Event Reminders and Notifications

TimelyChurch sends three different kinds of automated email tied to events: an RSVP confirmation when someone registers, a daily reminder the day before an event, and an event change notification when an event is updated after people have registered. This article documents the trigger, content, and audience of each.

1. RSVP Confirmation Email

Trigger: Sent immediately when a person registers for an event (either through the public events page or the member portal).

Audience: The registrant. If the person has a linked account, they receive both an in-app notification and an email. Guest registrations (no linked account) receive email only.

Content:

• Subject: "Registration Confirmed"
• Body: "You're registered for {event title} on {date} at {time}."
• Action button: "View Event" linking to the event's public page.

When it does not fire:

• If the registration is cancelled from the start rather than confirmed.
• If the church has notifications disabled for this user.

2. Daily Event Reminders

Trigger: Once a day at 8:00 AM in each church's own local time zone, TimelyChurch looks for active events that start tomorrow and sends a reminder. (Earlier versions used a single fixed time; reminders now go out at 8 AM wherever your church is located, so they no longer arrive in the middle of the night for churches in other time zones.)

Audience: Every confirmed registration whose event starts tomorrow. The reminder skips:

• Cancelled registrations.
• Registrations with no email address available.
• Guest registrations that have no linked person record.

Content:

• Subject: "Reminder: {event title} tomorrow" -- the timing word adjusts automatically to the recipient's local time (e.g., "today", "tomorrow", or "in N days").
• The reminder email currently does not include a .ics attachment.

3. Event Change Notifications

When you reschedule an event after registrations have been taken, you can notify everyone affected.

Trigger: Manual -- this fires when an admin moves an event to a new date (by dragging it to a new day on the calendar, or by entering a New Date (to reschedule)) and chooses to notify attendees. The change notification is tied to the reschedule action, not to every minor field edit.

Audience: Registered attendees and confirmed serving volunteers for the event. Everyone with a linked account receives an in-app notification; attendees who have an email address on file also receive an email.

Content:

• In-app notification: title "Event Rescheduled: {event title}", summarizing the date change and the new date.
• Email: subject "Meeting Rescheduled: {event title}", including an updated .ics calendar attachment so attendees can refresh their own calendar.

Note: Change notifications are sent on demand when you reschedule, rather than automatically on every save. This avoids spamming attendees with minor edits.

Other Event-Adjacent Notifications

For completeness, two other notification flows touch events but are documented elsewhere:

• Volunteer reminder emails -- Daily at 6:00 PM in each church's local time zone, sent to volunteers serving tomorrow. See Event Volunteer Scheduling.
• Waitlist notifications -- When a spot opens, the next person on the waitlist receives a "you have 48 hours to claim" email. See Event Registration.

Disabling or Customizing Reminders

Each user can opt out of reminder emails through their Notification Preferences in the member portal. To disable reminders church-wide for a single event, mark the event Inactive -- the daily reminder only includes active events and will skip it.

At a Glance