Appointedd release notes app.appointedd.com

From 14th September 2019, banks within the European Economic Area will start asking the cardholder to authenticate their card when making payments online. The purpose of this is to strengthen security in online payments.

This does not include the UK at this time - UK banks will start SCA from a later date.

For the cardholder, this means that when making payments online, they may be asked by their bank to confirm the payment through an email, text message, mobile app etc. In order to ensure that customers of businesses on Appointedd are able to authenticate their payments, we have built connections to the authentication tools of the payment gateways which we integrate with (Stripe, Braintree and Square).

For your business, this simply means that when the customer's bank requires authentication for payment to you, we will display the authentication tool of your connected payment gateway. This tool prompts the customer to authenticate the payment and once they have done so, they will come back to Appointedd and make the payment.

As a business on Appointedd, there's nothing you need to do!

We've got you covered 👍

If your business is lucky enough to be inundated with customers wanting to make bookings with you, it can happen that two people select the same time slot, enter their details and click confirm. Previously, the first person to click confirm would get the booking and the other would be encouraged to choose another time.

The "reservations" feature will mean that from the moment a customer selects a timeslot on the availability step of your customer-facing booking tool, this slot is "reserved" for them for 7 minutes (you can change this time in your settings).

If the customer doesn't complete the booking process and book in 7 minutes, the time slot will be "released" for anyone else to book.

Additionally, when a customer is making a booking, you'll see the booking coming in on your internal Appointedd calendar:

Square POS allows any business to manage their payments, digital receipts, open tickets, inventory, reports and more, all from one place.

We are delighted to announce that Appointedd now integrates with Square POS, allowing UK businesses to manage your POS and your bookings all in one place. The integration includes:

• Two-way customer sync
• Adding bookings to the till to take payment
• Reflecting Square POS payments on a booking in Appointedd.

To celebrate our partnership, Square POS are offering Appointedd customers a free card reader and £1,000 worth of payment processing for free.

To get started with Square POS, click here to create your Square account.

The Activity Log will act as a trail of all activity in your account. This allows you to fully understand how your customers and your users are interacting with your Appointedd account, all from one place!

The activity log is available to standard and admin users of your account and the full log can be found under the your business tab.

Additionally, the activity log will be broken down per customer and per booking, and displayed on each customer record and each booking.

The activity log allows you to get to the bottom of anything you're unsure of. For example, if you need to understand how a customer's booking was cancelled, you can go to that customer record and in their activity log, you'll see when the booking was cancelled and by who (the customer or one of your users).

For full details on activity logs and how they'll help your business, check out this guide.

Appointedd microsites allow a business to take reviews from customers and display those reviews on the microsite.

As of Monday 8th July, reviews will no longer be supported in Appointedd.

We have taken this difficult decision for two reasons; the feature isn't heavily used, and it is blocking us from developing functionality to enhance Appointedd.

We know customer reviews are valuable to any business so to give them the exposure they deserve, we suggest displaying them on sites with dedicated review platforms such as Trustpilot, Google or Facebook. We’ve created a summary of how Appointedd can work with them here. Please note this is not an endorsement of the platforms; you should assess them for suitability with your business.

If you have any questions on this change, don't hesitate to get in touch with the support team through the messenger on the bottom right of Appointedd - we'll do all we can to help.

Customer accounts in Appointedd allow the business' customer (the end user) to create an Appointedd account. This account is not the same as the business' account but allows them to:

1. View and cancel their bookings
2. Use their email address and password to make bookings with any business on Appointedd which allows this.

Each business on Appointedd can choose whether they wish their customers to make an Appointedd account in order to make a booking with that business. This is in the account settings.

As of Monday 8th July, customer accounts will no longer be supported in Appointedd.

We have taken this difficult decision for two reasons; the feature isn't heavily used, and it is blocking us from developing functionality to enhance Appointedd.

This change will not affect the business, the details held about the customer, reporting or bookings. It will also not affect the business' login details.

The effects on the customer of the business (the end user) are:

1. They will no longer be able to log in to view their bookings.
2. Instead of entering their email address and password to make a booking, they will simply enter their name, email address and phone number.

Our research shows that removing the friction of creating an account is preferred by the customer as it is an easier booking process and as a result, it can also increase the number of bookings made.

We're committed to supporting you in this change so if you have any questions, please don't hesitate to get in touch with our support team through the messenger on the bottom right of Appointedd.

Appointedd integrates with online payment gateways (Stripe, Square, and Braintree) and point of sale systems (Epos Now) allowing you to take payment for your bookings.

When payment is taken through any of these systems, it is reflected on Appointedd. Now, you can take multiple payments for a booking (and a customer on a booking) and each one of these payments this will be reflected on the booking (and the customer).

For example, you could:

1. Take a deposit when the customer requests a booking online then send a request for the outstanding amount when you accept the booking.
2. Take a deposit when the customer makes a booking online then take the remainder of the payment when they arrive on the day.
3. Take full payment from the customer online, amend their "spaces" when they arrive with an extra person on the day, and take the payment for the extra person.

Both of these payments (and any other payments made for the booking) will be reflected in Appointedd:

Appointedd's communications tools allow you to send emails to your customers in the form of confirmations, follow-ups, reminders and marketing.

You can also set the send-from email address so that when the email appears in the recipient's inbox, they know that it's from you.

Now, as long as you manage your domain, you can authenticate it to give Appointedd permission to send emails from your domain on your behalf. This increases deliverability and ensures that emails are delivered successfully to your customers' inboxes.

Authenticate your domain now from your business profile under the your business tab. Find a full guide here.

Creating an Appointedd account has never been easier. Now, you can create an account in three simple steps.

Additionally, we'll guide you on what services and resources you might want to create, according to the industry in which you operate.

Create a new account today from www.appointedd.com.

When you create a customer in Appointedd, whether when you're making a booking or in the customers tab, you need to enter their first name and last name.

Now, to ensure that you take all of the information necessary, you have the option to make the email address and phone number fields mandatory also.

To do so, just go to CRM under the your business tab and find general fields.

You can also create your own custom fields which you can make optional or mandatory as required. Find more about custom fields in our support base.