December Newsletter – Christmas is Coming to SimplyBook.me (with Gifts)

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Can you believe it’s December already? I know I can’t. It almost feels like “whoosh”, and 2022 disappeared. However, when we look back on what we have achieved this year, it’s not hard to imagine how 12 months have gone by. They say that time flies when you are having fun, and I can definitely say that even if we don’t call it “fun”, this has been an incredible year for SimplyBook.me.

Just from looking at the Christmas photographs from last year and this, you can see that our HQ body count has more than doubled. We have changed offices – bigger and brighter to accommodate our growing team – and started a whole new chapter of online presence with our fabulous SM content creator, Daena. Along with Mariia and Joseph’s creative design and video talents, our social media channels have never looked so good.

And then we have our new developments – Phew!

What’s New for November?

So while we are talking about new developments, let’s look at what has been happening for our users this past month.

MS Teams Improvement

As the MS Teams product improves, so must our integration. The need for video calling and virtual meetings was made essential during the Covid pandemic, but it has persisted. And while it was OK to have a less-than-perfect virtual meeting platform then, now it’s not acceptable.

Meeting organisers have acquired the ability to restrict actions during meetings, so functionality has been implemented within the SimplyBook.me integration.

If you already use MS Teams, you will know that clients can access the meeting directly from the booking website, so we had to make the restriction fit with that integration.

Improvements for daily classes timeline on mobile

Previously, the timeslots for daily classes timeline were large and not very convenient on mobile devices. There’s a lot of scrolling involved when icons and text fonts are too large.

This meant updating the design and coding to accommodate our mobile users. So we have made improvements to the design to ensure the slots and fonts are smaller but still readable. This makes the appearance better and reduces scrolling on mobile devices.

Client Fields – “Last Name”

The way the system is set up, there is only a field for “Name” when a client signs up for the first time. As a workaround, we suggested that our users add an extra field for “last name” to allow differentiation of clients with the first given name, for example, “David”.

However, when it came to users trying to find specific clients, the “last name” field did not appear in the client selector and made the addition pointless.

Now we have created a workaround that actually works. In the client fields setting, there is now a check box that will add a field to the client selector. This way user can set “Last name” and tick the check box, and the last name will be displayed in the selector so they can select the correct client.

Upcoming in December and into January 2023!

It might seem that we are a little thin on the ground for new releases for Simplybook.me this month. However, that’s not because we don’t have anything upcoming but because we have some major projects in the mix that we don’t see an immediate release for.

Keep your eyes peeled for new updates and changes to the SymplyBook.me scheduling system that we hope you will love.

Zoom Integration

How long have we all been waiting for this? Yes, too long. However, there is a light ahead, and it all comes down to final integration approvals from Zoom.

We have worked hard on this because Zoom is everyone’s favourite video meeting platform.

Fingers crossed, this option will be with you soon! I’ve got mine crossed too.

In Case You missed it.

While there were plenty of releases in November, we have to give a massive shout-out to all of our development and support staff in Ukraine. They have worked through power outages, intermittent internet access, air raids, and fleeing to shelters. Thankfully, our teams are pretty evenly distributed around our main offices and remote home workers. See, we can always manage our support responsibilities – even if it might be a little slower.

As Thanksgiving is celebrated in November, we decided that in a spirit of gratitude, we would also celebrate. Our colleagues express gratitude for electricity and running water and the hard work of the electrical workers to maintain that; you know you need to stay thankful for what you have in life.

We’ve had quite a lot of guest posters this month, all vying for a spot before Christmas. Well, they all had such valuable content to offer. We couldn’t say no.

Antonio Gabric talked about key email newsletter metrics to monitor and optimise, while Alan Lui told us how to build a community for our businesses. Dmytro Spilka showed us how to spot and fill gaps in content strategy. Irina Maltseva broached data security on November 30th with advice on protecting your business from payment fraud.

Beyond business and making a personal difference

November was a month of many “observation” days, such as Stress Awareness, World Kindness, Entrepreneurs day, Thanksgiving, Black Friday, Small Business Saturday, and Computer Security Day – Not mentioning Movember, which took a slight dive when our participant Spyros shaved without thinking. Early mornings, sometimes, you function on autopilot.

I genuinely suggest you take a look at our interview with Rut (CEO) and Ingvar (Founder) of SimplyBook.me; they have some excellent advice and entrepreneurial insight into creating a successful business. I will repeat the stress awareness article because we all know that this time of year can be stressful (especially if you are hosting for the holidays).

The end of November brought Computer Security Day. While Irina covered payment fraud prevention, we thought it was a good time to talk about the importance of our security team and the incredible job they do. Let’s be honest, gratitude is a year-round practice that is great for mental health, and we are so grateful for Georgia and Maryna.

Christmas is Here at the SimplyBook.me Head Office in Cyprus

So, the first weekend (Friday) in December was Tree Decorating time. Yes, the SimplyBook.Tree (sorry, I couldn’t resist) is up and twinkling after the whole office joined in the decoration.

Isn’t it pretty? And it’s all ready for the Secret Santa Gift Swap.