{"id":1070,"date":"2021-08-17T07:18:24","date_gmt":"2021-08-17T07:18:24","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.greminders.com\/articles\/?p=1070"},"modified":"2025-11-21T02:26:32","modified_gmt":"2025-11-21T02:26:32","slug":"time-ranges-with-sms-reminder-templates","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.greminders.com\/articles\/time-ranges-with-sms-reminder-templates\/","title":{"rendered":"Time Ranges with Templates"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

If you are a service provider, perhaps Electrician, Plumber, General Repair or work in the Building Trades where you need to make house \/ service calls, you want to remind your clients of arrival times, but need to provide them a time window rather than a specific time. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

If you use SMS Reminders, you can tell them when to expect you to show up.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

For example:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"Text<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

How do we create this time range? Let’s find out:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

First, we want to figure out how we want to setup our time range. If you have 1-2pm on your Calendar for the service call, do you want to provide them a window of 11am to 1pm arrival time (2 hours prior to start time and start time), or say 1p to 3p arrival time (start time to 2 hours after start time). This will determine how you setup the formulas below. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

For our examples we will create the range: start time to 2 hours after start time.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In our Template we will need to use some variables to setup the functionality. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

First we setup 2 variables. The first one will be the “start time” of the event. We do this by using the advanced time to grab the “1” from the 1pm start time like so: (Note 1 is actually 13 since we want the 24 hour time format)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

{% assign hour_time = event.date_time_advanced | date: \"%H\" %}<\/pre>\n\n\n\n
the 2nd variable we will ADD 2 hours to the “1pm” start time like so:<\/p>\n\n\n\n
{% assign hour_time_short = hour_time | plus: 2 %}<\/pre>\n\n\n\n
Next we will want to use these variables in our text.   But since %H above is a “24 hour” time (in other words, 1 = 13 we need to convert 13 or 15 to something in a 12 hour format), we need to do some IF THEN ELSE logic.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
We will arrive between {{event.date_time_advanced | date: \"%l%P\" }} and {% if hour_time_short < 12 %}{{hour_time_short}}am{% elsif hour_time_short == 12 %}12pm{%else%}{{ hour_time_short | minus: 12 }}pm{%endif%}<\/pre>\n\n\n\n
What we did here is if the end time (the one where we add 2 hours to the start time) is less than 12pm we will show that time and append “am”, if its 12 we show “12pm” if it’s over 12 (meaning 13-24) we want to SUBTRACT 12 and append “pm” (so 15 – 12 = 3, thus 3pm)<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Putting it all together:<\/p>\n\n\n\n
{% assign hour_time = event.date_time_advanced | date: \"%H\" %}\n{% assign hour_time_short = hour_time | plus: 2 %}\n{{company.name}} is scheduled to arrive today between {{event.date_time_advanced | date: \"%l:%M%P\" }} and {% if hour_time_short < 12 %}{{hour_time_short}}:{{event.date_time_advanced | date: \"%M\" }}am{% elsif hour_time_short == 12 %}12pm{%else%}{{ hour_time_short | minus: 12 }}:{{event.date_time_advanced | date: \"%M\" }}pm{%endif%} at {{event.location}}.  Please reply YES to confirm or call {{user.phone}} to reschedule.<\/code><\/pre>\n\n\n\n
Note: GReminders uses the Liquid Templating Library. You can find all sorts of helpful functions and operators by reading their documentation<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Also note, by default SMS Reminder Templates are capped at 320 characters.  If you need more characters to support more variables, please contact support@greminders.com and they will increase your template limit.   <\/p>\n\n\n\n
For more advanced topics like this please visit other articles:<\/p>\n\n\n\n
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Getting Fancy with Reminder Templates<\/a><\/blockquote>