# Trying FullColumn on your own clients before you switch over

> When you import from your old booking system, set up first: try everything on your real clients before they get texts or emails, then switch.

Source: https://docs.fullcolumn.com/getting-started/setting-up-before-clients-hear

A new salon sends texts and emails to its clients from the start. If you're moving from your old booking system, you can choose to **set up** first when you import: texts and emails then only go to your team, never to your clients, so you can try everything on your real clients and appointments while your old system is still the one your clients hear from. When you switch over, you start sending to clients.

## Setting up when you import

1. Start an import in **Settings → Import & export** (or **Clients → Import**): clients or appointments.
2. On the import's last check before it runs, under **Messages to clients**, choose **Only to your team for now**.
3. Press **Import** (for clients, **Import** and the number of clients). Your salon is setting up from then on.

**Only to your team for now** is chosen to start with while none of your clients has had a text or email from FullColumn. Once one has, **To clients as usual** is: choosing **Only to your team for now** then holds back every client's texts and emails, not just for what you import, until you start sending to clients again. If FullColumn can't check, neither is chosen, and the import waits until you choose one. It's only offered to people with the permission **Change salon settings (hours, online booking, messages, branding)**, which owners have, and it shows in the activity log.

## What setting up means for your messages

While your salon is setting up, texts and emails only go to:

- the mobile numbers and email addresses of your active team members, as they are in **Settings → Team & roster**
- your salon's own phone number and email, from **Settings → Business**

Everything else works as usual: you can import, book, check out, send campaigns and switch on automatic messages. Anything that would have gone to a client (or to anyone else outside the team, like a purchase order to a supplier) is kept in **Messages** as **Not sent**, with _Not sent – the salon was still setting up, when messages only go to the team_, so you can see exactly what your clients would have got. Messages that aren't sent use no SMS credits.

A strip across the top of FullColumn says "Setting up: texts and emails only go to your team, not to clients" until you start sending to clients.

## Trying your messages on yourself while setting up

To see a confirmation or reminder arrive as a client would, book yourself in as a client with the same mobile number or email address that's on your team profile: messages to it go. A test from **Settings → Reminders & SMS** (**Text me** or **Email me**) always goes, setting up or not. Team alerts and invites to new team members go as usual.

## Your booking page while setting up

Your booking page works while you're setting up, and you can try booking on it. Clients who find it see a note that your salon is still setting up its booking page, and that they won't get a confirmation or reminder by text or email yet. Bookings made on it still go on your calendar.

## Starting to send to clients

Start once you've stopped using your old booking system, so clients don't get two of everything.

1. Open **Settings → Reminders & SMS**. (The strip at the top has a **Start sending to clients →** link there too.)
2. Under **Setting up**, choose **Start sending to clients**.
3. Choose **Start sending** to confirm.

From then on clients get their confirmations, reminders and other messages, and the strip at the top goes. It needs the permission **Change salon settings (hours, online booking, messages, branding)**, which owners have, and it shows in the activity log.

## What happens to messages when you start sending to clients

- **Reminders for appointments still to come** go as usual when they come due, and so do separate "before your appointment" messages, even if one was held back while you were setting up.
- **Imported appointments** only get reminders if they were imported with **Send reminders for imported upcoming appointments** on. While your salon is setting up, that's on to start with ([reminders for imported appointments](https://docs.fullcolumn.com/clients/import-appointments#reminders-for-imported-appointments)).
- **Messages held back while setting up** aren't sent later. To send one anyway, press **Retry** on it in **Messages** once you've started sending to clients.
- **Automatic messages and aftercare start from when you start sending to clients.** Visits before then don't get aftercare, a welcome or an **After the visit** message. Birthday, **Not seen for a while** and **Time to rebook** messages that were due before then aren't sent late, however many the "up to … a day" limit held back. If you start sending before the day's sending hours begin, that day's messages go as usual.

## Common questions

### Does my free trial wait while I'm setting up?

No. The free trial starts when you sign up, whether or not you've started sending to clients ([your free trial](https://docs.fullcolumn.com/getting-started/free-trial)).

### Are card payments real while I'm setting up?

Yes. Setting up only holds back texts and emails. Card payments taken through Stripe, at the desk or online, are real payments.

### Can I go back to setting up?

Yes: choose **Only to your team for now** under **Messages to clients** when you next import clients or appointments. It holds back every client's texts and emails, including the ones who already hear from you, until you start sending to clients again. Messages queued before you went back to setting up still go.

### Does a new salon start out setting up?

No. A new salon sends texts and emails to clients from the start, so you can try everything as it really works. You choose to set up when you import from your old booking system.

### Why didn't a message to a team member go while setting up?

Messages only go to the mobile numbers and email addresses on active team members' profiles in **Settings → Team & roster**. Add the number or email there, then press **Retry** on the message in **Messages**.