You set notes templates on a service's Notes Templates tab, or on a course template's Lesson Details tab. Petboost adds them to new appointments only, and your team can edit or remove them on each booking afterwards.
A course template also takes lesson definitions: a title, a description and notes for each session number, such as Session 1 and Session 2. Each new course takes its session titles and descriptions from them, and each enrolment adds the session's notes to the pet's appointment beside the default notes.
Set default notes for a service
Use this for anything your team needs on every booking of the service, such as a checklist or a standard procedure.
Open Services, select Manage on the service, then Manage Service.
Choose Notes Templates.
In the Internal Notes card, write the notes for your team (private, staff only).
Optional: switch on Advanced options, then write the note in the Customer-facing Notes card and add any Customer-facing Photos & Attachments.
Select Publish Changes, tick the box in Before You Publish, then select Publish Changes.
Advanced options opens on its own once something below it is set. It also holds the Pet Owner Notes card, with Instructions & Notes and Pet Owner Photos & Attachments: Petboost saves these defaults but does not add them to new bookings. For a note the customer sees on every booking, use the Customer-facing Notes card.
Internal notes suit service checklists and standard procedures, equipment or room set-up, and handover notes for the team. Customer-facing notes suit preparation instructions, such as "Please bring vaccination records", what to expect during the session, care after the appointment, and photos or reference images. All the note boxes take rich text formatting.
Set default notes for a course
Default notes go on every lesson of every course published from the template.
Open Courses, select Manage on the course template, then Manage Template.
Choose Lesson Details.
If the template has more than one session, keep Default Notes selected below Session Schedule.
Under Default Notes & Attachments, choose From your business, then write the Internal Notes (private, staff only) and the Customer-facing Notes, and add any Customer-facing Photos & Attachments.
Select Publish Changes, tick the box in Before You Publish, then select Publish Changes.
From the pet owner, beside From your business, holds Instructions & Notes and Pet Owner Photos & Attachments. As on a service, Petboost saves them but does not add them to new appointments.
Give each session a title, a description and its own notes
Use this when the course follows a curriculum, so every new course starts with the right lesson names and each lesson carries its own instructions.
Open Courses, select Manage on the course template, then Manage Template.
Choose Lesson Details.
Under Session Schedule, enter a Title and a Description for each session.
Select Lesson-specific Notes.
Open a session, then write its Internal Notes (private, staff only) and Customer-facing Notes, and add any Customer-facing Photos & Attachments.
Select Publish Changes, tick the box in Before You Publish, then select Publish Changes.
Session Schedule has one row for each session the template's Number of Occurrences makes, and a description takes up to 160 characters. The titles and descriptions appear on booking confirmations and the customer's course schedule. Lesson-specific Notes appears once the template has more than one session, and a session with notes is marked Has notes.
Add a video to a lesson
With the Video Booster power-up, a session's Customer-facing Photos & Attachments under Lesson-specific Notes also take a video. Pet owners enrolled in the course see it with that lesson's notes. Inline it plays silently on a loop, and a tap opens the full player with sound.
A lesson video can be up to 10 minutes long, or up to 30 minutes on Video Booster Max, and uses minutes from your Video Booster pool. See Video Booster.
How default notes reach a booking
When a new appointment is created for a service, including a course lesson or a stay, Petboost checks the service's notes templates:
The Internal Notes go into the appointment's internal notes, and the Customer-facing Notes into its customer-facing notes, with any Customer-facing Photos & Attachments.
Pet Owner Notes defaults are not added.
If several services on the appointment have default notes, they are combined with a separator between them. An add-on's notes templates are not added.
Notes your team types while booking come after the template's.
Petboost fills notes in only when an appointment is created, never when one is edited, and staff can edit or remove them afterwards.
A change to a template applies to appointments created after it. Appointments already booked keep the notes they were given.
How a course lesson's notes are built
When a pet enrols, each lesson appointment gets its notes in this order:
The template's default notes, the same for every session, come first.
The session's description, from Session Schedule, follows in the customer-facing notes.
The session's own notes from Lesson-specific Notes come last, internal notes with internal notes and customer-facing notes with customer-facing notes.
The default notes give the baseline, and the lesson-specific notes add what is particular to that session.
How sessions get their titles and descriptions
When you publish a course from the template, each session takes the Title and the Description set for its session number. A session with no title takes the course's name. Publish New Course has no field for either, so set them on the template before you publish.
Tip: Put what is true of every lesson in the default notes, such as "Always check vaccination records", and what is true of one lesson in its own notes, such as "Week 3 focuses on lead walking". Update a template when your process changes, and every appointment created after that uses the new version.
Related articles
Getting Started with Services: service setup and configuration
Getting Started with Courses: course template setup
Managing Appointments: working with appointment notes