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

Happy Holidays from BookingCalendar.com

All the staff at BookingCalendar.com would like to wish our customers happy holidays and a safe and happy new year. We are looking forward to another year of success and have many new exciting upgrades planned. We have recently optimized the software and the speed of the calendar is better than ever. Please continue to watch for new features, as we add them regularly.

BookingCalendar.com does a presentation for the World Massage Conference

BookingCalendar.com has just recently presented online for the World Massage Conference (www.Worldmassageconference.com). This unique event is a first of its kind that allows massage therapists to educate themselves on a variety of topics on the online from their own homes. By doing this they can collect credits for their licenses. We were able to offer some insight into the value of using the internet to complement one's business and the many uses and money saving capabilities of an online scheduler.

V-cards displaying the wrong time in Outlook, when imported from BookingCalendar.com

There are several reasons that this can occur. There are many versions of Outlook available, all with varying issues with v-cards and timezones. The first thing to check is whether or not your timezone is set correctly in your Outlook calendar, you can follow the steps at http://it.cas.psu.edu/Training/HowTo/Outlook/CalendarTime.htm.
The next thing to keep in mind is if there is an upcoming time change. BookingCalendar.com and Google calendar adjust their appointment times after the time change has taken place, whereas Outlook adjusts this as the booking is imported. This can mean that the time will appear wrong when the V-card is imported, but it will match up with the booking once the time change has occurred.
If none of these steps work for you, you may want to consider syncing your BookingCalendar with Google and Google to Outlook. To do this you need to setup an account with Google and then turn on the Google sync in BookingCalendar ( in either Vendor Admin or Schedule Admin). Once you have enabled the sync from BookingCalendar to Google, you need to sync your Google calendar with your Outlook calendar. Once this is done, any future bookings will be added to Google and then automatically to Outlook. This sync is in real time and will prevent you from needing to click the v-cards or using the ics file. The bookings will take longer to sync from Google to Outlook than from BookingCalendar to Google, but is still be more efficient than using the v-cards.