New: Email Reminders, Time Zones, and Preparation Notes

The most common thing people told us after adding an appointment was some version of "great - now how do I make sure I don't forget it?" Until now, the answer depended entirely on your calendar app. If it didn't add an alert, or the appointment was your mother's and landed in a calendar you rarely check, nothing reminded anyone.

This update closes that gap. Appointment Adder can now email you before an appointment. To make those reminders arrive at the right moment, every appointment now has its own time zone. And the instructions that matter most on the day - fasting, medication changes, what to bring - get a field of their own.

Email Reminders

Turn reminders on and Appointment Adder emails you 24 hours before, 2 hours before, or both.

You can set reminders in two places:

• On a collection, so a whole group of appointments gets them - for example, everything for one family member. Turn them on for "Dad" once, and every appointment you add to that collection is covered - including every visit in a recurring series.
• On a single appointment, to override the collection. Choose No reminders for a visit you'd rather keep out of your inbox, or set different timing for one that needs extra notice.

Because email isn't always private, you also choose how much each reminder says:

• Date and time only - the subject line reveals nothing but when
• Add the provider and location - handy when you're the driver
• Add preparation and notes - puts your preparation instructions in front of you the day before, when you can still act on them

Reminders keep up with changes. Reschedule an appointment and its reminders move with it; delete it and they're cancelled. To see everything that's scheduled and what was sent, open the account menu and choose Manage Reminders. That item appears for a signed-in account when email reminders are available to it.

Reminders are off until you turn them on, and they're sent to the verified email address on your account.

Every Appointment Has Its Own Time Zone

Appointments used to be shown in whatever time zone your device was in. For most people that was fine. For a caregiver in North Carolina managing a parent's appointments in Arizona, it meant a 9:00 AM appointment could show up as noon - or land in an exported calendar at the wrong hour.

Now each appointment stores the time zone where it happens. A 9:00 AM appointment in Phoenix is 9:00 AM Phoenix time in the app, in your calendar export, and in your reminder, wherever you are when you look at it.

The new Time Zone field sits right below Time in the appointment form. The common U.S. time zones are listed first, and you can search the full list by city, by name ("Pacific"), by abbreviation ("PST"), or by offset ("GMT-5").

A few details:

• New appointments start with your device's time zone, so most people won't need to change anything.
• Appointments saved before this update ask you to confirm their time zone the next time you edit them. We don't guess, because a guess is how a reminder arrives an hour early.
• Daylight saving edges are handled openly. Pick 2:30 AM on the morning the clocks spring forward and the form tells you what will be saved instead.

A Place for Preparation Instructions

"Nothing to eat after midnight." "Bring the medication list." "Stop the blood thinner three days before." Instructions like these used to share the notes field with parking directions and the receptionist's name.

The new Preparation field sits next to Notes in the appointment form. What you put there appears above your notes when you view the appointment, at the top of the description in exported calendar files, and in reminders that include preparation.

Calendar Files Now Include an Alert

Calendar files (.ics) you download or share from Appointment Adder now include an alert 24 hours before each appointment. Until now they had none, so whether you got any warning depended on your calendar app's defaults - and most calendar apps don't add one.

If you already use email reminders, or prefer to set alerts yourself, uncheck Add a 24-hour alert to the exported calendar file beside the export button. Your choice is remembered on that device. Premium calendar subscriptions still leave alerts to your calendar app's own settings.

Smaller Improvements

• A tidier appointment form. Visit length now sits with the date and time, and preparation instructions sit next to your notes.
• Getting Started and What's New on the home screen. The help section on the home screen now links straight to how-to guides and product updates like this one.
• Help topics work in every language. Topic links on the home screen showed an empty list in every language except English. They now work in all 18 languages, and each topic has one consistent name within each language.

Fixes

• Calendar exports at the wrong time. If you exported an appointment while in a different time zone than the appointment, it could land at the wrong hour in your calendar. Exports now always use the appointment's own time zone.
• Premium calendar subscriptions showing appointments on the wrong day. Some appointments in subscribed calendars appeared on the current date instead of their real one. They now appear on the right day.
• Untranslated text on the Organizations and Locations pages. Outside English, these pages showed technical placeholder text instead of translated labels. They're now translated in all 17 other languages, and several messages that were assembled with English grammar now read naturally in every language.
• Sideways scrolling on phones. Some pages scrolled horizontally on phones held upright, especially in languages with long words. That's fixed.
• Dark mode colors. Status colors and some buttons ignored dark mode. They now follow your theme.
• Screen reader improvements. The appointment log's loading state and the account upgrade dialog are now announced correctly.
• Broken links between help articles. We repaired links between articles that pointed to pages that don't exist, across 13 languages.

Getting Started

1. Turn on reminders for a collection: open the account menu, choose Manage Collections, edit a collection, and check Send reminders for appointments in this collection
2. Or set them for one appointment: edit the appointment and use the Reminders section
3. Add preparation instructions to any appointment that needs them, and choose Add preparation and notes so they show up in the reminder

For the full walkthrough, see the new complete guide to appointment reminders.

What's Next

Reminders go to your own email address for now. Next, we're working on sending reminders to someone else you choose - a sibling who drives Mom to her appointments, for example - once they've confirmed they want them. After that come reminders as notifications on your phone or computer, as an alternative to email.

Have feedback on these features? We'd love to hear from you. Reach out through the app or email us directly.

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Related Articles

• Appointment Reminders: Complete Guide to Email Reminders, Time Zones, and Preparation Notes
• Never Miss a Medical Appointment Again: A Practical System
• Healthcare Appointment Preparation Checklist
• New: Recurring Appointments, a Calendar View, and Spreadsheet Export