Sites can now override the address shown on receipts. This allows you to show the specific address when you do business in different areas. The address override only applies to receipts that are connected to an appointment.
We now support private virtual numbers for sending SMS. This allows you to have your own distinct mobile number that is used when sending SMS and receiving replies. You also have the option to publish this number, and when someone sends a text to that number you will receive their SMS message via email.
The cost of a private virtual number is $30/month on top of the usual subscription.
You can now send a second automated reminder. The template and settings for this reminder are on a new tab (SMS Reminder #2) under Account > SMS Settings/Notifications.
The 2nd reminder works much like the current SMS reminder, but there are some minor changes to how reminders affect the appointment, noted below.
Once either SMS reminder is sent, the Appointment status changes to Reminded.
Each appointment keeps track of whether each reminder has been sent. You can force these to Sent if you want to manually prevent a reminder going out.
The main difference is that previously no reminders would be sent once the Appointment status was set to Reminded, but now only the sent status matters.
We've added a user-friendly editor for custom text. This can be used in the Customer Module settings for your custom welcome message, notes info and terms and conditions, and also in the main settings for the Cancellation policy.
You can now allow time between customer bookings by setting the "after" time in the relevant services. For example, if you have a 45-minute service that needs a 15-minute break before the next service, you just set that service to have 15 minutes in the "after" field.
This extra time is a "soft break" that only applied to customer bookings and can be overridden when managing appointments in the main system.
We've made some improvement to mail-outs to improve deliverability and to check for oversized attachments.
We've upgraded our server system to give you faster, more efficient access.
We've made some significant changes to the Customer Booking Module to improve customer experience, streamline booking, and increase retention rates.
For a better mobile experience we've made a number of tweaks to the interface. This includes improvements to the user-interface to correct issues on some iPhone models.
We have implemented a number of behind-the-scenes changes for even faster performance and greater security.
You now have a choice of how to make payments for monthly subscriptions and for SMS credits.
Stripe has become a serious competitor to PayPal's dominance in online payments. Stripe provides a clear and efficient means to manage online payments.
BizDiary continues to support PayPal and no changes are required on your part. The new update improves the BizDiary PayPal integration to make use of the updated PayPal service.
There is no need to change payment platforms, unless you specifically want to.
Changing is a two-step process...
Before moving to Stripe, you will need to cancel your existing PayPal payments. To do this, use the "Cancel Account" feature in BizDiary. In the reason for cancelling, please choose "Other" and enter "Switching to Stripe" in the description.
BizDiary will redirect you to PayPal, where you will need to log in to your current PayPal account, and then cancel the subscription.
Once the account is cancelled, you then choose the "Upgrade to Paid Account" option and follow the prompts to use Stripe.
The new Sites give you a better way to define and group your location. We've greatly extended the SMS and Email templates to help you stay in touch with customers easily and automatically. And, we've made a number of behind-the-scenes improvements to make BizDiary faster and more efficient than ever.
A Site represents a physical address where you see patients. Each Site can have multiple Locations. The Site has an short and long address and a phone number. These fields are used in the Customer Module, and can also be applied to SMS and Email templates. Sites can also be used in a similar way to Location Groups when displaying the Calendar.
You'll find a new Sites option in the main menu, where you can add your sites. Once you've done that go into each Location and assign it to a Site.
You can now automatically send email or SMS messages for...
The new settings are now in their own sections, under Account > Email Settings/Notifications and Account > SMS Settings/Notifications, and each template can be overridden for any Personnel by choosing the Personnel from the drop down on the left of the template.
We've also enhanced the preview feature so that you can clearly see how your SMS or email will appear.
Email confirmations now have the option to include an attached calendar file. This allows your customers to automatically add their appointments into their calendar.
SMS replies now go to individual personnel where applicable.
Better handling of Excel exports and reports handles larger lists, and works across most major spreadsheet applications.
The new notification system allows us to quickly communicate with all BizDiary users to inform you about upcoming changes, system maintenance, and other news. If there are notifications a speech bubble will appear next to the user menu showing the number of unread notifications.
Now that BizDiary 3 is bedded down, we've started work on a series of further improvements. These will be released in blocks over the coming months.
We've fixed up a handful of minor bugs, and also made some improvements to the handling of SMS replies.
When a customer replies to an SMS...
We're pleased to announce the release of BizDiary 3.0, released on Sunday 22 April 2018.
This is a major step forward for our Appointment Management system. We've kept all the great features and ease-of-use, updated the look and feel, added some extra features, and done the groundwork for future enhancements.
BizDiary 3.0 features a new modern interface that provides easier access to the features you need.
We’ve opened up more screen space for the Calendar (and other features) by integrating the menu into the top bar. The new menu is more intuitive with clear and consistent icons to provide quick visual cues.
The Calendar is very much front and centre of an appointment system, and we’ve put a lot of work into improving it.
While this new version provides a number of significant enhancements to BizDiary's functionality and usability, perhaps more important are the changes that you cannot see. We've reworked major sections of the code from the ground up to take advantage of the latest in server and browser technology, and to provide us with the platform we need for even greater enhancements.
We have a long list of extra features that we are already working on, but we wanted to give you access to this improved system now, and we will do another major release of new features later this year.
If you have any questions or comments, please get in touch!
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