Notes, alerts and report cards: what the owner sees

Nearly every question about notes is the same question underneath: who reads this. A booking holds three note boxes, the pet holds several more, and the box you pick decides whether the owner ever sees a word of it.

Three boxes on the booking, one of them private

1. Open the booking from Appointments.
2. On the Notes & Attachments tab, choose From your business.
3. Write in Internal Notes (private) or Customer-facing Notes.
4. If Notify customer? appears, choose Email, SMS or Do silently, then select Publish Changes.

Notify customer? only asks when you changed something the owner is sent, the customer-facing notes or their photos, and this browser remembers your last answer. Change only the private notes and nothing is sent, so the question stays away.

All three are written on the booking's Notes & Attachments tab. The toggle there names who wrote the notes: From your business holds Internal Notes (private) and Customer-facing Notes, and From the pet owner holds Instructions & Notes, which is what the owner typed when they booked and what the run sheet calls Pet Owner Notes.

The tab also shows what you already know. Above each box, a Last visit card holds that pet's note of the same kind from its previous visit, and tapping it expands it without copying anything in. When the owner reacts to a report card, the reaction, such as Love it, sits as a badge at the top of the booking. On the calendar, a repeat visit moved off its usual day, time or team member reads Moved instead of its repeat rule. On Trips, the next stop's card shows the gate code the owner gave on a home-visit form, and an email typed with a one-letter slip, such as gmial.com, offers Did you mean gmail.com? on the owner's details.

A note you retype belongs somewhere else

1. Open Services, then Manage on the service and Manage Service.
2. On Notes Templates, write the note under Internal Notes.
3. Select Publish Changes, tick the box in Before You Publish, then select Publish Changes.

Copy from prior visit sits beside both boxes and only copies like for like, so internal notes never land in the customer-facing one. A note that is true of every booking of one service belongs on that service's Notes Templates tab, and a note that is true of the pet for good belongs in Grooming Templates on its profile, under Care & Grooming Templates then Preferences.

The report card is the customer note, with photos

1. Open the booking from Appointments.
2. Select Manage, then Preview Report Card, and check the card the owner will open.
3. Select Manage, then Send Report Card SMS.
4. Select Send Report Card.

Report card actions only appear once the booking has customer-facing notes or photos, under Print & Reports on the Manage menu. Internal notes never unlock them and never appear on the card. Preview Report Card opens the owner's own screen with Preview Mode in the corner, so you can check it before it goes anywhere.

Dog daycare: one card per dog per day is the product rather than a nice extra, so write the customer note as the day goes and attach the photos at the end. Pet sitting and concierge: the visit photo goes on the customer note rather than out of your own phone, so each visit leaves one card and the Opened badge tells you they looked.

Give the card a look for the day

Card themes change how a report card looks, never what it shows: a birthday card in birthday week, a Christmas card for a visit on 24 December, a first-sleepover card after a first stay. They are off until you turn them on, and Pick a report card theme takes a minute. A card keeps the theme it was first sent with, and an incident report is always plain.

Turn the photos into a post

A Visit post turns a booking's report-card photos into a branded Instagram image, with the pet's name on the tile and a caption to copy. Petboost does not post it for you.

1. Open the booking from Appointments and select Visit post.
2. Under Photos, select the report-card photos, then choose a Style.
3. Switch on We have permission to share this pet.
4. Select Download PNG, or Save all for every format, then Copy caption.

The owner's card names the next visit

1. Open Notifications and go to Rebooking Reminders, under Advanced options.
2. Under When to send, choose After a set number of weeks.
3. Set Weeks before a pet counts as due.
4. Select Publish Changes, tick the box in Before You Publish, then select Publish Changes.

With no next visit booked, the owner's card names the date the pet is due, with a bar from this visit to it, and Book Again opens your booking form on that week. After a set number of weeks makes the card say you recommend a visit that often. A single service can keep its own rhythm under Rebooking Reminders on its Notifications tab. Without that setting, once a pet has been in at least twice, the card goes by its average gap between visits, the Avg. Visit Frequency on the pet's profile. The date sits on the card and sends nothing.

Course lessons never set a pet's rhythm: a pet seen only on a course is not told it is due back, and a pet that also comes for other services is measured on those visits alone.

A tapped photo opens full screen and the rest play one after another, 5 seconds each. The owner taps the left third to go back and anywhere else to go on, or holds a finger down to pause.

Dog daycare: a dog in two or three days a week has a gap of under a week, so its card keeps the plain Book Again prompt. A weekly regular gets a date.

Little Extras, the add-ons and products the owner can add from the card, shows only before a visit starts, so a card opened after the visit leaves it out. Report cards covers when it shows.