Fix Missing appointment.start_time Custom Values

If {{appointment.start_time}} or any other appointment custom value comes through blank — or your appointment reminder campaign is not firing on time, or Add to Google Calendar / iCal / Outlook links are broken in test emails — the cause is almost always the same: the workflow trigger does not give Sparkforge enough context to resolve which appointment the custom value refers to.

The fix: use an appointment trigger

Appointment custom values only populate when the workflow uses one of these triggers:

• Appointment
• Customer Booked Appointment

If you trigger off Pipeline Stage Changed or any non-appointment trigger, Sparkforge has no way to know which appointment to pull from — so all appointment merge fields stay blank.

Testing tips

• To test appointment custom values, you have to book a real appointment. A test contact alone does not generate appointment data.
• If you need to manually add a lead to an Appointment Reminder Campaign, set the event start date to the appointment's start time.

Rescheduling

To reschedule manually, open the contact, go to the Appointments tab on the right, and switch the appointment status from Confirmed to Reschedule. Sparkforge automatically:

1. Removes the lead from the original appointment reminder campaign.
2. Re-adds them to the campaign with the new appointment time.

If you want leads to reschedule themselves, drop the reschedule link custom value into the appointment reminder campaign. The link routes the lead to the booking flow with their existing appointment loaded.