Visit notifications let you decide who hears about a visit, when, and how. Each rule reads like a sentence: when something happens to a visit, tell these people, by email, text, or app notification. Use them to remind a client's family the day before, text caregivers the evening before, or alert the whole office when a caregiver doesn't show up.
The feature is off until you switch it on, and turning it on sends nothing by itself. Only the rules you add send, and only to the people those rules name.
Quick answer
Go to Settings → Company Notifications and scroll to Visit notifications. Click a preset under Start from a preset (for example, Remind families the day before), check Who gets what with Preview on your next visit, switch Visit notifications on, and save.
What already happens without rules
Before you add any rules, AveeCare already sends a few visit messages based on your existing settings. The card lists them under What already happens today, with a link to the setting that controls each one. The usual ones are:
- Visit reminders from Visit Monitoring, sent to the assigned caregiver and to the client's portal login. Reminders 24 hours and 3 hours ahead go only to the mobile app; email and text go out at 2 hours, 1 hour, and 30 minutes.
- Late clock-in and no-show alerts to the office, also from Visit Monitoring.
- Visit Lifecycle Emails (scheduled, changed, cancelled) to caregivers and clients, when that switch is on.
Rules add to these. They never switch the existing messages off, and if a rule would send the same message to the same person the same way, it skips it instead of sending a second copy.
1. Open Visit notifications
Go to Settings → Company Notifications.
Visit notifications is a card on that tab, below the existing email settings.Read the On / Off switch at the top of the card.
While it is off, the card says Nothing below sends until you turn this on. You can add, preview, and save rules while it is off; none of them send until you switch it on.
2. Start from a preset
Presets are ready-made rules. Clicking one adds it to your list, where you can change anything about it.
- Remind families the day before: emails each client's family contacts 24 hours before every visit.
- Remind families an hour before: email and text to family contacts 1 hour before.
- Tell families when the caregiver arrives and leaves: emails at clock-in and again at clock-out.
- Tell families about schedule changes: emails when a visit is moved, gets a new caregiver, or is cancelled.
- Text caregivers the day before: texts the assigned caregiver 24 hours before each visit.
- Remind clients by email the day before: emails the client's portal login 24 hours before.
- Alert the office about no-shows: emails and app-notifies everyone in the office when a caregiver is a no-show.
3. Adjust or build a rule
Every rule has three parts. Change any of them, or click New rule to start from scratch.
When: what happens to the visit.
A reminder a set time before the visit starts (anywhere from 15 minutes to 7 days), or an event: a visit is scheduled, its time changes, its caregiver changes, it is cancelled, the caregiver clocks in, clocks out, is late to clock in, or does not show up.Tell: who hears about it.
The caregiver on the visit, the client (their portal login), the client's family contacts (all of them, or only emergency contacts), the agency owner or everyone in the office, or any email addresses or phone numbers you type in.By: email, text, app notification, or any mix.
Each person only gets the ways that can actually reach them; see below.Optional: quiet hours.
Set hours when rules stay silent, such as overnight. Late clock-in and no-show alerts ignore quiet hours because they are urgent. Messages that fall in quiet hours are skipped, not saved for later.
4. Preview, test, and switch it on
Click Preview on your next visit.
Who gets what lists every person your rules would reach for your next scheduled visit, by which channel, and why anyone is skipped (no email on file, texting not set up, quiet hours, stopped these emails, or already sent by your current settings). The preview uses the rules as they are on screen, before you save, and never sends anything.Click Send a sample email to me.
It goes only to your own email address, so you can see what families and staff will receive.Switch Visit notifications on and save.
From then on, your rules send as visits come up and change.
5. Fine-tune one client or caregiver
Open the client's or caregiver's profile and go to its Notifications tab. There you can:
- Mute any of your agency's rules for just that person.
- Add rules that apply only to that person's visits, with New rule.
- On a client, see which family contacts have stopped these emails, and add someone back if they ask you to.
How email, texts, and app notifications reach people
Works for anyone with an email address on file: caregivers, clients with a portal login, family contacts, office staff, and addresses you type into a rule. Emails carry your agency's name. Every email to a family contact or a typed-in address has a link to stop them; once someone uses it, your rules skip them.
Text messages
Texts need a texting provider. Connect one under Settings → Communications (Twilio, Telnyx, Plivo, Vonage, or TextBelt). The provider bills you for texts directly. Visit Monitoring's own reminder and no-show texts still use the Twilio connection under Business Settings → SMS Notifications; rules use whichever one you have.
Email-to-text gateways (emailing a phone number at a carrier's address) are not a reliable way to reach people. Carriers delay or drop those messages, and some have shut their gateways down. If texts matter, connect a texting provider.
Texts never include client names or health details. They only say a visit is coming up or has changed: staff texts link to AveeCare, and family texts ask them to check their email or call you.
App notifications
These reach only people signed in to the AveeCare mobile app with notifications allowed: caregivers, clients with a portal login, and office staff. Family contacts and typed-in addresses have no app, so they get only the email or text parts of a rule.
Family contacts
Add family members on the client's profile under Contacts, with an email address and, for texts, a mobile number. They do not need a login. Adding a contact never notifies them by itself; only a rule that names family contacts does.
A contact can have more than one email address. Rules send to their main email and to every extra address marked Schedule & reminders. A contact set to Emergencies only only hears about late clock-ins and no-shows.
Limits
- Up to 50 rules for the agency, and up to 50 on each client or caregiver.
- Up to 20 typed-in email addresses and 10 phone numbers per rule.
- Reminders can be set from 15 minutes to 7 days before a visit.
- Each rule sends once per event. Reminders send once for a visit; if the visit is moved or gets a new caregiver, its reminders are set again for the new details.
- As a safety limit, rules send at most 1,000 messages per agency per day.