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Send a reminder before a date, after it, or on the day

The trigger Before or after a date checks a unit’s records once a day, at the time you set, and starts for each record whose date fits: a number of days before it, on the day, or after it. Each record is reminded once per date.

5 min
Before you start · 1 thing · for owners and managers
A date field in the unit

Steps

1
Choose the trigger Before or after a date.
2
Under Which records?, choose the unit.
3
Under When?, enter the number of days, choose before, on the day of or after, then pick the date field.
on the day of doesn’t need a number.
4
Set the time next to Check every day at.
It checks once a day at this time, and starts for each record whose date fits.
5
Add the action, such as Send a WhatsApp template.

How it works

Direction
When it starts
before
At the daily check, once the date falls within the coming number of days. A record added inside that window is reminded too
after
Once, at the first daily check after the date + the number of days, not on the date itself
on the day of
At the daily check on the field’s date

An after example: a date field of 26/07 with “3 days after” starts on 29/07.

Count in days. The check runs once a day, so a reminder counted in hours or minutes rarely finds the record inside its window.

Once per date. A record is reminded once for each date value. If you change the date, such as when a subscription is renewed, it’s reminded again.

Other conditions are combined with the reminder. For example: “Status is Active”, so a canceled one isn’t reminded.

Relative conditions such as “within the next 7 days” are also available in Conditions: operators, relative dates, messages and language.

If something goes wrong

What you see
Why
What to do
“Pick which records it watches.”
No unit is chosen.
Choose the unit under Which records?.
“Pick the date it counts from.”
No date field is chosen.
Pick the date field under When?.
“Date-only field — only days are allowed”
You chose hours or minutes on a date field with no time.
Choose days.
A reminder in hours or minutes doesn’t arrive
The check runs once a day, so it rarely lands inside a window of a few hours.
Count in days.
The reminder didn’t arrive after the date was changed back to the same value
It was already sent for that value.
This is on purpose: one reminder per date.

A real example

Basma Clinics
The situation

Patients forget their appointments.

What they did
  1. Before or after a date on “Appointments”: 1 day before the “Appointment date” field, checked every day at 10:00.
  2. Condition: the status is not “Canceled”.
  3. Send the approved reminder template.
The result

Every patient gets one reminder, the day before their appointment.

A made-up company, to show the idea. The numbers are rounded.

Good to know

It checks once a day. The time follows the time zone of the person who chose the trigger.
Date-only fields accept days only.
The estimated number of runs for a reminder is higher than the real one, because the estimate doesn’t apply the “once per date” rule.
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