Appointment.com Catches the Flu

Many of our customers will have noticed that site performance on Thursday was extremely and unacceptably slow. I wanted to fill you in on what happened and how we are resolving it.

We recently added as customers several vaccination clinics that are offering online appointments for H1N1 flu shots. Demand for the limited quantity of the H1N1 vaccines is so great that an enormous number of people all went to the site at the exact same time, creating a huge spike in traffic. Even once the vaccines were all gone, people were still trying to get appointments, so there was little letup in traffic over the course of the day. To be specific, we saw traffic spike by almost 20 times our normal traffic, and continue at the level for almost the entire day. Quite simply, we were overwhelmed by the suddenness and volume of this traffic, and many of you bore the brunt of this through slow or inaccessible calendars.

Due to this, we are adding additional server capacity. This will require a scheduled outage this Sunday night, November 8, from 8:00 PM to midnight PST; we have chosen these off-peak hours so as to inconvenience the least number of customers. Once this upgrade is complete, we are confident that Appointment.com will have sufficient server capacity to handle sudden spikes in traffic, and that this incident should not reoccur.

We appreciate your patience and forbearance more than you can imagine, and hope that you will find the performance improvements of Appointment.com a worthwhile addition.

Development update and getting ready for the flu shot season

Our development team is working at full capacity to complete the "Beta" stage of Version 3.0 for www.Appointment.com. The release date has been delayed to the end of this month because we have continued to add new features, but they will be well worth the wait!

In the meantime, Version 2.0 is running well and and we have seen an increase in the demand for many kinds of "Online Appointment Scheduling" tasks. There is particularly strong increase in the need for online scheduling with the upcoming flu season.
More flu shot clinics are using www.Appointment.com than ever before, with both the regular flu shots and now the H1N1 immunizations. Flu clinics who utilize online scheduling are benefiting because they have the ability to book multiple appointments for one time-slot, making the booking process very simple and easy for patients and providers.

P.S. follow our Tweets at our new Twitter URL at
http://twitter.com/appointmentcom

BookingCalendar.com is now Appointment.com

We started the idea of BookingCalendar.com in 1999, and since then, it has become one of the leading online appointment scheduling systems. I would like to thank all of our many loyal customers who, over the years, have helped drive us to create the most advanced online appointment scheduling systems available. Your comments and encouragement have truly been invaluable.

Now it is time for the next step in our evolution.

The most immediate change is a new name: Appointment.com. And over the next weeks and months, you are going to see some rather dramatic changes to the system, including:

• A new look and feel that is easier to use and understand
• Streamlined administration
• Enhanced reporting
• A consumer portal for scheduling appointments

We will be sending out a more detailed description of these changes, as well as our development roadmap, to our customers in the next few weeks, and look forward to your comments.

While an enhanced UI and feature set are significant, equally important is that Appointment.com is now part of the Epik network of web sites. Through this alliance, we have been able to expand our vision, ability to execute, and capacity to grow even more rapidly. Over the coming months, you will begin to enjoy the fruits of this relationship with Epik, including links to various directories and portals, improved SEO, site discoverability, and online lead generation.

This truly is an exciting time for Appointment.com.

Max Fanderl

Founder and COO, Appointment.com

New Service Display

You can now display the service your customer has chosen directly on your schedule, rather than in the pop-up. To enable this go to Vendor Admin-Calendar Display Options and Enable "Display Service Name directly under Customer Name on schedule". The next time you visit your schedule, you will see the service!

The Promotional/Coupon Code Function is Complete!

We have just added the ability to create and use promotional codes and coupons. To get started go to your Optional Features in Vendor Admin and enable this function. Return to the Administration menu and go to Promotional Code Admin. Here you can add a new Promotional Code by selecting your own code, dates that it can be used and even the number allowed. When your client enters this code the discount or dollar amount will be automatically removed from their total cost.

This function can be a great asset for your marketing and to encourage your users to book online. You can provide a coupon code to new users to receive discounts on their first booking or a promotional codes for new services or seasonal events that you offer.

Please let us know if you have any questions about this new feature.
BookingCalendar.com

Newest updates

We have recently done some small updates that you may find useful in your calendar:
1.) You can now customize the text of cancellation emails sent to your clients. You can access this under Schedule Admin and "Default Schedule Settings".
2.) You can disable the "Language" selection field from the customer registration form. You can find this in Vendor Admin under 'Optional Features' and 'Display Language in Signup page'. By default this is set to 'Disable'.
3.) In place of the {customer_name} tag in emails, which displays the customer first and last name, you can now use {first_name} {last_name} to display one or the other. You can edit these emails in Schedule and Event Admin.
4.) The ICS file for exporting bookings into Outlook or iCal is now available for events.
5.) A checkbox has been added in Event Admin to disable the start and finish times from being displayed in the email confirmations.
6.) A new tag is available for vendor and customer confirmation emails to display how a booking was paid. Please add this {paid_by} tag within the {repeat_area} tags in your email confirmations if you would like this to display.

Please let us know if you have any questions about these new additions.
Thank you,
BookingCalendar.com

Over the last couple month we have been fine-tuning the system and adding a new Ajax component into the booking process. This will improve calendar speed, especially for those using a lot of "Schedules" in their calendars. This will not change how the calendar looks or works, it just makes it faster.

Another great improvement that comes with the AJAX application is the ability to block out your available times with clicking on the "Lock" (only for "Administrators" and "Booking Agents"), rather than making dummy bookings. This will significantly speed up your schedule changes.
How will this work?
Logged in as the "Vendor" or "Agent" you will see a lock next to each available time. By clicking on the lock, you will be able to lock one or multiple time-blocks, adding a note for yourself. The customer will not be able to book these time-blocks, however, you as the administrator or agent still can book an appointment for the blocked times.

The process of booking existing customers has been changed as well. We eliminated the pop-up screen to search for customers. Now you can simply enter the first three letters of the customers "first or last name" and you will see a list of possible customers to be selected from a drop down.

We hope that you find these upgrades helpful and time-saving.
Thank you,
BookingCalendar.com