When you turn on an automated email or SMS, you may be wondering what happens next - will a tonne of messages suddenly send? Who to? This article explains what happens.
Peptalkr has two, distinct types of automations:
Smart-triggered automations (Transactional email, SMS)
Marketing automations (Automated journeys)
They work slightly differently, so read the section relevant to what you're sending.
Transactional Email Triggers / SMS Triggers
When you enable a trigger in Peptalkr, the system immediately checks for any appointments that match your trigger’s timing and rules—whether it’s set to send before or after an appointment or cancellation.
🕒 If your trigger sends after specific appointment activity
Peptalkr looks backward in time to find matching appointments.
This way, your trigger starts working immediately, without needing to wait 45 days for the first message.
For example, if your trigger is set to send 45 days after cancellation, once turned on the system will check for any cancellations that happened exactly 45 days ago (to the hour), and queues those messages to send now. It then repeats this process daily, every 5 minutes.
This applies to the following trigger types:
After an appointment is created
After an appointment is attended
After an appointment is cancelled
After an appointment is marked DNA (Did Not Arrive)
⏰ If your trigger sends before an appointment
It will only send to upcoming appointments that match the rule (e.g. any scheduled for tomorrow).
It does not send anything immediately when turned on unless there’s an upcoming appointment that matches the timing.
For example, if you set a message to send 1 day before an appointment, when you turn the trigger on it will check for any appointments happening exactly 1 day from that moment (to the hour) and queue those messages. It then repeats this process daily, every 5 minutes.
This applies to the following trigger types:
Before an appointment
🚨 Medical alert triggers
These triggers are based on patient medical alerts, not appointments.
When you turn on a medical alert trigger (e.g. send 30 days after a medical alert is added), Peptalkr looks back 30 days to find any patients who had a medical alert added at that time.
But it will only send if that alert is still active. If the alert has been removed in the meantime, no message will be sent.
Like appointment triggers, the system keeps checking every 5 minutes for new matches going forward.
This applies to the following trigger types:
After a medical alert is added to a patient
Automated Marketing Journeys
Turning on a journey will only send it from that moment onwards to people who newly match the conditions of the journey trigger.
Trigger type: Subscriber enters a segment OR Subscriber exits a segment
If someone is already in the selected segment of a "subscriber enters segment" journey when it is turned on, they will not start the journey.
Subscribers will continue receiving emails in a segment-triggered journey until it is complete even if their segment membership changes part way through. You can work around this for "Subscriber enters a segment" journeys by setting emails in the journey designer to send to the same segment as the trigger.
Segment-triggered journeys can be triggered if you change an existing segment rule, which in turn changes that segment's membership.
Segment-triggered journeys can be triggered by importing subscribers or changing your active patient limit, so long as subscriber membership of the segment changes.
We check for segment subscriber membership changes every 10 minutes. Therefore there may be a delay of up to 10 minutes before the email is sent to a subscriber.
For new journey emails with a segment-based trigger, there is a short delay before we start monitoring subscribers entering or exiting the segment. This means that a subscriber that enters or exits a segment in the first 10 minutes might not receive the email. Please wait 10 minutes before testing your journey.
Trigger type: A subscriber joins a list
Joins a list-triggered journeys can be triggered if importing subscribers or changing your active patient limit. We generally recommend using segment based triggers - even for welcome emails.