Message plans
Use message plans to tell us how to send messages to your recipients. You can choose which message channels to use and in what order.
You can now set up message plans yourself. You no longer need to ask NHS Notify to set up message plans for you.
Message plans are sometimes referred to as routing plans or routing configurations.
Choosing your message order
Log in to your account. In Message plans, select New message plan.
Then Choose a message order by selecting an option from a list of pre-defined message plans.
For example: NHS App, email, text message, letter.
Adding message plan details
Enter a message plan name.
If your service has got multiple campaigns, choose which campaign your message plan will link to.
If your service only has one campaign set up, your message plan will link to this automatically.
Campaigns are a way of grouping messages. They’re used for billing and tracking message performance.
Choosing your templates
You can choose templates for each channel in your message plan.
You can preview your templates when you choose them, and while you review your overall message plan.
How fallbacks work
If we cannot deliver a message through your first choice, we automatically try the next channel in your message plan.
A fallback happens if:
- the recipient does not have valid contact details for a channel
- the message is not read or delivered within a certain amount of time
- the message fails to send for a technical reason
We’ll stop sending messages once a chosen channel is successful.
For example, you might try to send an NHS App message first. If the recipient reads the message within 24 hours, no further messages get sent. If the recipient does not read the first message within 24 hours, we’ll then try to send an email.
You can read about your fallback conditions when you set up your message plan.
Testing message plans
Once you’ve created a draft message plan, you can test it using our:
Once you’ve moved a message plan to production, the templates in it have a Locked status. This means you cannot edit them. You can still copy locked NHS App message, email and text message templates.
Moving message plans to production
Once the relevant stakeholders in your team have approved your templates and message plan, select Move to production.
Your message plan can then be used to send messages to recipients.
Next, your developer or technical team need to make a request to send the message plan using NHS Notify API (opens in a new tab) or NHS Notify MESH (opens in a new tab). You’ll need the routing plan ID for this.
Contact details
We check the Personal Demographics Service (PDS) for each recipient’s contact details before we start sending messages.
If we do not have a contact detail for a specific channel, we’ll skip that channel and move to the next one in your message plan.
We only check for contact details once at the start. We do not re-check PDS each time there is a fallback.