or your team cancel it (for a cancelled class, with the reason you give), Booking moved when you move it to another time or resource, and Booking fee charged when a late cancellation or no-show fee applies. After a booking is paid online, the customer gets a Payment receipt by email with the amount, the VAT and your business details. When you have a logo under Settings → General, it shows at the top of the receipt email. The default receipt template ends with {{receiptFooter}}: your Receipt and invoice footer, in the customer's language when you have translated it (see Invoices). If you changed the receipt template and left {{receiptFooter}} out, Nola adds the footer at the end. Waitlist offers include a link to take the place. Links in messages open Nola in the customer's language.

Membership messages include Membership invoice (an e-invoice with the payer's reference number and your IBAN). See E-invoices, standing orders and bank statements. Card setup link asks a member to save a card, with reminders on day 3 and day 7 (see Ask a member to save a card) Company part charged to the member is sent when a company contract reaches its Until date and the employee pays the company's part for the rest of a period they already paid (see Company memberships). Day pass with its QR code is sent when a day pass is paid: the QR code is attached and the link opens the pass (see Your door pass). A day pass gets no Membership welcome and no Admin: new member alert. Membership renewal reminder goes to the payer up to three days before a membership renews (see Payments).

In messages to members, {{planName}} is the plan's name in the member's language when you have translated it, as long as the plan still has the name it was sold under. Admin: alerts show the original name. See Languages and translations.

Messages whose names start with Billing:, such as Billing: trial ending, are Nola's notices to the business owner about your plan. They go to the owner by email. You can reword them, but leave them enabled so you do not miss a change to your plan.

A grey Platform default badge means you are using Nola's standard text. Once you edit it, the badge reads Custom override, and Reset to default brings back the standard text.

#Check what was sent

The Delivery log tab lists every message with time, event, channel, recipient and status (Queued, Sent, Failed or Not sent). Failed sends are retried automatically. A message that was Not sent says why in the Error column, for example when sending isn't set up yet (demo mode) or the client has no email address or phone number. Click Retry to try again straight away. Only a message that failed or was not sent can be sent again, so a customer never gets a second copy of a message that went out.

The log shows customers' email addresses, phone numbers and messages, so it is for team members who can read Clients and see every client. A coach limited to their own calendar sees an empty log.

Once an email has left Nola, its status shows what the email provider reported: Delivered, Delivery delayed, Bounced (the address doesn't accept mail), Marked as spam or Not delivered. The reason, when there is one, shows in the Error column. A bounced or spam-marked address also shows a warning on the client's card (see Clients). Click Retry on an email that was Not delivered to send it again.

In the shared demo, nothing is sent to real inboxes or phones. Every message is logged as Not sent, with the reason that the shared demo only simulates delivery. Sending test messages, campaigns and invites, retrying deliveries and changing notification settings or templates are turned off there; start a free account to try them.

#Paying for SMS

SMS is an add-on to a paid plan. Turn it on under Settings → Plan → Add-ons: you set a monthly spending cap, and Nola bills each SMS once a month at the price for the destination country. Email and push notifications are always free.

• Without the SMS add-on, messages set to go by SMS are sent by email instead.
• The Notifications and SMS pages show whether SMS are actually being sent. When they aren't, they say why: your plan has no SMS add-on, the Send SMS to clients switch on the SMS page is off, no SMS provider is chosen, or text messages aren't switched on for your account yet (then contact Nola support). You can set up the switch and your reminders before SMS go out.
• While SMS are turned off, or no SMS provider is chosen, an SMS campaign or a check-in text can't be sent or scheduled: Nola says why and what to switch on first. Other messages set to go by SMS show in the Delivery log as Not sent, with the reason.
• SMS go only to countries that have an SMS price on Nola's pricing page, and only to EU and EEA countries, the UK and Switzerland. A message to a phone number in another country is sent by email instead.
• The cap counts a calendar month in your business's time zone: it starts again at midnight on the 1st. The SMS invoice runs monthly from the day you turned SMS on, so one invoice can cover parts of two cap months.
• Nola emails the owner when SMS reach 80% of the cap, and again when the cap stops an SMS. At the cap, SMS stop for the rest of the month and messages go by email. Raising the cap under Settings → Plan → Usage this month restarts SMS at once.
• Settings → SMS shows how many SMS went out this month and what they cost so far, the same total as Usage this month.

SMS goes only to clients who have a phone number and have agreed to receive text messages. Emails go to anyone with an email address who has not opted out.

With the SMS add-on on, booking confirmations, reminders, cancellations and moves also go by SMS to the phone number on the client's card, if they agreed to text messages. Turn off the Booking confirmed, Booking reminder, Booking cancelled or Booking moved SMS template on the Templates tab to send them by email only.

The SMS page also lets you keep a list of SMS reminder texts, such as a 24-hour and a 1-hour reminder. The reminders customers actually receive use the Booking reminder SMS template on the Templates tab and the hours set under Reminder timing, so edit those first.

#Related

• Languages and translations
• Billing and plans
• Ratings and feedback
• Campaigns and marketing