SMS reminders

Written By Manning Blackall

Last updated 6 days ago

As well as email, RTOPilot can send students short SMS reminders so they don't miss important dates — such as an upcoming class or a certificate that's due for renewal. Reminders are sent automatically on a fixed daily schedule, so there's nothing for your team to send manually.

The full reminder schedule

RTOPilot sends the reminders below automatically. All send times are Australian Eastern time (Sydney), and each reminder goes out a set number of days before (or after) the event it relates to. A student only receives a reminder where they have the matching notification turned on.

ReminderWhen it's sentChannelSent at
Upcoming class7 days and 2 days before the class by email; 1 day before by SMSEmail and SMS11:00 am
Certificate renewalAbout one month before a qualification or unit is due to expireEmail and SMS11:30 am
Complete your enrolment details3 days before the class starts, if required AVETMISS details are missingEmail10:00 am
Complete your LLN assessment3 days before the class starts, if the LLN check is still outstandingEmail10:00 am
Overdue enrolment detailsAbout a week after a student's account is created, if their details are still incompleteSMS11:15 am
Online courseAbout a week before and a week after an online course beginsEmail1:00 pm
Trainer session7 days and 1 day before a session — sent to the trainer, not to studentsEmail12:30 pm

Send times are timed so that SMS reminders still arrive in the morning for students in Western Australia and other states behind Sydney time.

Australian mobile numbers only

SMS reminders can only be delivered to Australian mobile numbers. If a student's mobile number isn't a valid Australian number, RTOPilot simply skips the SMS for that student — their email reminders are unaffected. To make sure a student receives SMS reminders, check that their mobile number is recorded correctly.

📷 Screenshot to be added: a student record showing the mobile number field.

Opting out

Every reminder SMS ends with "Reply STOP to opt out.", so students can stop receiving them at any time. This keeps your messaging compliant and respects each student's choice. Students can also control which reminders they receive through their own notification preferences.

Because SMS reminders go directly to students' phones, they're reserved for genuinely useful, time-sensitive prompts rather than general marketing.

The automated post-enrolment survey

When a student completes their training, RTOPilot can make a post-enrolment survey available to them, and can email it to them automatically. If you'd prefer not to send this survey, you can turn it off.

  1. Go to Settings and open the Enrolments tab.

  2. Find the Behaviour section and select Edit.

  3. Turn off Make the post-enrolment survey available to students upon completion of their training to stop offering the survey, or turn off Automatically email the post-enrolment survey to students on completion to keep the survey available but stop the automatic email.

  4. Save your changes.

📷 Screenshot to be added: the post-enrolment survey toggles in the Enrolments behaviour settings.

Turning these off won't affect any other reminders or emails RTOPilot sends.